VR discussion: Oculus Rift, Vive, Morpheus and more! (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

But there were other targets.. Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and others were probably considered to be in the hunt. The idea that the writer of the boing-boing puts out that 'boo hoo, this is exactly what we were trying to avoid.. hoping to change things..' is one of the most childish rants I've ever read. You did change things. You put up money and you got people interested and you rooted for it through development. That's it. Ok, my rant over.

Ah, kick starter, where the backer has all the risk and none off the rewards of actually investing.

 

[mattCR]

Ah, kick starter, where the backer has all the risk and none off the rewards of actually investing.

I kick start a lot of stuff. Plenty of decent benefits for the right thing. I had no problem kicking in to the Veronica Mars kickstarter. I got a shirt out of it. Or the RiffTrax one, I got a message read to me in the credits. All worthwhile.

Something like Occulus Rift people got the gear. That's it. But it was almost a guarantee if it went anywhere they would sell out.

 

[mattCR]

 

[mattCR]

Simpsons nailed this years ago.

 

[Sam Posten]

Meh:http://recode.net/2014/03/25/in-googles-shadow-facebooks-zuckerberg-pursued-oculus-over-several-months-ending-in-weekend-marathon-of-dealmaking/Ouch:http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/games/stories/1331628307841/rip-the-fallen-heroes-of-virtual-reality

 

[Sam Posten]

Word:http://imgur.com/NPLjenz

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I sense a. . .rift between Oculus and Sam. . .

 

[Sam Posten]

I'm still thinking it over. I'm both a FB user and a VERY VERY VERY small investor (I bought a few hundred bucks of it when its IPO crapped the bed. I'm not morally opposed to FB and think that any of it's near term misteps and poor UI / privacy issues won't remain open issues for decades.But I'd have much rather it went to a company that wasn't just so... so... uncool.http://i.imgur.com/xbmzqYp.gif

 

[Chuck Anstey]

I had the VFX-1 head set. The more I looked into Oculus, the more it looked exactly like the company that did the VFX-1. Small, little direct support in games, and buying the set as a developer rather than a fully finished and market supported accessory, like racing wheels are. The advantage of Oculus before FB was that they had to make a top shelf product to be profitable and continue. Now with FB dumping loads of cash, I think the need to make a really good market-leading product just went out the window. I am surmising that FB's buyout is to use the technology to create and influence some other market and delivering a top-quality VR experience isn't necessary or a concern. I would have been more optimistic had FB invested 20-30M to keep the company going strong as they finished their design and got into production. The $2B is so outrageous there has to be something else going on.

 

[mattCR]

I had the VFX-1 head set. The more I looked into Oculus, the more it looked exactly like the company that did the VFX-1. Small, little direct support in games, and buying the set as a developer rather than a fully finished and market supported accessory, like racing wheels are. The advantage of Oculus before FB was that they had to make a top shelf product to be profitable and continue. Now with FB dumping loads of cash, I think the need to make a really good market-leading product just went out the window. I am surmising that FB's buyout is to use the technology to create and influence some other market and delivering a top-quality VR experience isn't necessary or a concern. I would have been more optimistic had FB invested 20-30M to keep the company going strong as they finished their design and got into production. The $2B is so outrageous there has to be something else going on.

The more I've thought about this the more I agree. Sony has Morpheus coming. Microsoft is still working on Illumiroom (a different concept, but same generalized category), Valve is working on their own design reportedly. I think in the end, the buyup of the patent portfolio might be what facebook really wants.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think Illumiroom is so outrageous that its hardly worth mentioning. Like, in general.

There is absolutely something more to this. I believe what was said in a public-ish statement was that the $2 billion is going to be used to actually buy/build factories to create the hardware rather than using whatever parts are left over from other tech companies and trying to rent facilities.

I have no serious problems since this just seems like Facebook is going to give Oculus a ton of money and then just reap some of the profits. The Kickstarters have absolutely no reason to complain. It's an example of nerd entitlement.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

For $2B there is no profit to be had with the hardware, ever. This is either a vanity project or there is a plan to profit somewhere else.

 

[mattCR]

I think Illumiroom is so outrageous that its hardly worth mentioning. Like, in general.

I don't know if anything comes from it, but I always respect those who put money into R&D, because sometimes unique things come from it. Years of failure to make a reliable optical mouse changed after Microsoft & HP kept throwing research money at it, even though people thought the whole idea was pretty ridiculous and would never work on all surfaces.. that's until in 1999 the Microsoft IntelliMouse came out. Took 19 years .. from 1980 and Xerox's 16 sensor 'Optical' that required a grid surface and slow movement to turn into a multi-surface fast moving device.
Sometimes you never know what you will get from R&D. A lot of people thought Kinect would never work correctly, I have to tell you on the XBOX-One it's freakishly accurate.

When the Wii came out, no one 'got' the motion sensor method, then it became the standard.
I don't know where Illumiroom goes, but I think it's a unique look at a different way to address a problem. I don't think it has a chance at wide spread adoption. Then again, I don't think Oculus ever did, either.

 

[Sam Posten]

NAILED it:https://twitter.com/jillianiles/status/449170035135631361/photo/1/large

 

[Morgan Jolley]

My main problem with Illumiroom is that it's similar to the current version of glasses-free 3DTVs. It's expensive, requires a very limited number of people to sit in a very specific position in a room, and could easily be outdone with cheaper technology. Illumiroom required a Kinect pointed AT the TV, an HD projector, a very powerful computer, and a relatively large room that was a specific layout. I think the best alternative is to just go with a VR headset since the requirements for it are too steep.

And I think we should hold off on calling Kinect 2 perfect. I have heard more about people saying they're rather save money on the console and not get it than consider it an integral part of the XBO experience. The Wii remote defined the Wii, Kinect seems like an encumbrance.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

I would like this headset for racing games. 2 full res 1920x1080p panels that are compatible with NVidia 3D and the headset driver works with the game so I can look left, right, up and down just like in a real car. The in-car cam has the dash occupy more screen real estate and limits vision more than actual driving but looking down to the dash fixes that. Then to race I only need my computer and wheel and don't have to figure out the logistics of getting that set up with also figuring out where to put the triple monitor setup (and the high cost of such hardware) as the look around eliminates the need for 3 monitors to simulate the look around.

I would be willing to spend $500 on a headset that could do the above for my favorite racing games.

 

[Sam Posten]

The other big news:http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/introducing-michael-abrash-oculus-chief-scientist/It's REALLY hard to say 'meh' or 'boo' to the FB news when the big brains like Abrash and Carmack seem to genuinely believe it is a good move. They can be wrong of course, but I am willing to give them a little bit of rope.

 

[Sam Posten]

Check the comments:http://peterberkman.tumblr.com/post/80827337212/wrong-and-right-reasons-to-be-upset-about-oculus

 

[Sam Posten]

 

[Sam Posten]

Brilliant analysis:
http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-real-data.html