4 ms·

After days without a single demo, Facebook closes hundreds of Oculus VR pop-ups

11 points by saycheese 10y ago

f_allwein 10y ago
This is weird - I would have expected people to be excited to get an Oculus demo. Any guesses why not?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rpedela 10y ago
  The Wii wasn't successful because it had cool motion detection tech. It was successful because Wii Sports was such a fun game which used the tech. Oculus needs a killer game/app that makes the average person want to buy it.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  >The scaling back of Facebook's first big retail push for VR comes after workers from multiple Best Buy pop-ups told BI that it was common for them to go days without giving a single demonstration. Have you been to most Best Buys? It's incredibly hard to get service sometimes. I imagine that trying to find the 1 employee on shift that they've bothered to teach about the Rift in order to get a demo is ridiculous, and people just gave up. This is assuming that the manager hasn't deliberately made it hard to give demos so that his workers won't be tied up with something that probably won't make a sale anyhow. It's also already been out for a while, and people who pay attention to these things probably see a lot of Vive vs Rift posts saying that the Vive tracks a lot better and offers true room scale. It doesn't surprise me that they don't give many demos now.
- sevensor 10y ago
  Same reason VR flopped in the late '90s. It's a cool gimmick, but people don't generally want to own it. Just like the last wave of VR, it will live on in niche applications. Spending time in VR means putting actual reality completely on hold. That makes people uncomfortable; we're much happier being distracted than being blinkered.
  - kordless 10y ago
    I concur with your assertions. AR is much more likely to be adopted.
tedchs 10y ago
I went to one of these in an airport. They gave a first-rate demo. Seems like a good product, but they asked me what I thought and I told them, honestly, it's a lot like Google Cardboard.

11 points by saycheese 10y ago

f_allwein 10y ago

This is weird - I would have expected people to be excited to get an Oculus demo. Any guesses why not?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rpedela 10y ago
The Wii wasn't successful because it had cool motion detection tech. It was successful because Wii Sports was such a fun game which used the tech. Oculus needs a killer game/app that makes the average person want to buy it.
wccrawford 10y ago
>The scaling back of Facebook's first big retail push for VR comes after workers from multiple Best Buy pop-ups told BI that it was common for them to go days without giving a single demonstration. Have you been to most Best Buys? It's incredibly hard to get service sometimes. I imagine that trying to find the 1 employee on shift that they've bothered to teach about the Rift in order to get a demo is ridiculous, and people just gave up. This is assuming that the manager hasn't deliberately made it hard to give demos so that his workers won't be tied up with something that probably won't make a sale anyhow. It's also already been out for a while, and people who pay attention to these things probably see a lot of Vive vs Rift posts saying that the Vive tracks a lot better and offers true room scale. It doesn't surprise me that they don't give many demos now.
sevensor 10y ago
Same reason VR flopped in the late '90s. It's a cool gimmick, but people don't generally want to own it. Just like the last wave of VR, it will live on in niche applications. Spending time in VR means putting actual reality completely on hold. That makes people uncomfortable; we're much happier being distracted than being blinkered.
- kordless 10y ago
  I concur with your assertions. AR is much more likely to be adopted.

tedchs 10y ago

I went to one of these in an airport. They gave a first-rate demo. Seems like a good product, but they asked me what I thought and I told them, honestly, it's a lot like Google Cardboard.