ashecitism
Member
Sadly, this was bound to happen the moment Valve joined the fray. This also goes for the graphics APIs and OSs.
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Oculus Rift unlikely to ship in 2015
- Thread starter Compsiox
- Start date
Sadly, this was bound to happen the moment Valve joined the fray. This also goes for the graphics APIs and OSs.
POWERSPHERE
Member
Whatever makes it the best it can be. I think they're working much harder now they've seen some of the competition.
*HTC say. They are only one of the hardware partners for SteamVR. It will be interesting to see who's next.
Also, don't take these comments at face value; we all saw Valve for example repeatedly confirm no VR hardware while they kept their plans intentionally secret. Oculus can easily do the same
Maastricht
Member
GDC showed that Sony was the furthest of the three, and they went for 2016. Wouldn't surprise me if the rest will follow. But perhaps a DK3 might come?
I have a feeling they got caught with their pants down by the competition.
The HTC/Valve VR unit got revealed completely out of the blue and by all reports it seems to be a superior product compared to the Oculus Rift right from the get-go.
For Oculus, who, on a small scale, have been tinkering and slowly iterating on their Oculus Rift for years now, it must really hurt to be suddenly upstaged like that. They had all the mindshare for a while, now they are losing it at a rapid pace.
I think they realize that they absolutely can't launch with an inferior product alongside Valve, because that'll ruin any chance of gathering a good piece of the untapped VR marketshare. They realize how crucial it is to have momentum from day one and not just launch something shoddy and pray that people will stick with the brand. Because people won't.
I'm glad Oculus is continuing to iterate and trying create the absolute best possible VR headset, I just hope they don't take too long or it'll be too little, too late.
Valve and the Steam name have so much marketing, development and mindshare weight to throw around in the gaming world that I could see it easily taking the crown on that fact alone.
The HTC/Valve VR unit got revealed completely out of the blue and by all reports it seems to be a superior product compared to the Oculus Rift right from the get-go.
For Oculus, who, on a small scale, have been tinkering and slowly iterating on their Oculus Rift for years now, it must really hurt to be suddenly upstaged like that. They had all the mindshare for a while, now they are losing it at a rapid pace.
I think they realize that they absolutely can't launch with an inferior product alongside Valve, because that'll ruin any chance of gathering a good piece of the untapped VR marketshare. They realize how crucial it is to have momentum from day one and not just launch something shoddy and pray that people will stick with the brand. Because people won't.
I'm glad Oculus is continuing to iterate and trying create the absolute best possible VR headset, I just hope they don't take too long or it'll be too little, too late.
Valve and the Steam name have so much marketing, development and mindshare weight to throw around in the gaming world that I could see it easily taking the crown on that fact alone.
Moon_frogger
Member
by the time this thing comes out, other companies will have released there own version, the hype and trend will pass and nobody will care. VR is not the future of games. At least not the near future.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
If Oculus wants a chance with the hardcore crowd, they need to announce the date and price before Vive launches later this year. It cant be left up in the air or all the enthusiasts will immediately go to Vive.
How incredibly disapointing it is that we are still at a point where we neither know a date ( and can doubt the year ), or even have an idea a about the spec. From kickstarter to secrecy...
If it's to end up with a reveal composed of "seated experience" and "no new input/controler"....
If it's to end up with a reveal composed of "seated experience" and "no new input/controler"....
Goldfishking
Member
Vive is coming out on HTC time, not valve time i imagine.
See? This is what's happening, the expectations start building and building because the competition is heating up. Everyone expects Oculus to simply pull these features out of their hat when they might not have even gotten them out of the prototype phases yet.
I don't think they'll be able to catch up without making a rushed product.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I know. I think Vive is just as unlikely to launch this year as the other two. I feel like Morpheus will probably be first to market, around March next year.
Muskieratboi
Member
The facebook meeting thing says only one thing:
SUPER LIMITED DAY ONE EDITION OCULUS RIFT, GET IT WHILE STOCKS LAST, NEW STOCK COMING FEBRUARY
SUPER LIMITED DAY ONE EDITION OCULUS RIFT, GET IT WHILE STOCKS LAST, NEW STOCK COMING FEBRUARY
That sucks if not. If they're having it sold similar to how DK's were sold, then thats better, but if nothing at all this year, jeez. Vive will beat it and may get a following on it's side before Oculus is even out.
No idea what I'll do VR wise yet, I'll simply get the one that seems the best, as long as its affordable, ha ha, or if Sony can just make morpheus support PC too, then definitely that.
No idea what I'll do VR wise yet, I'll simply get the one that seems the best, as long as its affordable, ha ha, or if Sony can just make morpheus support PC too, then definitely that.
