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> Controlling the VR metaverse... I just don't see it. Too much innovation. Too much invention. Remember FB can always purchase themselves into the market - pi

> Controlling the VR metaverse... I just don't see it. Too much innovation. Too much invention. Remember FB can always purchase themselves into the market - pick up a few startups and bodge together a consistent product. I think the problem is that VR tech and apps will take too long to arrive to gain any traction with the wider public, before FB needs it. FB needs hundreds of millions/billions of users, VR hasn't punched out of the 'early adopter'/gamer market yet and even those were balking at having to have FB accounts.

DannyBee 5y ago
Depends how fast the market moves. Any acquisition will get enough scrutiny that even if it goes through it will take a while This will both scare off potential acquisitions and slow things down a lot, enabling others time to make better plays. Even if they choose all the right targets it will still be hard.
kranke155 5y ago
Facebook bought Oculus and although their hardware is still good, they are being beat in the software and overall hardware experience by Valve. A far smaller company but they built - Valve Index and Half Life Alyx (widely considered the best game in VR). The Index isn’t perfect, but the actual story of Oculus is just them making a cruddy MVP, Valve taking the time to show their far superior prototypes, and allowing them to copy them, and then Oculus and part of the Valve team selling out to Facebook (ie Michael Abrash). Virtually all the innovation in VR was made by Valve, the only innovation Facebook has added is inside out tracking. So Oculus is really just another Instagram /WhatsApp - they purchased a solid team and product, but they’re not out innovating even smaller players in the field.
- bin_bash 5y ago
  You conveniently left out how Index is $999 + the cost of a gaming PC whereas Quest 2 is $300 with everything you need to play. It's hard for me to hear your argument when you don't address the most obvious criticism.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >You conveniently left out how Index is $999 + the cost of a gaming PC Plus the cable tethers and the need to bolt and wire up the IR lighthouses to your livingroom walls vs the Quest that you can slide into your backpack and take with you and play virtually anywhere indoors. The simplicity, polish and ease of use of the Quest and its ecosystem really killed the tethered VR future regardless of much more high-end the hardware was, just how the iPhone simplicity and UX polish killed the Nokia and Blackberry power-houses.
    - kranke155 5y ago
      The Quest is sold at a loss so that criticism is pretty unfair. Valve makes money out of the Index.
      - namelessoracle 5y ago
        Can you point to a current console platform that isnt sold at a loss? PS5 and Xbox X is sold at a loss. Switches aren't, and it's well known that they are underpowered for current gen. Steam Deck also by Valve is thought to be sold at a loss. https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/gabe-newell-says-steam-decks-aggressive-pricing-painful-but-critical-2995253 https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/gabe-newell-says-steam-... You are criticizing them for a industry standard practice. Make loss on the console, make it up with the software. With what they are doing with the Steam Deck it seems like they have learned a lesson about trying to make a profit on the hardware from their VR efforts.
      - bin_bash 5y ago
        It's unfair to compare the setup experience because Valve has healthier margins? I'm not sure I follow.
  - IggleSniggle 5y ago
    Exactly. It’s hard not to make comparisons to the Nintendo approach with Occulus. Delivery a quirky one-of-kind experience moated by platform exclusives, banking on the experiences outweighing the under-delivery of cheap hardware. But Valve has Alyx. Oculus tried to have a Mario in Lucky’s Tale, and Lucky is a super cute and appealing character, but gaming is older now. I had to look up the name of Lucky’s Tale to remember. Alyx has WAY more mindshare imho.
- shafyy 5y ago
  I disagree with your analysis. Yes, they bought great leadership with Carmack and Abrash, but what the R&D division of Facebook Reality Labs has been working on and also delivering into products (i.e. Quest 2) is amazing from a technological point of view. Sure, they have more resources and cash than Valve and can afford to sell it at cost, but still it's amazing technological innovation. I'm hopeing that Apple, Valve and hopefully totally new players can enter the VR/AR market and make better products than FB without selling out to them. My only realistic hope for a competitor to Quest 2 is Apple at the moment.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Apple? They will never be a realistic competitor to Quest 2 on price. Apple is not in the business of selling below or at cost. They'll make great hardware but the price will keep it in the "well off consumer" range. Good for Apple because that's where the profits are but it won't make VR mainstream.
    - ketzo 5y ago
      iPhones are great hardware, sold far above cost, that are very much mainstream and changed the shape of the entire product field. Apple's VR doesn't have to compete with the Quest on price if their product is that much better. Which, hey - it's Apple. They might be able to pull that off.
      - pantalaimon 5y ago
