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$300 is a pretty big deal for pricing on a VR headset, that feels very different from $400 for wide adoption. Seems like this is also the end of the road for R

$300 is a pretty big deal for pricing on a VR headset, that feels very different from $400 for wide adoption. Seems like this is also the end of the road for Rift, the Quest 2 is lower cost, more pixels, and they mentioned 90 hz screens for PCVR games over Link. EDIT - review units went out in advance, so 3rd party reviews are already up. Here's one from Tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6lux6f_6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6lux6f_6g

dylan604 6y ago
Facebook will makeup that subsidized $100 on selling the data the glean from the user while using the Quest 2.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  Really though? Facebook makes money by displaying targeted ads to users. What data from the Quest is being used to target ads? I’m not familiar with anything related to this in Facebook’s product for ad buyers, and can’t think of anything particularly useful that they could be doing. You could think of Oculus as an effort to increase the amount of user attention inventory Facebook has in supply to rent out to advertisers. Also, they are positioning themselves as an intermediary for transactions in the future VR economy by being platform owner (a la Apple owning the App Store). My guess is the long-term plan is to make money here by displaying ads in VR and by getting a cut of goods and services sold though VR (see: Ready Player One).
  - ianlevesque 6y ago
    What is it with HN and trying to read between the lines so hard? There's literally an Oculus Store app store for quest games. Probably they are just making money on game sales, like every other game console has for 35 years.
    - wlesieutre 6y ago
      I do worry that Facebook will figure they might as well double dip on sales and advertising; future headsets are probably going to have eye tracking (ostensibly for foveated rendering and better avatars), and combining in-world advertising with exact data on how long people looked at them is a pretty compelling sell for what is fundamentally an advertising company. They spent like 15 minutes of the presentation talking about how ethical they're going to be (re: AR glasses) and how trust has to be earned, but their ethics track record isn't exactly stellar.
      - lowdose 6y ago
        It's Facebook version of doublespeak.
    - xnx 6y ago
      I agree that being a game platform would be enough to be profitable, though their biggest dream must be to be the ultimate gatekeeper/taxman to what goes into your eyes. Aside from injecting thoughts right into your brain, what is more important than a screen that blocks out everything else you see? (phone, laptop, and TV are worth zero when you're wearing goggles).
      - petre 6y ago
        And the next thing you know firemen are running around burning books, like in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      I’m skeptical the Facebook would bother to invest so many billions into VR just for the chance of being part of the competitive game console market. It makes sense to think about how it fits into the long-term strategy for their main cash cow, ads. If there’s a future where internet/app usage hours shift toward VR, Facebook doesn’t want to be left in the dust like Myspace when users switch to a new social network. Even if they can keep users on a Facebook-owned VR app, they don’t want to wind up paying a 30% tax to some platform owner.
  - dx87 6y ago
    You could advertise similar games based on what they're already playing.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      You're thinking too small. By owning a Quest 2, you're signalling that you (or your parents) have disposable income they are willing to spend on electronic devices. Yes, it clearly shows you're a gamer. So if you're a gamer, you probably drink Mountain Dew and eat Doritos. Based on your FB profile, you probably like certain types of shoes. 75% of other people with matching criteria purchased something, so let's shove that in your face as well to see if we can't get it up to 80%. Oh, you play games between the hours of xxx, so you must be a teenager. Let's target ads to get your parents money.
      - shajznnckfke 6y ago
        That info seems like table stakes for Facebook. It doesn’t take the many billions invested in Oculus to find any of that out.
        dylan604 6y ago
        Sure if that was the only data point. however, this is just one more thing they will use to refine the data they are sucking in about you every second. At this point, why would they not do it? It's in their DNA.
      - phonon 6y ago
        https://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4640768/Xbox+one+greentext/ https://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4640768/Xbox+one+greent...
  - Tossrock 6y ago
    They may not be exposing the data they're collecting to ad buyers today, but it's a safe bet they're collecting it. You can extract a lot of signal on ad effectiveness based on what people look at via head pose, and once eye tracking is in - nominally for foveated rendering, of course - it will be even stronger.
  - rado 6y ago
    What data? All the data!
  - croes 6y ago
    What data? Movement range, size, speed,reaction time. With touch controllers you can even track the stress resistance, because people tend to tighten their grip if stressed. And there a lots of companies like Cambridge Analytica that can use that data to push their agenda even better. Easier game for people like the Koch brothers.
  - pritovido 6y ago
    Data from a VR is extremely useful. First it measures your fitness level. Those devices have high quality acceleration and gyroscope sensors. They could know your visual and acoustic acuity. They measure what games you play, for how long, at what time. With these data and processing done by AI created by engineers they can extract and know more about yourself than you do. We know from Snowden that places like the NSA collect and save data expecting technological changes in 5-10 years in the future for processing that data. The technology for processing does not need to be ready yet. This is extremely useful for Advertisers and secret services. This is not what you say you are, this is what you are.
    - underwater 6y ago
      That's a bit of a stretch. Facebook uses data to improve ad targetting on their own platforms. They're not selling your HR or fitness data to your insurance company or anything crazy like that. Facebook generated $29 per user in the US last year. A small bit of extra info about people's gaming habits is not going to improve ad targetting enough to make up for a $100 gap in price.
      - GekkePrutser 6y ago
