4 ms·

Usually i know how expensive things can get in corporate world so i don’t act like i know better from my armchair but that number is literally insane for a VR h

by siva7 3y ago

Usually i know how expensive things can get in corporate world so i don’t act like i know better from my armchair but that number is literally insane for a VR headset.

andybak 3y ago
Considering their competitors have got alarmingly close for a fraction of that. However I suspect there's a ton of stuff that's not obviously visible. 1. Their software stack and default apps are generally a lot more polished than the competition. I suspect they are doing a lot of UX work. 2. Some of the money has been spent of features and apps that their competitors don't even have. (the utility of those can be debated but they exist and they cost money to design and build) 3. They were first movers for some of their feature set. It costs more to make than to copy. 4. There is probably a ton of R&D for things that haven't seen the light of day. 5. They probably pay higher salaries than many of their competitors. (They also probably have a bigger bureaucratic overhead on account of their size and the regulatory scrutiny they are under)
- fatnoah 3y ago
  > 4. There is probably a ton of R&D for things that haven't seen the light of day. For all of the lampooning of Meta, VR isn't their endgame. Other justifications for the effort are to build a platform that's not owned by Google or Apple, plus the "ultimate" goal of wearable AR devices. The latter requires substantial innovation in terms of battery life, compute power, heat management, display, input schemes, the vast amount of world 3d mapping required, enabling AR content creation & consumption, etc, etc, etc. There are literally thousands of people working on this and there are some truly impressive things being designed and built there. What we'll be able to see in the world are the elements of these and/or proof points that get baked into the "intermediate" stuff being released, like Oculus w/improved mixed-reality, and wearable devices.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    > Other justifications for the effort are to build a platform that's not owned by Google or Apple You know the Quest runs Android right? They don't use play services but they're never going to be fully independent from Google this way.
    - fatnoah 3y ago
      Sorry, more specifically, platform meaning reliance on Play Store or App Store. Work was also being done to build their own OS. That's been canceled for now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it come back.
deleted 3y ago
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by siva7 3y ago

Usually i know how expensive things can get in corporate world so i don’t act like i know better from my armchair but that number is literally insane for a VR headset.

andybak 3y ago

Considering their competitors have got alarmingly close for a fraction of that. However I suspect there's a ton of stuff that's not obviously visible. 1. Their software stack and default apps are generally a lot more polished than the competition. I suspect they are doing a lot of UX work. 2. Some of the money has been spent of features and apps that their competitors don't even have. (the utility of those can be debated but they exist and they cost money to design and build) 3. They were first movers for some of their feature set. It costs more to make than to copy. 4. There is probably a ton of R&D for things that haven't seen the light of day. 5. They probably pay higher salaries than many of their competitors. (They also probably have a bigger bureaucratic overhead on account of their size and the regulatory scrutiny they are under)

fatnoah 3y ago
> 4. There is probably a ton of R&D for things that haven't seen the light of day. For all of the lampooning of Meta, VR isn't their endgame. Other justifications for the effort are to build a platform that's not owned by Google or Apple, plus the "ultimate" goal of wearable AR devices. The latter requires substantial innovation in terms of battery life, compute power, heat management, display, input schemes, the vast amount of world 3d mapping required, enabling AR content creation & consumption, etc, etc, etc. There are literally thousands of people working on this and there are some truly impressive things being designed and built there. What we'll be able to see in the world are the elements of these and/or proof points that get baked into the "intermediate" stuff being released, like Oculus w/improved mixed-reality, and wearable devices.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  > Other justifications for the effort are to build a platform that's not owned by Google or Apple You know the Quest runs Android right? They don't use play services but they're never going to be fully independent from Google this way.
  - fatnoah 3y ago
    Sorry, more specifically, platform meaning reliance on Play Store or App Store. Work was also being done to build their own OS. That's been canceled for now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it come back.

deleted 3y ago

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