        VR is all about content, I don’t see how Apple could deliver there.
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        iPhones are mainstream and market leader in the US, yes. In every other region not so much. Here in Western Europe they are far from market leading, though still able to be considered 'mainstream'. But due to the inflation and lack of salary increases here since the 2007 crisis, most people go for midrangers now, and the iPhone SE is not attractive at all (old design, no oled screen). Just looking around on the subway I would see nothing but cheap Chinese phones now, most of the iPhones are from tourists.
- cma 5y ago
  > the only innovation Facebook has added is inside out tracking. Microsoft was first to this in the consumer space with WMR
  - kranke155 5y ago
    Sure, true but afaik it was the Quest ecosystem that really sold to consumers a very good experience. I never experienced the WMR stuff but I heard mixed reviews.
- grumbel 5y ago
  > Virtually all the innovation in VR was made by Valve, the only innovation Facebook has added is inside out tracking. That hasn't been true for a long while. Having a room-scale VR system back in 2016 certainly made Valve look quite a bit ahead of Oculus's "Rift is a sitting experience, have an Xbox controller" disaster. But these days Oculus is far ahead, they are constantly adding new features (AR, hand tracking, wireless, standalone, 2D app integration, etc), while SteamVR is still mostly the same as it was back in 2016. At the moment SteamVR is barely even usable and full of bugs (resolution and input settings regularly disappear). That's not to say that Oculus is the only one innovating, Microsoft's WMR Portal was a great attempt at bringing the Desktop into VR and they were the first ones with 6DOF tracking in a standalone headset. Some of the AR pass-through stuff, that Quest2 has just added, could be done on Daydream years ago. But Daydream is dead, WMR seems to be on life support and SteamVR isn't getting any improvements either, all while Facebook went full throttle and is pumping out new VR features every few months. The only one that might have a chance at competing with Facebook's VR effort at this point is Sony with PSVR2 and maybe Apple, but their VR doesn't seem to not be aiming at the mass market.
  - kranke155 5y ago
    The Quest has a ton of features, sure. But: . I don’t see a lot of apps using many of these features at all. . I don’t think VR will ever win the consumer space. I’ve been working on it for half a decade now, and I don’t know anyone who regularly uses their headset for entertainment. Party trick? Sure. Everyday use to watch a Vr film or play a VR game? Not really. I own a headset myself and I barely use it. VR is a productivity and industrial tool, that’s where the true user adoption is. FB is fundamentally misdirected, and the sooner people get that the sooner they’ll realise there’s nothing there at the end of the rainbow for Zuck.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - bin_bash 5y ago
      Aren't they? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/technology/facebooks-new-bet-on-virtual-reality-conference-rooms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/technology/facebooks-new-... They've got enough people working on this I don't see how they can't work on gaming and work at the same time.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  Occulus is a feature complete product that people can pick up, buy, and use. You dont have to own a desktop computer. Its the single most affordable VR option on the market right now. I saw plenty of parents buy them for their kids last Christmas. (The lack of PS5s and Xboxes probably helped that as a fallback choice) Valve's stuff isnt really superior for most users for what you get for your price point. There price point for entry is TEN TIMES what Occulus is, and I've used both headsets. Yes Valve is better. It's NOT 10x better. Maybe not even 2x better. And if you want to play Half Life Alyx, the cheapest way to do that is to buy an Occulus and hook it up to your computer. Valve has effectively put themselves in the luxury sports car lane when it comes to VR. Occulus and Sony's VR for Playstation seems to be the actual entry points for most people when it comes to VR. And Valve isnt even really positioning themselves as a competitor to Occulus sense Steam VR has Occulus support. They seem to be fine wiht letting Occulus be the entry point sku and Steam VR being what people do when they go further down the ecosystem of what is currently the VR niche hobby.
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    *Oculus You seem to know what you're talking about but it's really hard to take it seriously when you misspell the company's name.
    - namelessoracle 5y ago
      Its technically Meta Rift 2 now :)
      - bin_bash 5y ago
        ...you're deliberately trolling now aren't you
Breza 5y ago
I'm curious if you have any thoughts on why VR remains so niche. Decent VR hardware has been available for years. And yet relatively few people use it.
- grumple 5y ago
  Most people are not nerds like us and prefer to interact with people in person. They cook dinner, they make babies, they read, they play with their dog. They use computers for work. Then you have the gamer segment. VR games are generally casual / active. Not playable in most apartments due to space needed. Most gamers are into either shooters, dark souls style games, or moba-style games. And action/rpg - which is great in VR, but there are also only a couple of them. Metaverse? Live in VR? Why? You can live in real life. People have other things to worry about.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >Not playable in most apartments due to space needed. Maybe in places like Tokyo or Hong-Kong as even in my small European apartment, I could find the 2x2m space needed for VR.