        They're not selling that data yet. But it's clear from the reviews the $100 was mainly achieved by cost-cutting. They may still lose some money on it but that's just an investment in becoming market leader in VR.
    - KaiserPro 6y ago
      Currently VR data is not very good for anything really yet, because we have no scalable way to understand it. "raw" VR data is about 10 megabytes a second of black and white infrared video. plus audio and position data of either controllers or hands. After its been processed it can give you a sparse pointcloud of your living room (which is not overly bad) but thats not something thats done by facebook, yet. With a bit more work you could get a dense pointcloud. Unlike AR which will need a bunch more processing on device to get position and geo data, VR is mostly just slam
  - macawfish 6y ago
    Biometric data can and will be used to analyze and predict people's behavior in unprecedented ways.
- frakkingcylons 6y ago
  They'll make up the difference on the Oculus Store commission, just like Sony and Microsoft.
- jimrandomh 6y ago
  They make it up by taking a 30% cut on any games you purchase through their store (which is the only place you can buy games for it), similar to consoles. This is much more money than user data is worth. (Not that they won't use/sell that data, too, but let's not confuse ourselves about how much it's worth.)
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    yeah, the Oculus store is more expensive than the Steam store for the same titles.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    EXCEPT for the privacy bull (pretty angry about that), that's actually not a terrible deal for consumers.
  - gibolt 6y ago
    Facebook doesn't sell user data. Advertisers have access to targeting that occurs in a black box to them
    - dylan604 6y ago
      If you want to get down to a nit picky level like that then, sure. And to be fair, maybe it should be explicitly stated. However, Facebook sells access to the data it collects. It may not be access to the raw data that a phrase like 'selling the data' makes it sound. However, it is making money from the knowledge it has about people (can't even say its users anymore). Either way, the ad buyer (end user) gets access to that data even if it is a black box API style system.
      - polyomino 6y ago
        No, advertisers do not "get access" to that data. They get the ability to target ads against people who match some characteristics. Facebook's business is literally built on advertisers inability to access that data. If they had access, advertisers would advertise elsewhere and Facebook wouldn't get a cut.
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  What data would be so useful that they could improve ad targeting $100 per user?
- nickflood 6y ago
  Quest 2 uses LCD screens instead of OLED, which probably accounts for some of the price drop.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  as we know the oculus platform is a wash with adverts. all the games we've bought produce accurate and targeted profile that allow facebook to recommend new games with a high degree of accuracy.
superkuh 6y ago
The Rift is a VR head mounted display for a beefy PC. The Quest is an entire computer system powered by battery and tiny in surface area. They're different products for different markets. Anything in a mobile form factor as your VR computer will necessarily be limited for either shorter time periods or significantly less graphical fidelity.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
  Note that the Quest is basically a rift with link
- ggreer 6y ago
  Oculus Link[1] lets you render everything on the PC. The cable also provides power so you don't have to worry about battery life. The only disadvantage is the extra weight of the battery in the headset. https://www.oculus.com/blog/play-rift-content-on-quest-with-oculus-link-available-now-in-beta/ https://www.oculus.com/blog/play-rift-content-on-quest-with-...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Digit-Al 6y ago
  From the article: >We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward. We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we've seen significant growth in PC VR via Oculus Link, and the Rift Platform will continue to grow while offering high-end PC VR experiences. So, yeah. End of the road for the Rift. Oculus Link makes it redundant.
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  Rift S is being discontinued, if you want a dedicated PC headset now you'll want to look at an Index or an HP Reverb G2. But you can plug the Quest into a PC and use it as a PCVR headset. Oculus sells a 16 ft fiber optic cable for $80, but it works well over any good quality USB 3 cable (and even works over USB 2 now). The downside of this is that it's more front heavy than a PC headset without all the standalone guts, and I'm sure there's non-zero latency for running the video stream over a USB connection rather than a standard video cable. It works pretty well though, I think the trade-offs are absolutely worth the benefits of having a standalone headset.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
$300 is what I paid for my Windows Mixed Reality headset, which is also inside out tracking. Works phenomenally well with Half Life Alyx. But I do agree that it seems like a killer value - I'll probably preorder one!
- chaostheory 6y ago
  yeah but WMR requires a PC. Quest is an all in one device that you just turn on and put on your head.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    that's why Oculus is killing off Rift S. Because Quest can do the exact same thing, but also function as a completely standalone device, all for $299/$399. It is indeed a killer value proposition.
    - akhilcacharya 6y ago
      I do disagree there - the additional latency and compression artifacts are noticeable from some of the reviews of the Quest 1. I think the experience is still going to be better for graphically intensive games with a tethered headset.
    - VRay 6y ago
      > Quest can do the exact same thing [as a Rift S] There's multi-frame latency and compression artifacts involved in this. It's really disingenuous to say that a Quest 2 is unambiguously better than an actual PC VR headset
      - bserge 6y ago
        Oculus Link uses USB-C
        NavinF 6y ago
        What does that have to do with anything?
mlindner 6y ago
I'm not sure why people think $400 is so expensive. You're buying two 1080p (or higher) miniaturized monitors, motion tracking, some fancy glass optics and a set of headphones. Honestly the experience is incredibly lousy if you don't spend quite a lot of money and that should be expected indefinitely.
- bostonpete 6y ago
  Like many people, I just wouldn't spend the money at $400. At $300 I'm more likely to.
Tepix 6y ago
Even the $400 price point of the previous generation standalone headset was probably already subsidized. They just turned up the "evil corporation kills all competition" dial.

