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But it's clearly not a mass market thing either— mass market is mobile games raking in millions, Switches selling out during quarantine, the upcoming PS5 launch

But it's clearly not a mass market thing either— mass market is mobile games raking in millions, Switches selling out during quarantine, the upcoming PS5 launch, and Epic having splashy platform wars with Apple and Valve. Those are billion dollar gaming events which all have nothing to do with VR. There's no non-nerd out there who thinks "maybe I'll try VR", and goes into a store to buy... whatever it is, goes home to have a great time with it, and immediately tells their friends. No, it's Linus Tech Tips upgrading his water-cooled living room PC with a special USB3 card just to get enough bandwidth to all the peripherals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFuLvGf0g0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFuLvGf0g0c

blackearl 6y ago
I completely disagree. Quest and a game like Beat Saber are about as broad as you can get. Right out of the box you're swinging your arms around to popular EDM music. The price point is low enough to make it a solid holiday buy for a good amount of people as well. VR is also one of those things that you can show anyone and really wow them. It's not like handing a controller to a non-gamer and having them discouraged because they don't know how to use 2 joysticks.
- leereeves 6y ago
  Many games like Beat Saber, in which you move with the beat, have been popular fads, but home hardware for those games (like Dance Dance Revolution dance pads or Guitar Hero guitar controllers) has never been more than a niche product. VR needs more than that.
MikusR 6y ago
Quest also sold out during quarantine.
pavlov 6y ago
> "..."maybe I'll try VR", and goes into a store to buy... whatever it is, goes home to have a great time with it, and immediately tells their friends." This is definitely a thing that happens with the Oculus Quest already. The hardware is easy to use and the software library is pretty much in place now. A major marketing campaign could make it really take off. I don't have any insight into FB VR's decision to require the login on Oculus devices now, but my guess is that they consider the device to be ready for a mass market, and believe that the gains from the social graph will be worth the short-term pain of leaving early-adopter money on the table from here on.
- dougmwne 6y ago
  Yes, really agree with this perspective. Last year Carmack's talk was equally interesting and he stated that they had all the usage data on several different visions of what VR could be (Rift, GearVR, Go, Quest) and that the data showed the Quest had the most engaged users and the product finally showed signs of being sticky. At the time it convinced me not to buy because their v2 was clearly going to get a big investment now that they had plausible product market fit. I think the Quest showed FB that they had a potential winner on their hands and the Quest 2 is moving out of MVP phase to mass market phase. They are gambling that this is going to take off in a big way and they pushed hard to get an improved version out there and ramp up their manufacturing faster than most thought they would. They clearly want to be first to the "Oasis" with Horizon if that's ever going to be a thing and the FB login is a piece of that. If this is a flop, it will be a huge disappointment to the execs. If it's a win then FB may have been first to plant their flag in our VR future, for better or for worse.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I keep seeing the word "Oasis" being mentioned on the recent Oculus threads. What does it refer to? Some company? Some meme I'm missing?
    - pavlov 6y ago
      It's a reference to a VR environment in the sci-fi novel "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Thanks! Haven't read the book yet, and forgot the name from the movie.
xnx 6y ago
Agree. Compare the popularity of Beat Saber to what Wii Sports was and you have a measure for how far out of the mainstream VR still is.
agar 6y ago
Others have said this, but I'll reiterate: your description of mass market is precisely what's happening with Quest. Your view of VR seems rooted in pre-Quest (i.e., exclusively PC-tethered) VR and not the stand-alone world. In fact, so many people literally went to Best Buy or Walmart to purchase a Quest that it has been sold out since the beginning of the year, online and off, with eBay pricing at 50%+ premiums. You literally open the box, run an app on your phone (for configuration), put the HMD on your face and you're in VR. People not only tell their friends, but buy multiple versions to give to friends and family. With Quest 2 at a $299 price point, the non-nerds saying "maybe I'll try VR" will happen even more often. The OculusQuest subreddit has a constant stream of questions about this very behavior. It is currently the ~2,000th most popular subreddit, with an impressive growth curve[1]. Some are literally buying the Quest 2 instead of the PS5 (though clearly a small number). So far, 35 games have made over $1m on Quest alone, with one clearing that figure in 4 days and another in 8 days. Top games have made over $10m, not even including revenue from Steam, PSVR, or the Oculus PC VR platform. These aren't Epic / Apple level mega-wins, but many mobile developers would be happy with $5-10m revenue figures. Upcoming VR games are coming from top tier publishers like Respawn (Medal of Honor), Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell), and Rockstar (unnamed AAA open world game)[2], Crytek (The Climb 2), and EA (Star Wars: Squadrons). Additional games include Sniper Elite, Warhammer 40,000, Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge, Jurassic World Aftermath, and Myst. And this is just the tip of the iceberg from brands/publishers you may know. Point being, stand-alone VR has really addressed many of your (and the market's) concerns. And, to be fair, in your linked video Linus was trying to use optional, expensive peripherals for full-body tracking while streaming - not exactly a mass-market use case. [1] https://subredditstats.com/r/oculusquest https://subredditstats.com/r/oculusquest [2] https://uploadvr.com/rockstars-new-vr-game-guesses/ https://uploadvr.com/rockstars-new-vr-game-guesses/
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  The problem is, those numbers are nowhere near close to the price of making triple-A games. I heard Assassins Creed Origins cost 80 mio and Odyssey was 100 mio. With that in mind, "Top games have made over $10m" sounds like we won't be seeing high quality VR games anytime soon.
Fej 6y ago
The PSVR has sold 5 million units or so to date, and there's going to be a second generation. There are a lot of games which support it due to this install base. That's pretty mass market. (It's popular enough that Sony actually has made a second iteration of the headset, but it's not an upgrade.) It's not as accessible as the Oculus Quest, but the PS4 has sold roughly 106 million units to date, and gamers are probably the biggest market at present for VR devices.

