10 ms·
As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.
by yonaguska 4y ago
As much as I wanted to get into VR, Meta taking over the Quest has thankfully saved me countless sunken dollars and hours.
- roody15 4y agoLol exactly. Really wanted to play Half Life / Alex but not about to give Meta any money … absolutely not going to use a facebook account to use a VR device.
- Jalad 4y agoTo be fair, if you want to play Alyx you can also use the Valve Index. So no Meta involved
- shahar2k 4y agoor an HP reverb G2, or HTC vive or one of dozens of other non meta vr sets... that said a cheap quest 2 second hand with virtual desktop makes for probably the best wireless experience / dollar you can have
- Schinken_ 4y agoTo add to that: Even though the Pico brand is now owned by Bytedance (TikTok) I really enjoy their Pico Neo 3 (it's a hardware equivalent to the Quest 2, actually due to active cooling it has a bit more performance headroom). The wireless streaming works great. There is no account setup whatsoever. Null, nada, nichts. You can just boot up the HMD and you're good to go.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoI find it strange when people hail them as a more privacy-friendly alternative to Meta though. Personally I think ByteDance (and TikTok in particular) is an even worse company than Facebook ever was. It's like they learned from Facebook and made it worse.
- giobox 4y agoAt typically more than 2x the cost. I've played Alyx on both, the Index is absolutely not a 2x better experience. I'm no fan of their corporate parent either, but the value proposition on Quest 2 for general purpose PC VR gaming (especially prior to this price increase) was remarkable given size of subsidy Meta were prepared to make on price.
- MikusR 4y agoIt was 3x the cost now only 2.5x.
- jsheard 4y agoIt's a bit baffling that the Index is still as expensive as it is, it's three years old and has never gone on sale even once nevermind had a permanent price cut. In a vacuum it's worth what people are willing to pay, but Valve are a software company selling hardware to promote their ecosystem, which they're ceding to the much more affordable Oculus ecosystem by keeping the premium price. It's still a nice headset but it's showing it's age, the Quest 2 has higher resolution screens and the ability to stream PC VR wirelessly is a killer feature which the Index doesn't support.
- indiv0 4y agoNo only that, but it's perpetually out of stock in most regions as well.
- pathartl 4y agoAlyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.
- YellowTech 4y agoYou can use a Oculus Account (not connected to facebook) and then use Virtual Desktop to stream the game from SteamVR over Wifi. If you have a Wifi 6 router it's the best PC VR experience you can have (wireless, no base stations, really high resolution, very low latency) and besides the Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop you are not giving any money to Meta. If you are worried about battery life, I already player with a battery bank in small backpack without any problems! Absolutely awesome.
- rblatz 4y agoYou don't even need Virtual Desktop, the Quest 2 supports wireless VR natively.
- echelon 4y agoThe immersiveness is fantastic, but movement feels like trying to use a 1970's pong controller while something is strapped to your head. I want standard joystick-based movement. I suppose too many get motion sickness, or that joysticks are ergonomically awkward to place onto motion controllers while maintaining the "pointing" and "picking up" metaphors. VR's "aim and teleport" mechanic is the worst, though. It ruins the entire experience for me. I just want to walk in a direction - easy with a game controller. But instead you have to aim, judge distance, and click. It's so weird and feels gross.
- papito 4y agoAlyx "smooth motion" is in settings - game settings, not Oculus or anything, and yes, you have to be careful. Sometimes I can barely maintain my footing if something happens too fast.
- 4y ago
- break_the_bank 4y agoThey dropped the requirement to have a Facebook account for Meta Quest 2 a few weeks ago.
- Schinken_ 4y agoYes, from a Facebook Account to a Meta Account...
- jdgoesmarching 4y agoDon’t worry, they renamed the tables and everything!
- amluto 4y agoBy requiring a Meta account as I recall. Not much of an improvement.
- LadyCailin 4y agoPresumably this would mean if you’re banned on Facebook, that wouldn’t lock you out of your device. That was one of the bigger sticking points at least.
- reaperducer 4y agoIf Meta is anything like Google (and it is), we're not far off from getting locked out of Facebook bricking your VR gear. HN is lousy with stories about people getting tagged by faulty "AI" in one Google program and getting blitzed out of all the others. The risk is too high that Meta will follow suit one day soon.
