VR discussion: Oculus Rift, Vive, Morpheus and more! (2 Viewers)

[Sam Posten]

Can't wait to try this!http://www.wired.com/2014/07/alien-isolation-oculus/

 

[Morgan Jolley]

They said the Alien Isolation demo was only a tech demo and not part of an actual release. It would be cool to try out but not getting my hopes up.

 

[Sam Posten]

Mine has shipped!

 

[Sam Posten]

Report from Connect:
http://doc-ok.org/?p=1066

 

[Sam Posten]

Hmmm:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rotovr/roto-taking-virtual-reality-to-the-next-level

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think VR has the fortunate distinction of people being pretty ready to write it off as the next motion gaming or 3D gaming before there's even a consumer version with sufficient games available for purchase. The more people enter the ring, the more promises get made, and the higher the price tag creeps, the less interest there is in actually owning VR.

 

[Sam Posten]

We'll see

 

[Sam Posten]

Neat!
http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/10/glean-keane-vr/

Also: making this the general VR discussion thread.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Fantastic!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

How much did everyone think the first VR unit out of the gate would cost? The pack consists of Sony PlayStation VR, HTC/Valve Vive VR, and Oculus Rift.

Well, Oculus Rift is now available for preorder at $600. http://kotaku.com/oculus-rift-will-be-600-1751349945

Considering you need a top-of-the-line PC just to run the thing and it comes with 2 games, I do not see this going over well. Considering you can get a decent ("decent") VR experience with a phone and Google Cardboard, this will absolutely remain a hardcore niche product with a tiny base.


I'm expecting PS VR to be $300, maybe $400 at most. Sony said they would price it like a new platform and I don't see them wanting to break the price limit of a new PS4 (which is currently $350). HTC Vive will probably be $500 or so, considering it has so much extra hardware going into it.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yeah that's a bummer. As is the fact that you MUST have USB 3 for it to work. Think my 2013 era i7 alienware isn't going to cut it, which is wacky.

But...

I get my Oculus rift for free, which is nice. So I got that going for me.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game/posts/1458224

 

[Raul Marquez]

Has anyone seen a release date for the Playstation 4 VR set?


What we saw in the HTF meet last October (both the Playstation and the Oculus models) made it clear to me that the Sony model was more impressive with just one clip (the Walk) compared to several on the Oculus variant using a Samsung phone.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The Oculus you're referring to is not "really" Oculus. Facebook (who owns Oculus) partnered with Samsung to get Samsung screens in the Oculus Rift. In return, Oculus gave Samsung some of their tech and branding. So you can buy a Samsung VR headset shell that a phone pops into and get a VR experience (much like Google Cardboard or the newest Viewmaster toy) but it's not really an Oculus Rift. The real Oculus Rift works much better and is more robust in just about every way.

That said, I've read multiple stories online about how the Vive VR allows for the most freedom (since you can walk around a room and, now, see walls before walking into them in real life), the Rift will be the cheaper PC option and come out first, and the PS VR is going to probably be the cheapest, easiest, and most comfortable (but you have to use it on a PS4 and can only play PS4 games, which is a much smaller pool than what will be on PC).

The PS VR set is supposed to be coming out this year. I believe Sony has said it should be out in Q2, which is like June-ish. E3 is in June, so they're either going to push it out right before E3 then devote a lot of time to games coming out for it, or they're going to talk a lot about it at E3 and then release it more into the summer or fall.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Yeah that's a bummer. As is the fact that you MUST have USB 3 for it to work. Think my 2013 era i7 alienware isn't going to cut it, which is wacky.

But...

I get my Oculus rift for free, which is nice. So I got that going for me.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game/posts/1458224

Well, you had to back them on Kickstarter to get that right? So it's not really 'free'...

 

[Sam Posten]

Sunk costs. It's free. =)

 

[Sam Posten]

Steam released their VR checker tool today...

Well, shit.

VR-NO-GO by Sam Posten III, on Flickr

 

[Dave Upton]

I'll have to test my PC tonight. I am not sure if I'll go Vive or Oculus yet, but I'm definitely excited.

 

[Dave Upton]

Have to say i'm digging the new internet connection, the tool downloaded in less than 2 minutes. Guess I'm ready for streaming UHD!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

So the Vive is going to be $800. What does $200 more than Oculus get you? Two motion controllers and two base stations that help with finding your three dimensional position. And, like Oculus, that's on top of a probably $1000+ computer to run it.

MS recently said that they're holding off on a consumer version of HoloLens until they have a lot of content and the price is more manageable. VR appears to be ignoring that. These prices are way too high for the products. I totally understand why it needs to be $800 with today's tech, but this is looking more like Kinect/motion control and 3D movies (both of which I bought into, mind you, but not for an extra $600+ each).

If PS VR really does stay in "new platform" price range ($400ish) then it will be the one to beat. If you can get a PS4, PS VR, PS Camera, a couple Move wands, and a couple games for less than the cost of just the computer to run an Oculus or Vive, Sony will be ahead. It doesn't even matter if the experience isn't 100% perfect (look at the original Wii remotes), it just needs to be better than what previously exists in that space (couch-based console gaming) and affordable by comparison.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Agreed.

Are there any PS4 games that currently use the Move controllers? (For that matter, is the Eye compatible with the PS4?)