dylan604 6y ago

Facebook will makeup that subsidized $100 on selling the data the glean from the user while using the Quest 2.

shajznnckfke 6y ago
Really though? Facebook makes money by displaying targeted ads to users. What data from the Quest is being used to target ads? I’m not familiar with anything related to this in Facebook’s product for ad buyers, and can’t think of anything particularly useful that they could be doing. You could think of Oculus as an effort to increase the amount of user attention inventory Facebook has in supply to rent out to advertisers. Also, they are positioning themselves as an intermediary for transactions in the future VR economy by being platform owner (a la Apple owning the App Store). My guess is the long-term plan is to make money here by displaying ads in VR and by getting a cut of goods and services sold though VR (see: Ready Player One).
- ianlevesque 6y ago
  What is it with HN and trying to read between the lines so hard? There's literally an Oculus Store app store for quest games. Probably they are just making money on game sales, like every other game console has for 35 years.
  - wlesieutre 6y ago
    I do worry that Facebook will figure they might as well double dip on sales and advertising; future headsets are probably going to have eye tracking (ostensibly for foveated rendering and better avatars), and combining in-world advertising with exact data on how long people looked at them is a pretty compelling sell for what is fundamentally an advertising company. They spent like 15 minutes of the presentation talking about how ethical they're going to be (re: AR glasses) and how trust has to be earned, but their ethics track record isn't exactly stellar.
    - lowdose 6y ago
      It's Facebook version of doublespeak.
  - xnx 6y ago
    I agree that being a game platform would be enough to be profitable, though their biggest dream must be to be the ultimate gatekeeper/taxman to what goes into your eyes. Aside from injecting thoughts right into your brain, what is more important than a screen that blocks out everything else you see? (phone, laptop, and TV are worth zero when you're wearing goggles).
    - petre 6y ago
      And the next thing you know firemen are running around burning books, like in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    I’m skeptical the Facebook would bother to invest so many billions into VR just for the chance of being part of the competitive game console market. It makes sense to think about how it fits into the long-term strategy for their main cash cow, ads. If there’s a future where internet/app usage hours shift toward VR, Facebook doesn’t want to be left in the dust like Myspace when users switch to a new social network. Even if they can keep users on a Facebook-owned VR app, they don’t want to wind up paying a 30% tax to some platform owner.
- dx87 6y ago
  You could advertise similar games based on what they're already playing.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    You're thinking too small. By owning a Quest 2, you're signalling that you (or your parents) have disposable income they are willing to spend on electronic devices. Yes, it clearly shows you're a gamer. So if you're a gamer, you probably drink Mountain Dew and eat Doritos. Based on your FB profile, you probably like certain types of shoes. 75% of other people with matching criteria purchased something, so let's shove that in your face as well to see if we can't get it up to 80%. Oh, you play games between the hours of xxx, so you must be a teenager. Let's target ads to get your parents money.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      That info seems like table stakes for Facebook. It doesn’t take the many billions invested in Oculus to find any of that out.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        Sure if that was the only data point. however, this is just one more thing they will use to refine the data they are sucking in about you every second. At this point, why would they not do it? It's in their DNA.
    - phonon 6y ago
      https://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4640768/Xbox+one+greentext/ https://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4640768/Xbox+one+greent...
- Tossrock 6y ago
  They may not be exposing the data they're collecting to ad buyers today, but it's a safe bet they're collecting it. You can extract a lot of signal on ad effectiveness based on what people look at via head pose, and once eye tracking is in - nominally for foveated rendering, of course - it will be even stronger.