  - zelphirkalt 5y ago
    Personally I have not heard about a great game or experience in VR yet. Nothing I would like to call fun gaming or exploration. Put some VR chairs like in Tom Clancy's Special Netforce youth novels by Diane Duane and that might grab my attention. In a VR I do not want to walk around, but I want to control the character and feel like I am really there. And then of course that FB has its hands in play makes the whole thing stink from the start. Who would engage in any kind of personal interaction with that? At least not I.
    - SergeAx 5y ago
      Half-Life Alyx is quite good. It can be played on a decent gaming PC plus Oculus Quest 2. I also adore Beat Saber, but mostly custom maps (Quest 2 version needs to be patched for it to work), and some social component is lost.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> I think the problem is that VR tech and apps will take too long to arrive to gain any traction with the wider public Provided that it happens at all. People tend to extrapolate too far based on something being subjectively attractive for a limited group. Think of 3D TV hype a decade ago (and we're thinking of technology that actually debuted almost 100 years ago).
belter 5y ago
That was the strategy IBM tried with the Software Group. Buy several 1 to 2 billion dollar companies every year to see what sticks. Did not work.
j1elo 5y ago
> even those were balking at having to have FB accounts It's been like what, 3 years? that I've been patiently waiting for the UE (or someone, in general) to mandate Facebook to remove mandatory account signup and tie-in, before buying an Oculus Quest (now 2). I don't care if this means I end up not buying and enjoying it at all in the end. Sadly I guess just a minority have such firm positions when it comes to "vote with your wallet", so in the end the vote ends up being nothing more than a self-imposed punishment. But thankfully VR is just a very superfluous experience for now to be missing it, so I am fine with that.
- JauntTrooper 5y ago
  Can you create a new account for the Oculus that isn't tied to anything or used for anything else?
  - cfcosta 5y ago
    I haven't tried as I started using an old fb account that i don't use anymore for nothing else, but if you still need a Facebook account to use it, you'll still have to give them heaps of data, including verifying your phone number.
    - BbzzbB 5y ago
      You don't anymore, you do need an account but doesn't have to be a Facebook one.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  This is the reason I backed the Lynx R1[0] headset instead of buying an Oculus - no way in hell I'm going to sign in to a Facebook account on a device with bazillion cameras for inside out tracking! I'm sure many of the supporters of other independent VR hardware project (such as Simula VR[1]) are of the same opinion. [0] https://www.lynx-r.com/ https://www.lynx-r.com/ [1] https://simulavr.com/ https://simulavr.com/
whiplash451 5y ago
FB does not have access to the M&A trick anymore. Those days are gone. Regulators are tired of seeing GAFAM buying their way out of their lack of innovation. They also want to see new companies succeed on their own. That's where the new GAFAM will come from in the long run. And this is a long run race.
monkeynotes 5y ago
VR is never going to gain the traction FB is betting on. Absolutely no one wants to spend their day inside a headset cut off from the outside world. It's uncomfortable, antisocial, expensive (for now), and just clunky overall. If anything is going to come of this it's going to be AR, without a doubt. People want to be able to see the world they are in, they don't want to walk into tables, have to disrobe to answer the door, tend to children and so on. AR adds value everywhere in the real world. AR can blend meetings, add meta information to day-to-day tasks. Think driving, you can now have your maps, speed, collision warnings, and so on in a virtual heads up display. Even if Meta knocks it out of the park with early AR it's going to be a long time coming and they will still have a trust issue that younger, faster AR startups won't have.
- Duralias 5y ago
  AR will definitely be bigger, it will be a game changer, who needs to buy a TV or extra monitors at that point. But I disagree that VR is anti-social, it is not exactly the same as being irl social, but the success of VRChat (a social VR platform) and Zenith (the first good VR MMO) has shown how big the social aspect is. Social VR easily showed its use during the pandemic and the lockdowns. However, social VR is also immensely useful for more introverted people, which more extroverted people might not realize. It is quite simply easier talking to people in VR than it is in real life. It is good therapy if you want to view it like that.
  - H1Supreme 5y ago
    > However, social VR is also immensely useful for more introverted people, which more extroverted people might not realize. It is quite simply easier talking to people in VR than it is in real life. I think you're confusing introversion with social anxiety.
    - Duralias 5y ago
      Yes, I did make that common mistake once again.
- 5y ago

