Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality
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That's what's happened here. Luckey's saying it was a screw up with the messaging, but it wasn't. They changed their plan from affordable VR to premium experience, without telling anyone until now. Because, I guess, they new it'd burst their hype bubble. If they had said $600 a year or two ago, interest would have plummeted. But the $350 pricepoint kept everyone eagre until now. And getting everyone's hopes up like that, OVR should expect the backlash they now get.
tha'ts fine, but they should have told everyone that's what they're doing. Or have two options - my preferred solution - still offering the cheap-and-cheerfuol $350 for those who were anticipating that option based on the past years of public OVR development.
I wouldn't necessarily be so cynical on my assesment. My guess is oculus always wanted to do the best possible rift but the lack of money was forcing them to use off the shelf parts. If they had kept doing that they could have shipped earlier and cheaper before competition arrives.
Once facebook came to picture that made it possible to make upfront commitment to invest in customized displays, lenses, mechanics etc. Especially display customization takes a lot of money upfront as the people creating the displays want to be paid early not when product ships. This also likely caused delays to possible earliest shipping date.
Now that there is emerging competition in vr market I'm sure someone will make the not so good quality cheap vr headset to please the masses. I just hope that doesn't lead to 3d tv effect where people go "I don't like this shit".
Oculus did do good on gearvr and mobile. That gives them a sure foot on the entry price category.
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Rift obviously cannot be mass market product today. The recommended minimum spec pc IS expensive and even hardcore gamers might have to upgrade for it. For example I bought geforce 780 when it came out. Cost was somewhat over 500$ and it still is rather relevant on most games on 1080p resolution. However that card is under the spec for rift and I might feel obliged to upgrade to some new 500$+gpu to be able to enjoy rift as it is meant to be enjoyed.
Rift being 399 or 599$ doesn't change the cost of whole setup that much and either way mass market people wouldn't have the pc to run the games without investing heavily.
The fckup is in messaging. This is still early days and early adopter phase on pc vr. For mass market wait 2-3years or possibly casuals could jump to mobile vr.
Rift being 399 or 599$ doesn't change the cost of whole setup that much and either way mass market people wouldn't have the pc to run the games without investing heavily.
The fckup is in messaging. This is still early days and early adopter phase on pc vr. For mass market wait 2-3years or possibly casuals could jump to mobile vr.
Seems like a lot of gamers felt they got punched in the gut with that price tag.
I don't see why they don't sell the current development hardware as a cheaper sku. They built a whole development community built around that hardware.
I assume the retail model has beefed up specs but if they just taking the dev kit hardware and sprucing up the exterior or the build quality while racheting up the price then thats a horrible move.
I don't see why they don't sell the current development hardware as a cheaper sku. They built a whole development community built around that hardware.
I assume the retail model has beefed up specs but if they just taking the dev kit hardware and sprucing up the exterior or the build quality while racheting up the price then thats a horrible move.
When they changed their intention, they should have let everyone know. Everyone was expecting a $400 tops device, and OVR used the figure as part of their PR campaign, constantly referring to it as Mr. Fox says. What if you're a dev who decides a $350 VR headset is going to sell gangbusters so commits to a VR game, and then hear it's going to cost $600 and your audience is going to be a fraction of what you were hoping for?
It's bad form to string people along. Even if unintententional and they've been umming and erring for years over what market to target, it's bad form and immature. If the intention was a premium headset, OVR should have announced it as soon as possible. If they truly were wanting to release an entry level device, provide one as described. As I say above, there's nothing wrong with two tiers of product. Give the budget consumer a budget experience and the premium consumer a premium experience.
One of the fundamental unhappy emotions is disappoinment, the counter to hope/expectation. If you are generating hope, you need to follow through or all that good feeling will turn to disappointment. Either don't give people hope (develop behind close doors, don't speculate on price/performance, release when done at whatever price, etc), or stick to your word. Or accept the outrage as the consequence of one's actions.
It's bad form to string people along. Even if unintententional and they've been umming and erring for years over what market to target, it's bad form and immature. If the intention was a premium headset, OVR should have announced it as soon as possible. If they truly were wanting to release an entry level device, provide one as described. As I say above, there's nothing wrong with two tiers of product. Give the budget consumer a budget experience and the premium consumer a premium experience.