- munk-a 4y agoPersonally, I never want Meta to leverage my game usage on Facebook or any of their other platforms. I like Steam being an independent platform that has no motivation to share my information with socials - I really don't want random relatives asking me about my gaming habits. The fact that it was made by Facebook was worrying - the fact that it required a Facebook account made it a non-starter. For the same reason, while I do enjoy the occasional twitch stream - some of my favorite streamers have moved to FB... thus I have stopped watching them because I don't like making it easy for socials to track and broadcast my every waking moment.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- whywhywhywhy 4y agoVR wouldn’t even be a thing anymore without their efforts. PC Tower VR is a dead end where the complexity and hardware costs will never take it the customer base size that justifies developing non-indie content. I don’t think Valve would have even bothered building Index without the Oculus threat.
- upupandup 4y agoWhat?! You give Meta way too much credit
- Dracophoenix 4y agoValve partnered with HTC on the Vive. While HTC has now decided to pivot away from consumer/enthusiast VR headsets, Valve never gave up.
- terafo 4y ago5 millions PSVR sold beg to differ.
- ceeplusplus 4y agoThat's an estimated 1/3 of what Quest 2 sold [1]. And Sony already has a huge install base of subsidized consoles to sell into, whereas high end PCs required to run VR are a rarity. [1] https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc https://uploadvr.com/quest-2-sold-almost-15-million-idc
- terafo 4y agoI was disproving his point about VR being dead without Oculus. Prior to Quest 2 launch they weren't even the leader, 1.5 years after that launch they are basically only game in town(not for long, PSVR2, next gen Valve headset and Apple are coming soon). And VR-capable PCs aren't that rare, you basically need performance of 1060 and half of Steam userbase have that.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dmix 4y agoYou're missing out, Quest 2 was one of the best purchases I've made in the last year. I also don't think VR is good enough to be worth investing $1k+ into a VR headset like Vive. $300 seemed like a very high return on investment for what I got. Not sure about $400 since I already have one but I'd probably still do it. I also made a fake, empty Facebook account to use the Oculus store, so I don't feel like it's a privacy invasion.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoFor me it isn't even so much about the privacy invasion or having to have a Facebook account, it's being locked into one store. PCVR doesn't have that problem.
- nickthegreek 4y agoYou can play any of your steam vr games on the quest 2.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoSure, with some hackery. I'd rather pay for something that doesn't require me to work around it like that. Why pay for this in-headset computer if I'm not using it?
- nickthegreek 4y agono hackery required. it works wireless as well.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoYou're correct, it used to require hackery, not it appears it is an included beta feature.
- Auracle 4y ago
- FractalHQ 4y agoI bought two recently for my parents and they don’t use them. I tried to use them but there are no real VR games to play. All of the games are arcade-style mini games with 20 year-old graphics. They get boring after a couple minutes. Huge disappointment! Around 10 years ago I gave up on VR and decided to wait for the VR game market to grow. It was a huge bummer to learn that nothing has changed after all this time. I think it will take another decade or two for hardware power and costs to catch up to modern game engines. For me, the only VR experience worth experiencing right now is probably a $1000 Valve Index with Half-Life Alyx running on my $4000 PC.
- rblatz 4y agoI'm not surprised that a casual level gaming device didn't meet the expectations of someone with a $4,000 gaming rig. You aren't the target market for this device.
- ilaksh 4y agoEleven Table Tennis VR -- very realistic table tennis Golf+ -- fairly realistic Golf and also TopGolf setup. Demeo -- like a really casual HeroQuest that you can jump into at any time (multiplayer, automatic). Ancient Dungeon -- procedurally generated roguelike. The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners -- really good zombie game
- notjustanymike 4y agoWith an Index, don't miss out on Into the Radius, and VTOL VR. Or get a wheel and try Project Cars 2 or iRacing.
- SCUSKU 4y agoCouldn't agree more. Two or so years ago I was thinking about getting into VR, but once I saw the Quest required Facebook login, I said no thanks.
- JeremyNT 4y agoFacebook/Meta has some really great advertising and branding, but there are now good alternatives out there too even if they aren't as well known. I have the HP Reverb 2 which is a pretty interesting device in its own right. Which is to say, you can definitely still throw away your time and money on this fad without supporting Facebook/Meta :)