DannyBee 5y ago

Depends how fast the market moves. Any acquisition will get enough scrutiny that even if it goes through it will take a while This will both scare off potential acquisitions and slow things down a lot, enabling others time to make better plays. Even if they choose all the right targets it will still be hard.

kranke155 5y ago

Facebook bought Oculus and although their hardware is still good, they are being beat in the software and overall hardware experience by Valve. A far smaller company but they built - Valve Index and Half Life Alyx (widely considered the best game in VR). The Index isn’t perfect, but the actual story of Oculus is just them making a cruddy MVP, Valve taking the time to show their far superior prototypes, and allowing them to copy them, and then Oculus and part of the Valve team selling out to Facebook (ie Michael Abrash). Virtually all the innovation in VR was made by Valve, the only innovation Facebook has added is inside out tracking. So Oculus is really just another Instagram /WhatsApp - they purchased a solid team and product, but they’re not out innovating even smaller players in the field.

bin_bash 5y ago
You conveniently left out how Index is $999 + the cost of a gaming PC whereas Quest 2 is $300 with everything you need to play. It's hard for me to hear your argument when you don't address the most obvious criticism.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >You conveniently left out how Index is $999 + the cost of a gaming PC Plus the cable tethers and the need to bolt and wire up the IR lighthouses to your livingroom walls vs the Quest that you can slide into your backpack and take with you and play virtually anywhere indoors. The simplicity, polish and ease of use of the Quest and its ecosystem really killed the tethered VR future regardless of much more high-end the hardware was, just how the iPhone simplicity and UX polish killed the Nokia and Blackberry power-houses.
  - kranke155 5y ago
    The Quest is sold at a loss so that criticism is pretty unfair. Valve makes money out of the Index.
    - namelessoracle 5y ago
      Can you point to a current console platform that isnt sold at a loss? PS5 and Xbox X is sold at a loss. Switches aren't, and it's well known that they are underpowered for current gen. Steam Deck also by Valve is thought to be sold at a loss. https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/gabe-newell-says-steam-decks-aggressive-pricing-painful-but-critical-2995253 https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/gabe-newell-says-steam-... You are criticizing them for a industry standard practice. Make loss on the console, make it up with the software. With what they are doing with the Steam Deck it seems like they have learned a lesson about trying to make a profit on the hardware from their VR efforts.
    - bin_bash 5y ago
      It's unfair to compare the setup experience because Valve has healthier margins? I'm not sure I follow.
- IggleSniggle 5y ago
  Exactly. It’s hard not to make comparisons to the Nintendo approach with Occulus. Delivery a quirky one-of-kind experience moated by platform exclusives, banking on the experiences outweighing the under-delivery of cheap hardware. But Valve has Alyx. Oculus tried to have a Mario in Lucky’s Tale, and Lucky is a super cute and appealing character, but gaming is older now. I had to look up the name of Lucky’s Tale to remember. Alyx has WAY more mindshare imho.
shafyy 5y ago
I disagree with your analysis. Yes, they bought great leadership with Carmack and Abrash, but what the R&D division of Facebook Reality Labs has been working on and also delivering into products (i.e. Quest 2) is amazing from a technological point of view. Sure, they have more resources and cash than Valve and can afford to sell it at cost, but still it's amazing technological innovation. I'm hopeing that Apple, Valve and hopefully totally new players can enter the VR/AR market and make better products than FB without selling out to them. My only realistic hope for a competitor to Quest 2 is Apple at the moment.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Apple? They will never be a realistic competitor to Quest 2 on price. Apple is not in the business of selling below or at cost. They'll make great hardware but the price will keep it in the "well off consumer" range. Good for Apple because that's where the profits are but it won't make VR mainstream.
  - ketzo 5y ago
    iPhones are great hardware, sold far above cost, that are very much mainstream and changed the shape of the entire product field. Apple's VR doesn't have to compete with the Quest on price if their product is that much better. Which, hey - it's Apple. They might be able to pull that off.
    - pantalaimon 5y ago