- rado 6y ago
  What data? All the data!
- croes 6y ago
  What data? Movement range, size, speed,reaction time. With touch controllers you can even track the stress resistance, because people tend to tighten their grip if stressed. And there a lots of companies like Cambridge Analytica that can use that data to push their agenda even better. Easier game for people like the Koch brothers.
- pritovido 6y ago
  Data from a VR is extremely useful. First it measures your fitness level. Those devices have high quality acceleration and gyroscope sensors. They could know your visual and acoustic acuity. They measure what games you play, for how long, at what time. With these data and processing done by AI created by engineers they can extract and know more about yourself than you do. We know from Snowden that places like the NSA collect and save data expecting technological changes in 5-10 years in the future for processing that data. The technology for processing does not need to be ready yet. This is extremely useful for Advertisers and secret services. This is not what you say you are, this is what you are.
  - underwater 6y ago
    That's a bit of a stretch. Facebook uses data to improve ad targetting on their own platforms. They're not selling your HR or fitness data to your insurance company or anything crazy like that. Facebook generated $29 per user in the US last year. A small bit of extra info about people's gaming habits is not going to improve ad targetting enough to make up for a $100 gap in price.
    - GekkePrutser 6y ago
      They're not selling that data yet. But it's clear from the reviews the $100 was mainly achieved by cost-cutting. They may still lose some money on it but that's just an investment in becoming market leader in VR.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    Currently VR data is not very good for anything really yet, because we have no scalable way to understand it. "raw" VR data is about 10 megabytes a second of black and white infrared video. plus audio and position data of either controllers or hands. After its been processed it can give you a sparse pointcloud of your living room (which is not overly bad) but thats not something thats done by facebook, yet. With a bit more work you could get a dense pointcloud. Unlike AR which will need a bunch more processing on device to get position and geo data, VR is mostly just slam
- macawfish 6y ago
  Biometric data can and will be used to analyze and predict people's behavior in unprecedented ways.
frakkingcylons 6y ago
They'll make up the difference on the Oculus Store commission, just like Sony and Microsoft.
jimrandomh 6y ago
They make it up by taking a 30% cut on any games you purchase through their store (which is the only place you can buy games for it), similar to consoles. This is much more money than user data is worth. (Not that they won't use/sell that data, too, but let's not confuse ourselves about how much it's worth.)
- chaostheory 6y ago
  yeah, the Oculus store is more expensive than the Steam store for the same titles.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  EXCEPT for the privacy bull (pretty angry about that), that's actually not a terrible deal for consumers.
- gibolt 6y ago
  Facebook doesn't sell user data. Advertisers have access to targeting that occurs in a black box to them
  - dylan604 6y ago
    If you want to get down to a nit picky level like that then, sure. And to be fair, maybe it should be explicitly stated. However, Facebook sells access to the data it collects. It may not be access to the raw data that a phrase like 'selling the data' makes it sound. However, it is making money from the knowledge it has about people (can't even say its users anymore). Either way, the ad buyer (end user) gets access to that data even if it is a black box API style system.
    - polyomino 6y ago
      No, advertisers do not "get access" to that data. They get the ability to target ads against people who match some characteristics. Facebook's business is literally built on advertisers inability to access that data. If they had access, advertisers would advertise elsewhere and Facebook wouldn't get a cut.
jtsiskin 6y ago
What data would be so useful that they could improve ad targeting $100 per user?
nickflood 6y ago
Quest 2 uses LCD screens instead of OLED, which probably accounts for some of the price drop.
KaiserPro 6y ago
as we know the oculus platform is a wash with adverts. all the games we've bought produce accurate and targeted profile that allow facebook to recommend new games with a high degree of accuracy.

