Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

[Davros]

lots of speil from zuckenberg about how he wont interfere at all and the company wont change, then he goes on about mobile is where its at right now
ps: 2 billion how the hell does someone come up with that figure

pps: notch has canceled minecraft for rift saying "facebook is creepy "

 

[dobwal]

ps: 2 billion how the hell does someone come up with that figure

When you are negotiating with a company that has a propensity for overpaying for acquisitions and literally no knowledge of field you operate in, a little creative accounting and liberal future projecting is always in order.

 

[pjbliverpool]

http://www.neowin.net/news/new-york...l-put-its-logo-and-ui-on-oculus-rift-hardware

LOL, it just gets worse and worse, you get to see the worthless Facebook logo everywhere now.

Put this one in the deadpool.

Update:

Update: According to a statement sent to Re/code by Facebook, the company now says it has no such plans to put its logo on the Oculus Rift device, nor does it plan to put in its own design or UI changes.

Thank God.

 

[Davros]

And again to invest in Oculus VR, I'd much rather have a company that doesn't have a stake in hardware - like Facebook - than one that already has its interest in selling their own hardware while keeping the PC gaming barely alive for PR purposes - like Microsoft.

Is a company who's main income source is advertising any better ?

 

[thatdude90210]

Ha, looks like people are starting to cool off somewhat. Here's what Cybereality, community manager at Oculus, said at their forum:

"I won't lie. We have had a number of people cancel their DK2 pre-orders. They are totally free to do that, if they want. We aren't going to stop them. However, after the initial "knee-jerk-reaction surge" a lot of people have came back and told us NOT to cancel their order since they don't want to lose their place in line. Funny how that happens."

 

[eastmen]

I think this will only change things for the better short term. We will get Oculus rift CV1 and perhaps it will have better specs .

Its not ready for grannie , but I know once they get the weight down and flicker and screen door gone that's it , there will be a face book head set that is everything I personaly would hate.

I also think facebook will try and go the steam route , make a store front that if someone wants to use certain features of the rift they have to agree to publish on and facebook will figure out a way to serve ads into the game .

 

[nutball]

Is a company who's main income source is advertising any better ?

Would be interesting to see what the reaction was had Oculus been bought by Google instead. I suspect it would have been favourable, after all Google are the company who give us lots of free shiny shiny, and they're a much more open and non-evil corporation (allegedly).

 

[DieH@rd]

Abrash jumped from Valve to Oculus
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/introducing-michael-abrash-oculus-chief-scientist/

 

[thatdude90210]

Wasn't Abrash the main VR research guy at Valve? Maybe that will alleviate some of the facebook changing Oculus' direction fear.

 

[Sxotty]

LOL well maybe Armadillo Aerospace will live again. I hope Carmack got some cash out of this deal otherwise it will be a bigger bummer he left id.

 

[hughJ]

Wasn't Abrash the main VR research guy at Valve? Maybe that will alleviate some of the facebook changing Oculus' direction fear.

Pretty much. They also have Forsyth who was also among that Valve VR R&D crew. This definitely speaks to the confidence in the company post-buyout from the staff's perspective, as well as from Valve. Pretty well zero chance now that Valve is hedging anything on potentially having to do VR hardware themselves.

 

[Malo]

At least this pretty much guarantees that we'll have a single industry standard, at least for gaming purposes. No one in their right mind would go up against them now.

 

[Grall]

I suspect it would have been favourable, after all Google are the company who give us lots of free shiny shiny, and they're a much more open and non-evil corporation (allegedly).

Oh yeah, google is so open and non-evil, just look at how they forcibly transformed youtube accounts/comments into google+ accounts/comments just to be able to bump their g+ useage stats and pretend that g+ has any relevance whatsoever. Yes, very open and non-evil indeed.

Seriously, I personally would have the same concerns with google buying oculus as facebook doing it. Their primary concerns, both of them, are making money by selling ads to site viewers. That they both somehow would try and "monetize" (what a horrendous word that, by the way) a VR headset pretty much goes without saying.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Abrash jumped from Valve to Oculus
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/introducing-michael-abrash-oculus-chief-scientist/

In almost feel sorry for Sony having to compete with all the talent and enthusiasm for VR at Oculus now backed by fb's endless bank account and access to the masses.

 

[DieH@rd]

In almost feel sorry for Sony having to compete with all the talent and enthusiasm for VR at Oculus now backed by fb's endless bank account and access to the masses.

I dont think that Sony will have big problems. They have good HW crew, they can attract a lot of devs, they will have 1st party games, and they even have small window to launch first. Plus, Facebook is not as dangerous opponent as MS would be. GI.Biz described that situation perfectly.

Maybe even more importantly Morpheus will have easier plug&play usage, with devs having access to all forms of motion controllers being supported out of the box and already in homes of users [gamepad and PSMove]. Devs for Oculus dont have motion controller standard, which will most likely force PC users to use Hydras. Bad news for novices who will want simplicity. Yoshida said that they will require VR devs to always support users who will have only DS4 controller. That's a bit plus for Sony IMO.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I dont think that Sony will have big problems. They have good HW crew, they can attract a lot of devs, they will have 1st party games, and they even have small window to launch first. Plus, Facebook is not as dangerous opponent as MS would be. GI.Biz described that situation perfectly.

I agree 100% that SOny have less to worry about from fb (who will keep OR in the PC space) than from MS who would make it exclusive to the XB1. But PC gamers should really be rejoicing over that as well. For all the fb animosity out there, just image how it would have gone if MS bought it and made it exclusive to XB1. Wow!

Maybe even more importantly Morpheus will have easier plug&play usage, with devs having access to all forms of motion controllers being supported out of the box and already in homes of users [gamepad and PSMove]. Devs for Oculus dont have motion controller standard, which will most likely force PC users to use Hydras. Bad news for novices who will want simplicity. Yoshida said that they will require VR devs to always support users who will have only DS4 controller. That's a bit plus for Sony IMO.

There's no guarantee of that. Occulus may well come packaged as standard with camera and motion capture controls. If that's the case it would actually have a leg up on Sony since not every PS4 has Move and the Camera.

 

[DieH@rd]

PS4 VR will launch with motion controller support in every game [DS4], which will help not only developers to create better VR experiences for entire user base, but also Sony to bring price down [every PS4 already has DS4, Move is optional]. Not only that, Sony can also offer headset-only SKU for users who already have camera. That SKU pricing without camera and motion controller can prove to be very effective for marketing, giving Sony clear advantage.

If Oculus offers Rift package without motion controller, that will be big disadvantage for them.

 

[Grall]

I'm wondering if the final, production rift will have stereo cameras on the forward face of the goggles, either for AR applications or just seeing what the hell you're doing outside of the game...

 

[pcchen]

I'm wondering if the final, production rift will have stereo cameras on the forward face of the goggles, either for AR applications or just seeing what the hell you're doing outside of the game...

It's important to have a credible body rendered to avoid the "phantom effect" (feeling like you are out of your body). However, speed can be a problem though. It'll be very important to get the video feed into the VR screen in a very short time.

 

[Grall]

However, speed can be a problem though.

Yes, USB cams are often extremely laggy. However, the IR camera that goes with the rift is supposed to be low latency (comparatively anyway) to aid tracking precision and avoiding feelings of seasickness, so this can be done it would seem. I'd assume there's some sort of embedded computer system inside the rift to read sensors and drive the screen and that sort, surely it could also handle the cameras and draw the camera images straight into the rift's LCD screen for low-latency screen updates...