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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 co

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.
  - kranke155 5y ago
    The Quest 2 is also reportedly sold at a loss.
- kranke155 5y ago
  The Quest 2 is reportedly sold at a large loss for FB. So that’s a completely unfair comparison. I wasn’t looking so much at cost as much as capability to innovate.
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    There's a lot of innovation that has to take place to get the price down and to have a unit that has everything inside the headset. In fact those are probably the 2 things that have to happen before mass adoption. There is never going to be a significant market for VR headsets that you have to hook up to a gaming PC. The manufacturing cost for the Oculus has to be far less than the Index since Valve reportedly isn't making much off their headsets. For argument if we say Meta's costs are $400/headset and Valve $900/headset, that still makes the Index over twice as expensive and it still can't run anything without being tethered to an expensive PC! I don't know how you could seriously try to argue that kind of price undercutting isn't "innovating".
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

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.
- kranke155 5y ago
  The Quest 2 is also reportedly sold at a loss.
kranke155 5y ago
The Quest 2 is reportedly sold at a large loss for FB. So that’s a completely unfair comparison. I wasn’t looking so much at cost as much as capability to innovate.
- bin_bash 5y ago
  There's a lot of innovation that has to take place to get the price down and to have a unit that has everything inside the headset. In fact those are probably the 2 things that have to happen before mass adoption. There is never going to be a significant market for VR headsets that you have to hook up to a gaming PC. The manufacturing cost for the Oculus has to be far less than the Index since Valve reportedly isn't making much off their headsets. For argument if we say Meta's costs are $400/headset and Valve $900/headset, that still makes the Index over twice as expensive and it still can't run anything without being tethered to an expensive PC! I don't know how you could seriously try to argue that kind of price undercutting isn't "innovating".

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