Being bought by facebook, and the wait for the release of the consumer product can only lead to bigger expectation. Things get even worst when the competition announce something which obliterate some of the complain people had on what we know about Oculus product ( seated experience, want the perfect input product even if it mean not being ready for CV1 ).
The more they keep the secret about what we will get with CV1, and when, the bigger the expectation will be, and the disappointment if they don't deliver.
anothertech
Member
Just going to say, that comment reads like there will be limited release... Not 'no' release.
I see a preorder feeding frenzy happening Holliday 2015. The latecomers will have to wait a bit.
I personally plan be on it day one this Holliday. With the surprise titles they have in store for release.
I see a preorder feeding frenzy happening Holliday 2015. The latecomers will have to wait a bit.
I personally plan be on it day one this Holliday. With the surprise titles they have in store for release.
ashecitism
Member
HTC rep said to expect a slightly higher price point for the Vive as it's premium experience.
It's a little odd that it takes VR enthusiasts like me to somewhat try to bring people down to earth.. First gen VR will not be the defining mass-consumer moment of VR (neither does it need to be), it will be more like the "preparation" for the next wave. Consoles are definitely not ready for prime time VR (Sony should've waited until PS5 in my opinion), neither are a large part of GPUs out there.. No wonder why Oculus is taking their time. So there's not much winning or losing to be done here. I suspect a lot of those of us that has been buying devkits and going for 1st gen consumer VR will end up buying both Vives and Rifts at the same time as we think that Oculus' old infamous plan to hold off and "do it right" is as valid a plan today as it was yesterday.
The main thing Oculus will need is an input solution to compete against Vive.
So it'd make sense that they'd delay the launch so that they can add their own input system in there...
At minimum, it needs equivalency... but potentially I think you might be seeing a camera mounted to the HMD for the Oculus with finger tracking + controller based tracking solution.
So a dual control system that allows them to supplement and enhance each other.
So it'd make sense that they'd delay the launch so that they can add their own input system in there...
At minimum, it needs equivalency... but potentially I think you might be seeing a camera mounted to the HMD for the Oculus with finger tracking + controller based tracking solution.
So a dual control system that allows them to supplement and enhance each other.
The crappy google cardboard I bought for ÂŁ10 is surprisingly good for simple experiences, using my Z3 which is a single 1080p screen. A big jump from the DK1 I had. Field of view is shit but thats the lenses etc.
a properly made VR HMD with decent tracking will be perfectly fine for a phase one launch - even at 1080p IMO. Likewise PS4 is enough to push some nice experiences, and it'll be valuable to VR for Sony to invest money into some first party games - as a lot of the larger 3rd parties are likely to hold off until the ROI is better.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
If Vive does indeed come out this year, Oculus screwed the pooch and Zuckerberg made a bad bet.
Moreso than just the lack of any CV1, developers remain stuck for a whole year on the positively ancient and fairly shit DK2, no input solutions to program, and so on. Meanwhile Vive DK's will go out in this 'year of silence', Morpheus too, and Oculus is left looking like a gang of thumb-sitting prats.
Moreso than just the lack of any CV1, developers remain stuck for a whole year on the positively ancient and fairly shit DK2, no input solutions to program, and so on. Meanwhile Vive DK's will go out in this 'year of silence', Morpheus too, and Oculus is left looking like a gang of thumb-sitting prats.
VR just wont work on a big scale if people get motion sickness when using it. I'm a developer and have created a couple of commercial projects for Rift, and even more for google cardboard. I've also used DK2 extensively myself, and I feel motion sickness every time. Most of our testers/clients/end-customers do as well. We do everything we can to mitigate this (because people keep ordering Rift/Cardboard-applications from us). In the latest project we are doing right now, we have zero movement. Just looking around with fade-out-fade-in-teleportation. Works slightly better, but people still complain. I think this is the major reason why OR is getting delayed.
mumbles365
Banned
Valve to release their VR headset with a free copy of Half Life 3 bundled in, which was built ground up for the VR experience.
You heard it here first srs.
You heard it here first srs.
no i didn't because a million people have said that already
What? How? And to whom?
The most universally praised demonstration was that of Vive.
It's obviously because they gots the magic interpolation box. Waitaminute, I just got a business idea: Make a timewarp routine which is fed by pre-photon controller-input data for doubling the framerate in traditional content without processing cost! lol
They can also not afford to release an unrefined product.. The Consumer Rift needs to be solid and impressive, there's just no way around it. And we also know about their controller worries.. That might be what's going on.. on that note, I think having HTC and Valve in the loop with an actual product made the VR scene so much more interesting. It's great when companies like that kick eachother's asses to raise the bar.
Shoot me down if you feel I am wrong, but I can't help but feel Oculus are losing momentum with Valve and Morpheus beginning to take the limelight.
