3 ms·
At this point, I don't think any of this matters for the viability of Oculus (regardless of these being small devs anyway, it's not like their games make or bre
by PostOnce 10y ago
At this point, I don't think any of this matters for the viability of Oculus (regardless of these being small devs anyway, it's not like their games make or break the platform, even in aggregate). It's dead, and here's why:
Facebook wants "regular people" to "hang out with each other" in VR. Facebook wants to own the movie theater, the mall, the billboards, the radio, and everything else, all at once, without having to buy real estate, so they can own 100% of global advertising, on the VR globe anyway. But regular people can't afford Facebook VR. Regular people make <$20,000/year (40% of American workers earn under 20k, and 45mil are on food stamps).
A hard plastic VR phone case with decent lenses is $10 and it's pretty damn convincing for that price.
The next cheapest VR is PS4, which is ~$700 all up, console and headset. Sony has a known name in the gaming space, a reputation for quality, and is the #1 console maker. People will buy this.
And then you have the PC VR, whether oculus or vive, $600-800 for the headset alone, and then over $1000 for a PC (because most people don't have a PC they can just plug a headset into, nor a PSU allowing them to just upgrade their GPU, etc, it requires a new unit for most.) -- and no killer apps.
So where are the devs going to go? Playstation has advanced graphics AND is difficult or impossible to pirate. Mobile has obscene penetration and people who don't play games and don't want to invest in gaming hardware have the ability to engage here.
I don't see Oculus having a good end regardless of decisions it can make.