superkuh 6y ago

The Rift is a VR head mounted display for a beefy PC. The Quest is an entire computer system powered by battery and tiny in surface area. They're different products for different markets. Anything in a mobile form factor as your VR computer will necessarily be limited for either shorter time periods or significantly less graphical fidelity.

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
Note that the Quest is basically a rift with link
ggreer 6y ago
Oculus Link[1] lets you render everything on the PC. The cable also provides power so you don't have to worry about battery life. The only disadvantage is the extra weight of the battery in the headset. https://www.oculus.com/blog/play-rift-content-on-quest-with-oculus-link-available-now-in-beta/ https://www.oculus.com/blog/play-rift-content-on-quest-with-...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Digit-Al 6y ago
From the article: >We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward. We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we've seen significant growth in PC VR via Oculus Link, and the Rift Platform will continue to grow while offering high-end PC VR experiences. So, yeah. End of the road for the Rift. Oculus Link makes it redundant.
wlesieutre 6y ago
Rift S is being discontinued, if you want a dedicated PC headset now you'll want to look at an Index or an HP Reverb G2. But you can plug the Quest into a PC and use it as a PCVR headset. Oculus sells a 16 ft fiber optic cable for $80, but it works well over any good quality USB 3 cable (and even works over USB 2 now). The downside of this is that it's more front heavy than a PC headset without all the standalone guts, and I'm sure there's non-zero latency for running the video stream over a USB connection rather than a standard video cable. It works pretty well though, I think the trade-offs are absolutely worth the benefits of having a standalone headset.

akhilcacharya 6y ago

$300 is what I paid for my Windows Mixed Reality headset, which is also inside out tracking. Works phenomenally well with Half Life Alyx. But I do agree that it seems like a killer value - I'll probably preorder one!

chaostheory 6y ago
yeah but WMR requires a PC. Quest is an all in one device that you just turn on and put on your head.
- filoleg 6y ago
  that's why Oculus is killing off Rift S. Because Quest can do the exact same thing, but also function as a completely standalone device, all for $299/$399. It is indeed a killer value proposition.
  - akhilcacharya 6y ago
    I do disagree there - the additional latency and compression artifacts are noticeable from some of the reviews of the Quest 1. I think the experience is still going to be better for graphically intensive games with a tethered headset.
  - VRay 6y ago
    > Quest can do the exact same thing [as a Rift S] There's multi-frame latency and compression artifacts involved in this. It's really disingenuous to say that a Quest 2 is unambiguously better than an actual PC VR headset
    - bserge 6y ago
      Oculus Link uses USB-C
      - NavinF 6y ago
        What does that have to do with anything?

mlindner 6y ago

I'm not sure why people think $400 is so expensive. You're buying two 1080p (or higher) miniaturized monitors, motion tracking, some fancy glass optics and a set of headphones. Honestly the experience is incredibly lousy if you don't spend quite a lot of money and that should be expected indefinitely.

bostonpete 6y ago
Like many people, I just wouldn't spend the money at $400. At $300 I'm more likely to.

Tepix 6y ago

Even the $400 price point of the previous generation standalone headset was probably already subsidized. They just turned up the "evil corporation kills all competition" dial.