If Valve launch this year and their experience delivers then potentially Oculus have gone from being the market innovators to playing catch up. I expect Sony to make quite a fuss over Morpheus at E3/Gamescom.
If Valve launch this year and their experience delivers then potentially Oculus have gone from being the market innovators to playing catch up. I expect Sony to make quite a fuss over Morpheus at E3/Gamescom.
DouglasteR
Member
Vive + Portal VR in the Xmas.
Everything i need.
Everything i need.
Theonik
Member
I think people are reading too much into the answer there. That they are not making CV1 at the moment in terms of actually manufacturing is clear but that doesn't mean they will not.
What he said is that at the moment they don't have a finalised product which we already knew.
Vive is equally worrisome. They are only now starting to get kits out to devs it is unlikely they will have a large consumer launch in 2015.
What he said is that at the moment they don't have a finalised product which we already knew.
Vive is equally worrisome. They are only now starting to get kits out to devs it is unlikely they will have a large consumer launch in 2015.
Lady Siara
Member
Eve Valkyrie was one of the first VR games I remember hearing about and it was built from the ground up. Lucky's Tale is also a VR only project being made by the co-creator of Words with Friends.
I guess the ambiguity stems from what you classify as a "known dev". I imagine most of the AAA space is experimenting with VR in their own time and since a consumer product isn't out from any of the main progenitors yet, they have no reason to rush.
This doesn't make complete logical sense. Innovation per se isn't really about announcement dates or launch date within a certain ballpark at all.. Just because they haven't announced something doesn't mean we can quantify what they have or have not. We don't know what Oculus is going to deliver. They might even have something more innovative than HTC, we just don't know yet.
The practical launch of the Vive isn't really 2015 anyway. For most people it's also a 2016 launch.
Tripolygon
Banned
He didn't say Sony's was the best or most praised, he said GDC showed that Sony was the furthest along in terms of releasing an actual consumer version that can be bought by many regular joe consumers who own a PS4 or who just want to try VR.
Theonik
Member
Sony is showing rapid progress as well since they scrapped their older VR ideas and they are also ahead of oculus in that they have had a working motion controller for years to refine.
Future PhaZe
Member
tortoise about to legit lose to the hair
This is operating under the assumption that only "known devs" are capable of putting out excellent VR games - which could well be completely false. There are developers like Cloudhead who have been developing their games since DK1 was announced, and has been praised by plenty of people over that period. Whether the final product is good or not is yet to be seen, however Indie developers are likely to be the ones who find the most success, as the only one willing to take the risk in exploring an area with an initial low number of users.
Theonik
Member
This could easily turn out like early smartphone development for a lot of smaller developers though successful developers will not make quite the same amount of bank as they did in those days because VR headsets are unlikely to have the same level of penetration and appeal as smartphones had.
Isn't that the best thing about it though? It's like the transition from 2D to 3D all over again. We'll see a lot of new game types and experiments for the first two generations of the hardware.
We'll see a freshness and variety that we really haven't seen since the N64/PS1 days. And yes, it'll probably have the roughness of those early games when looking back, but it will still be cool to go through the growth process.
InaudibleWhispa
Member
Huh, I'm not sure what you're doing wrong but if I want to play a DK2 demo now it takes me 30 seconds. It was a pain in the arse to set up in the first week, but now I just press the on button, my second monitor automatically turns off, the rift sets itself to primary display, I click the exe and the vast majority of the time it just works. Perhaps it's because you haven't used it in 3 months and the old SDK/demo's were more finicky.
I've demoed DK2 to dozens of people and haven't had one complain of sickness (I've been careful not to show something like an FPS that might induce it). It's all anecdotal, sure, but there are tens of thousands of VR reaction videos on YouTube and I've yet to see many complain about sickness either. Here's a recent Teens React to Alien Isolation video, for example, and everyone seems fine (and that's the kind of game that is a prime example of something that could produce nausea).
The bigger issue, is that no one knows what the ideal game looks like or what works best. So in a way I expect that it to be both similar and different to smartphone developments over time - a lot like the days of Doom, where some developers latch on to the one game that has done well and mine that into similar clones. However there is so much more to explore than a smartphone could ever provide.
On top of that, no developers thus far have been able to develop and target for a specific VR set yet outside of Morpheus, since none of them confirmed their final spec and input methods. Now that Vive at least has that sorted, they are ahead in the PC space for what developers can actually commit to outside of traditional input.
DouglasteR
Member
How do you do this ?
SteveWinwood
Member
I wanna know what happened post fb buy. Oculus and Valve were working fairly close together, researching and exploring. And then Facebook bought Oculus and now we have a HTC partner for valve and who knows what Oculus is doing.