blackearl 6y ago

I completely disagree. Quest and a game like Beat Saber are about as broad as you can get. Right out of the box you're swinging your arms around to popular EDM music. The price point is low enough to make it a solid holiday buy for a good amount of people as well. VR is also one of those things that you can show anyone and really wow them. It's not like handing a controller to a non-gamer and having them discouraged because they don't know how to use 2 joysticks.

leereeves 6y ago
Many games like Beat Saber, in which you move with the beat, have been popular fads, but home hardware for those games (like Dance Dance Revolution dance pads or Guitar Hero guitar controllers) has never been more than a niche product. VR needs more than that.

MikusR 6y ago

Quest also sold out during quarantine.

pavlov 6y ago

> "..."maybe I'll try VR", and goes into a store to buy... whatever it is, goes home to have a great time with it, and immediately tells their friends." This is definitely a thing that happens with the Oculus Quest already. The hardware is easy to use and the software library is pretty much in place now. A major marketing campaign could make it really take off. I don't have any insight into FB VR's decision to require the login on Oculus devices now, but my guess is that they consider the device to be ready for a mass market, and believe that the gains from the social graph will be worth the short-term pain of leaving early-adopter money on the table from here on.

dougmwne 6y ago
Yes, really agree with this perspective. Last year Carmack's talk was equally interesting and he stated that they had all the usage data on several different visions of what VR could be (Rift, GearVR, Go, Quest) and that the data showed the Quest had the most engaged users and the product finally showed signs of being sticky. At the time it convinced me not to buy because their v2 was clearly going to get a big investment now that they had plausible product market fit. I think the Quest showed FB that they had a potential winner on their hands and the Quest 2 is moving out of MVP phase to mass market phase. They are gambling that this is going to take off in a big way and they pushed hard to get an improved version out there and ramp up their manufacturing faster than most thought they would. They clearly want to be first to the "Oasis" with Horizon if that's ever going to be a thing and the FB login is a piece of that. If this is a flop, it will be a huge disappointment to the execs. If it's a win then FB may have been first to plant their flag in our VR future, for better or for worse.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  I keep seeing the word "Oasis" being mentioned on the recent Oculus threads. What does it refer to? Some company? Some meme I'm missing?
  - pavlov 6y ago
    It's a reference to a VR environment in the sci-fi novel "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Thanks! Haven't read the book yet, and forgot the name from the movie.

xnx 6y ago

Agree. Compare the popularity of Beat Saber to what Wii Sports was and you have a measure for how far out of the mainstream VR still is.

agar 6y ago

Others have said this, but I'll reiterate: your description of mass market is precisely what's happening with Quest. Your view of VR seems rooted in pre-Quest (i.e., exclusively PC-tethered) VR and not the stand-alone world. In fact, so many people literally went to Best Buy or Walmart to purchase a Quest that it has been sold out since the beginning of the year, online and off, with eBay pricing at 50%+ premiums. You literally open the box, run an app on your phone (for configuration), put the HMD on your face and you're in VR. People not only tell their friends, but buy multiple versions to give to friends and family. With Quest 2 at a $299 price point, the non-nerds saying "maybe I'll try VR" will happen even more often. The OculusQuest subreddit has a constant stream of questions about this very behavior. It is currently the ~2,000th most popular subreddit, with an impressive growth curve[1]. Some are literally buying the Quest 2 instead of the PS5 (though clearly a small number). So far, 35 games have made over $1m on Quest alone, with one clearing that figure in 4 days and another in 8 days. Top games have made over $10m, not even including revenue from Steam, PSVR, or the Oculus PC VR platform. These aren't Epic / Apple level mega-wins, but many mobile developers would be happy with $5-10m revenue figures. Upcoming VR games are coming from top tier publishers like Respawn (Medal of Honor), Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell), and Rockstar (unnamed AAA open world game)[2], Crytek (The Climb 2), and EA (Star Wars: Squadrons). Additional games include Sniper Elite, Warhammer 40,000, Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge, Jurassic World Aftermath, and Myst. And this is just the tip of the iceberg from brands/publishers you may know. Point being, stand-alone VR has really addressed many of your (and the market's) concerns. And, to be fair, in your linked video Linus was trying to use optional, expensive peripherals for full-body tracking while streaming - not exactly a mass-market use case. [1] https://subredditstats.com/r/oculusquest https://subredditstats.com/r/oculusquest [2] https://uploadvr.com/rockstars-new-vr-game-guesses/ https://uploadvr.com/rockstars-new-vr-game-guesses/

fxtentacle 6y ago
The problem is, those numbers are nowhere near close to the price of making triple-A games. I heard Assassins Creed Origins cost 80 mio and Odyssey was 100 mio. With that in mind, "Top games have made over $10m" sounds like we won't be seeing high quality VR games anytime soon.

Fej 6y ago

The PSVR has sold 5 million units or so to date, and there's going to be a second generation. There are a lot of games which support it due to this install base. That's pretty mass market. (It's popular enough that Sony actually has made a second iteration of the headset, but it's not an upgrade.) It's not as accessible as the Oculus Quest, but the PS4 has sold roughly 106 million units to date, and gamers are probably the biggest market at present for VR devices.