Oculus Rift

Robert ninja

Everyone's acting like Dumb & Dumber in the suitcase scene. "Samsonite! I was way off!"

jumbobreakfast

Robert ninja wrote: »

Everyone's acting like Dumb & Dumber in the suitcase scene. "Samsonite! I was way off!"

ah sure, you can't beat a bit of wild speculation...it's fun!

Calibos

Someone on reddit says the $1500 Vive price thing is an illegal stock manipulation tactic by Asian investors (Not HTC themselves) ie. false bad news to knock HTC stocks down even further, they buy low and then when the 'news' proves to be false and the stocks rise again, they've made a pretty penny. Laws and safeguards in place in the US to stop this and prosecute offenders but regulations more lax in Asia.

Consensus in Reddit seems to be $599 Vive at cost (HMD cost similar to Rift) + $200 Profit Margin for HTC + €200 for Included Lighthouse and controllers = $999 price for Vive. Add 27% VAT/Customs like Oculus charged us and your looking at $1268 = €1164 for the Vive over here.

I don't think the lack of Touch will hurt Oculus. By the time touch comes out in H2 2016 they'll only have shipped the pre-orders which are shipping out till June at this point. So 200-250,000 units which tbh is still just the uber enthusiasts (DK1+DK2 owners+Oculus Subreddit members) We uber enthusiasts are ALL likely to purchase Touch when it comes out. By the time the Rift is purchased in appreciable numbers by mainstreamers the costs will have come down enough for Oculus to bundle touch with every Rift and they'll be able to say to developers that 90% of Rift owners have Touch so you can safely develop for it.

Robert ninja

I wonder if you can use the Vive controllers with an Oculus headset? Peolpe should be able to mix and match their VR/AR experiences but I feel like the big VR players are being almost too competitive and will not set any standards to benefit the consumer. Think there'll be Oculus Exclusive games vs Vive/Steam exclusives? I don't want a console war for something that I attach to my face.

Jerichoholic

Surely someone will be able to get the PSVR working on PC. That seems to be the only realistic option for me now.

imitation

Jerichoholic wrote: »

Surely someone will be able to get the PSVR working on PC. That seems to be the only realistic option for me now.

Personally I am sticking with the dk2, it will have support for sdk 1.0 at least so it will function at some level, hopefully its good enough for a year or two and then I can see the lay of the land. I wouldnt feel comfortable telling somebody to get a second hand dk2, but it probably has better shot of working than a ps4 VR headset and similar specs if I recall correctly. I guess if there are a glut of cheap units on ebay it might be worth a punt.

Zillah

Any notions about how much Touch will be? I'd really rather not spend much after already shelling out for the headset.

Jerichoholic

imitation wrote: »

Personally I am sticking with the dk2, it will have support for sdk 1.0 at least so it will function at some level, hopefully its good enough for a year or two and then I can see the lay of the land. I wouldnt feel comfortable telling somebody to get a second hand dk2, but it probably has better shot of working than a ps4 VR headset and similar specs if I recall correctly. I guess if there are a glut of cheap units on ebay it might be worth a punt.

I might go for a DK2 but I had a DK1 before, is there a big difference? I was hoping to be bown away by the consumer model, but that would mean a new pc too.

ScumLord

Calibos wrote: »

Someone on reddit says the $1500 Vive price thing is an illegal stock manipulation tactic by Asian investors (Not HTC themselves) ie. false bad news to knock HTC stocks down even further, they buy low and then when the 'news' proves to be false and the stocks rise again, they've made a pretty penny. Laws and safeguards in place in the US to stop this and prosecute offenders but regulations more lax in Asia.

Consensus in Reddit seems to be $599 Vive at cost (HMD cost similar to Rift) + $200 Profit Margin for HTC + €200 for Included Lighthouse and controllers = $999 price for Vive. Add 27% VAT/Customs like Oculus charged us and your looking at $1268 = €1164 for the Vive over here.

You could very well be right, the only problem I would see with this is that the Vive isn't out so they can't buy up anything and as with Oculus they'll more than likely restrict sales to one per person. I wouldn't put any faith in their pricing assumptions.

Dyr

Did anyone from valve/htc ever put forward a reason why the vive was given such a crappy name? Does it even have a logic or meaning.

Zillah

Whereas Rift and Morpheus make total sense.

ScumLord

Zillah wrote: »

Whereas Rift and Morpheus make total sense.

Rift into another dimension makes sense to me, and Morpheus was the god of dreams.

Dyr

Zillah wrote: »

Whereas Rift and Morpheus make total sense.

They're both cool names in their own right and they evoke a connection to the product, oculus=eyes rift=some tear in reality

Morpheus= take the blue pill, new reality


Vive= womens cosmetic product? Health insurance plan? Could be anything that's utterly dull and featureless

Zillah

And Vive is all energetic and trendy sounding. Does the name have to be an allegory for entering another world? Wii, Xbox, Nvidia - most branding is arbitrary sounds.

Zillah

Not make up, but it does sound a little like a free dance class at the gym.

8PM: Vive with Sandra - burn that fat!

Dyr

ScumLord wrote: »

Rift into another dimension makes sense to me, and Morpheus was the god of dreams.