      VR is all about content, I don’t see how Apple could deliver there.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      iPhones are mainstream and market leader in the US, yes. In every other region not so much. Here in Western Europe they are far from market leading, though still able to be considered 'mainstream'. But due to the inflation and lack of salary increases here since the 2007 crisis, most people go for midrangers now, and the iPhone SE is not attractive at all (old design, no oled screen). Just looking around on the subway I would see nothing but cheap Chinese phones now, most of the iPhones are from tourists.
cma 5y ago
> the only innovation Facebook has added is inside out tracking. Microsoft was first to this in the consumer space with WMR
- kranke155 5y ago
  Sure, true but afaik it was the Quest ecosystem that really sold to consumers a very good experience. I never experienced the WMR stuff but I heard mixed reviews.
grumbel 5y ago
> Virtually all the innovation in VR was made by Valve, the only innovation Facebook has added is inside out tracking. That hasn't been true for a long while. Having a room-scale VR system back in 2016 certainly made Valve look quite a bit ahead of Oculus's "Rift is a sitting experience, have an Xbox controller" disaster. But these days Oculus is far ahead, they are constantly adding new features (AR, hand tracking, wireless, standalone, 2D app integration, etc), while SteamVR is still mostly the same as it was back in 2016. At the moment SteamVR is barely even usable and full of bugs (resolution and input settings regularly disappear). That's not to say that Oculus is the only one innovating, Microsoft's WMR Portal was a great attempt at bringing the Desktop into VR and they were the first ones with 6DOF tracking in a standalone headset. Some of the AR pass-through stuff, that Quest2 has just added, could be done on Daydream years ago. But Daydream is dead, WMR seems to be on life support and SteamVR isn't getting any improvements either, all while Facebook went full throttle and is pumping out new VR features every few months. The only one that might have a chance at competing with Facebook's VR effort at this point is Sony with PSVR2 and maybe Apple, but their VR doesn't seem to not be aiming at the mass market.
- kranke155 5y ago
  The Quest has a ton of features, sure. But: . I don’t see a lot of apps using many of these features at all. . I don’t think VR will ever win the consumer space. I’ve been working on it for half a decade now, and I don’t know anyone who regularly uses their headset for entertainment. Party trick? Sure. Everyday use to watch a Vr film or play a VR game? Not really. I own a headset myself and I barely use it. VR is a productivity and industrial tool, that’s where the true user adoption is. FB is fundamentally misdirected, and the sooner people get that the sooner they’ll realise there’s nothing there at the end of the rainbow for Zuck.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    Aren't they? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/technology/facebooks-new-bet-on-virtual-reality-conference-rooms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/technology/facebooks-new-... They've got enough people working on this I don't see how they can't work on gaming and work at the same time.
namelessoracle 5y ago
Occulus is a feature complete product that people can pick up, buy, and use. You dont have to own a desktop computer. Its the single most affordable VR option on the market right now. I saw plenty of parents buy them for their kids last Christmas. (The lack of PS5s and Xboxes probably helped that as a fallback choice) Valve's stuff isnt really superior for most users for what you get for your price point. There price point for entry is TEN TIMES what Occulus is, and I've used both headsets. Yes Valve is better. It's NOT 10x better. Maybe not even 2x better. And if you want to play Half Life Alyx, the cheapest way to do that is to buy an Occulus and hook it up to your computer. Valve has effectively put themselves in the luxury sports car lane when it comes to VR. Occulus and Sony's VR for Playstation seems to be the actual entry points for most people when it comes to VR. And Valve isnt even really positioning themselves as a competitor to Occulus sense Steam VR has Occulus support. They seem to be fine wiht letting Occulus be the entry point sku and Steam VR being what people do when they go further down the ecosystem of what is currently the VR niche hobby.
- bin_bash 5y ago
  *Oculus You seem to know what you're talking about but it's really hard to take it seriously when you misspell the company's name.
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    Its technically Meta Rift 2 now :)
    - bin_bash 5y ago
      ...you're deliberately trolling now aren't you

Breza 5y ago

I'm curious if you have any thoughts on why VR remains so niche. Decent VR hardware has been available for years. And yet relatively few people use it.

grumple 5y ago
Most people are not nerds like us and prefer to interact with people in person. They cook dinner, they make babies, they read, they play with their dog. They use computers for work. Then you have the gamer segment. VR games are generally casual / active. Not playable in most apartments due to space needed. Most gamers are into either shooters, dark souls style games, or moba-style games. And action/rpg - which is great in VR, but there are also only a couple of them. Metaverse? Live in VR? Why? You can live in real life. People have other things to worry about.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Not playable in most apartments due to space needed. Maybe in places like Tokyo or Hong-Kong as even in my small European apartment, I could find the 2x2m space needed for VR.
- zelphirkalt 5y ago
  Personally I have not heard about a great game or experience in VR yet. Nothing I would like to call fun gaming or exploration. Put some VR chairs like in Tom Clancy's Special Netforce youth novels by Diane Duane and that might grab my attention. In a VR I do not want to walk around, but I want to control the character and feel like I am really there. And then of course that FB has its hands in play makes the whole thing stink from the start. Who would engage in any kind of personal interaction with that? At least not I.
  - SergeAx 5y ago
    Half-Life Alyx is quite good. It can be played on a decent gaming PC plus Oculus Quest 2. I also adore Beat Saber, but mostly custom maps (Quest 2 version needs to be patched for it to work), and some social component is lost.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

> I think the problem is that VR tech and apps will take too long to arrive to gain any traction with the wider public Provided that it happens at all. People tend to extrapolate too far based on something being subjectively attractive for a limited group. Think of 3D TV hype a decade ago (and we're thinking of technology that actually debuted almost 100 years ago).

belter 5y ago

That was the strategy IBM tried with the Software Group. Buy several 1 to 2 billion dollar companies every year to see what sticks. Did not work.

j1elo 5y ago

> even those were balking at having to have FB accounts It's been like what, 3 years? that I've been patiently waiting for the UE (or someone, in general) to mandate Facebook to remove mandatory account signup and tie-in, before buying an Oculus Quest (now 2). I don't care if this means I end up not buying and enjoying it at all in the end. Sadly I guess just a minority have such firm positions when it comes to "vote with your wallet", so in the end the vote ends up being nothing more than a self-imposed punishment. But thankfully VR is just a very superfluous experience for now to be missing it, so I am fine with that.

JauntTrooper 5y ago
Can you create a new account for the Oculus that isn't tied to anything or used for anything else?
- cfcosta 5y ago
  I haven't tried as I started using an old fb account that i don't use anymore for nothing else, but if you still need a Facebook account to use it, you'll still have to give them heaps of data, including verifying your phone number.
  - BbzzbB 5y ago
    You don't anymore, you do need an account but doesn't have to be a Facebook one.
m4rtink 5y ago
This is the reason I backed the Lynx R1[0] headset instead of buying an Oculus - no way in hell I'm going to sign in to a Facebook account on a device with bazillion cameras for inside out tracking! I'm sure many of the supporters of other independent VR hardware project (such as Simula VR[1]) are of the same opinion. [0] https://www.lynx-r.com/ https://www.lynx-r.com/ [1] https://simulavr.com/ https://simulavr.com/

whiplash451 5y ago

FB does not have access to the M&A trick anymore. Those days are gone. Regulators are tired of seeing GAFAM buying their way out of their lack of innovation. They also want to see new companies succeed on their own. That's where the new GAFAM will come from in the long run. And this is a long run race.

monkeynotes 5y ago

VR is never going to gain the traction FB is betting on. Absolutely no one wants to spend their day inside a headset cut off from the outside world. It's uncomfortable, antisocial, expensive (for now), and just clunky overall. If anything is going to come of this it's going to be AR, without a doubt. People want to be able to see the world they are in, they don't want to walk into tables, have to disrobe to answer the door, tend to children and so on. AR adds value everywhere in the real world. AR can blend meetings, add meta information to day-to-day tasks. Think driving, you can now have your maps, speed, collision warnings, and so on in a virtual heads up display. Even if Meta knocks it out of the park with early AR it's going to be a long time coming and they will still have a trust issue that younger, faster AR startups won't have.

Duralias 5y ago
AR will definitely be bigger, it will be a game changer, who needs to buy a TV or extra monitors at that point. But I disagree that VR is anti-social, it is not exactly the same as being irl social, but the success of VRChat (a social VR platform) and Zenith (the first good VR MMO) has shown how big the social aspect is. Social VR easily showed its use during the pandemic and the lockdowns. However, social VR is also immensely useful for more introverted people, which more extroverted people might not realize. It is quite simply easier talking to people in VR than it is in real life. It is good therapy if you want to view it like that.
- H1Supreme 5y ago
  > However, social VR is also immensely useful for more introverted people, which more extroverted people might not realize. It is quite simply easier talking to people in VR than it is in real life. I think you're confusing introversion with social anxiety.
  - Duralias 5y ago
    Yes, I did make that common mistake once again.
5y ago