Was morpheus not the god of sleep?

Or was that hypnos?

Maximus Alexander

Bambi wrote: »

Was morpheus not the god of sleep?

Dreams.

Maximus Alexander

Also...

jumbobreakfast

Bambi wrote: »

Did anyone from valve/htc ever put forward a reason why the vive was given such a crappy name? Does it even have a logic or meaning.

Vive came from the HTC "Re-Vive" campaign which probably had something to do with HTC doing so badly for years now. The HTC go-pro type camera is called "Re" and I guess they had Vive left over for the VR HMD I'm pretty sure that the CEO said recently that VR was the future of their company...

Calibos

ScumLord wrote: »

You could very well be right, the only problem I would see with this is that the Vive isn't out so they can't buy up anything and as with Oculus they'll more than likely restrict sales to one per person. I wouldn't put any faith in their pricing assumptions.

I meant buy stock (on the stockmarket) in the company (HTC) not buy up 'stock' of Vive's.

Thargor

HTC appears on way too many "Companies That Wont Survive 201X" lists every year for my liking!

Zillah

Thargor wrote: »

HTC appears on way too many "Companies That Wont Survive 201X" lists every year for my liking!

They've made a very clear pivot from phones to VR. Which is a hell of a gamble. Even if they sell like hotcakes it's probably still going to be many years before they manage to turn a profit.

With Oculus almost certainly undercutting them on price - not mention that HTC seem to be just a little behind on the marketing front - I'd say things aren't looking great in the long run.

shootermacg

Zillah wrote: »

They've made a very clear pivot from phones to VR. Which is a hell of a gamble. Even if they sell like hotcakes it's probably still going to be many years before they manage to turn a profit.

With Oculus almost certainly undercutting them on price - not mention that HTC seem to be just a little behind on the marketing front - I'd say things aren't looking great in the long run.

I hear the screen door effect is more noticeable on the vive, that fact alone makes this not a runner in my book.

MarkAnthony

Got a reply from rift ref customs charges. Seemed a bit of a standard reply so I'm going to do a bit more digging, bust basically looks like I would get hit for import duty of some description. Best I could get from TARIC was 14%. Looks like I might have to re-evaluate whether I'm going to be an early adopter €699 was bearly justifiable to me, €42 shipping, well it's got to get here but pushing €1000 buys a lot of beer and hookers.

lmimmfn

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Got a reply from rift ref customs charges. Seemed a bit of a standard reply so I'm going to do a bit more digging, bust basically looks like I would get hit for import duty of some description. Best I could get from TARIC was 14%. Looks like I might have to re-evaluate whether I'm going to be an early adopter €699 was bearly justifiable to me, €42 shipping, well it's got to get here but pushing €1000 buys a lot of beer and hookers.

Id be very suprised if you get hit with import tax, its supposed to be shipped from Ireland. DK2 didnt have any import tax( was included in the price ), was shipped from the UK. DK1 was shipped from the UK also and no import tax but didnt include import tax in the Kickstarter so i guess i was lucky with that one.

Keep your order in the CV1 queue and see what happens others, even if you have to pay customs you can still get your money back if you sell it later.

ScumLord

Zillah wrote: »

They've made a very clear pivot from phones to VR. Which is a hell of a gamble.

Yeah, I don't think VR is anything more than a stop gap to something better. Like everyone point out, simply having to wear the helmet is a bit of an issue. I think AR is probably more likely to be useful to more people long into the future. If the AR/VR was built into a normal looking set of glasses, or even contact lens VR is essentially dead. It's some way off and I suppose being an expert in VR means you can probably switch to AR pretty easily.

salamanca22

ScumLord wrote: »

Yeah, I don't think VR is anything more than a stop gap to something better. Like everyone point out, simply having to wear the helmet is a bit of an issue. I think AR is probably more likely to be useful to more people long into the future. If the AR/VR was built into a normal looking set of glasses, or even contact lens VR is essentially dead. It's some way off and I suppose being an expert in VR means you can probably switch to AR pretty easily.

If that is what it takes for VR to be dead then I think VR is safe for another good while :P

lmimmfn

ScumLord wrote: »

Yeah, I don't think VR is anything more than a stop gap to something better. Like everyone point out, simply having to wear the helmet is a bit of an issue. I think AR is probably more likely to be useful to more people long into the future. If the AR/VR was built into a normal looking set of glasses, or even contact lens VR is essentially dead. It's some way off and I suppose being an expert in VR means you can probably switch to AR pretty easily.

AR is more difficult than VR though, so VR needs to be perfected before AR can be tackled properly. It will be a long time before we have mobile VR with positional tracking with the visual fidelity of current top end PC's

Tar.Aldarion

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Got a reply from rift ref customs charges. Seemed a bit of a standard reply so I'm going to do a bit more digging, bust basically looks like I would get hit for import duty of some description. Best I could get from TARIC was 14%. Looks like I might have to re-evaluate whether I'm going to be an early adopter €699 was bearly justifiable to me, €42 shipping, well it's got to get here but pushing €1000 buys a lot of beer and hookers.

I read it should be shipped from the EU, negating import

RoyalMarine

If I win the lotto tonight, I'll buy everyone who has posted in here as of this post an Rift.