One of the fundamental unhappy emotions is disappoinment, the counter to hope/expectation. If you are generating hope, you need to follow through or all that good feeling will turn to disappointment. Either don't give people hope (develop behind close doors, don't speculate on price/performance, release when done at whatever price, etc), or stick to your word. Or accept the outrage as the consequence of one's actions.
It feels like beating a dead horse with a stick. Palmer has acknowledged that the communication was bad and should have been done differently. What more is there to do? They cannot magically make it cheaper at this point. If it wasn't for the price of rift people would be complaining about the minimum spec pc requirement, rift not working on laptops(not even the gaming ones) etc.
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/07/oculus-apology-rift-price-messaging/
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/07/oculus-apology-rift-price-messaging/
Btw. there is no sign yet that rift is selling poorly. If you preorder now you will get your device on may. The first manufacturing batch was sold out in 14 minutes and the shipping date has been slipping further to future from then on. Rift will apparently be also available in some retail places but in low volume.
I'm not so sure cheap rift could have sold any more on the first few months. I guess the reality will be apparent come next christmas, is rift still selling? Also by that time it's possible the manufacturing has been tweaked enough to make the price somewhat less.
edit. The estimated shipping date is now in june not may. Seems that there is still more orders coming in.
I'm not so sure cheap rift could have sold any more on the first few months. I guess the reality will be apparent come next christmas, is rift still selling? Also by that time it's possible the manufacturing has been tweaked enough to make the price somewhat less.
edit. The estimated shipping date is now in june not may. Seems that there is still more orders coming in.
They're up to June now. Although it's difficult to tell how many of those are from pre-orderers like eastmen that were frantically mashing on their keyboards while they ordered
What I think I can say though is that it's been clear now for several years that the $300-400 price point was a lot under what the market would bear. At $350 Oculus was having to limit how many units could be purchased per order due to the heavy amount of reselling, even to the extent of blocking all orders to China for a while. If you consider Ebay to be a more honest representation of the market then these devices have always been valued well above $500, with DK2s still going now for more than double their original list price.
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That's not the issue! It may be a great product at a great price, and may sell gangbusters still. It's the way it's been built up that's the problem and one that needs to be addressed.
If you don't make enough noise, it won't change anything. We need other companies to make sure they get the 'messaging' right. We might even get OVR to consider a low cost alternative in the DK2 devkit as some are suggesting. But shrugging your shoulders and accpeting wrongs without discussing them, let alone actually making a bit of noise, isn't going to achieve anything.
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The apology is simply damage control for a drastic change of policy (if there ever was such a thing since the Facebook acquisition) that the Oculus team took with full knowledge of the backlash they would receive.
That said, criticism is still valid for the fact that they steered the media and customers with blatantly false information about the price in order to get free propaganda from tech enthusiasts.
To believe that they did this on good faith, without disclosing the real price up until the moment they opened up the pre-orders, is being extremely naive IMHO.
Just as a reminder, the latest comment that Luckey made about price had been in November, where he said the CV1's price would be close to DK2's ($350). He obviously lied then as consciously as he lied yesterday when he wrote that the $250 price difference is coming from the OLEDs, optics and mechanical parts alone.
The reddit AMA was definitely made by/through a PR team, unlike his tweets from earlier that day.
They're up to June now. Although it's difficult to tell how many of those are from pre-orderers like eastmen that were frantically mashing on their keyboards while they ordered
What I think I can say though is that it's been clear now for several years that the $300-400 price point was a lot under what the market would bear. At $350 Oculus was having to limit how many units could be purchased per order due to the heavy amount of reselling, even to the extent of blocking all orders to China for a while. If you consider Ebay to be a more honest representation of the market then these devices have always been valued well above $500, with DK2s still going now for more than double their original list price.
One has consider supply when talking about whether or not $599 is any where near the price point VR as a technology can thrive as a retail product. Occulus Rift as development kits limited to 200K units over a couple of years may very well support a $500-$600 price point. But 200k over a couple of years isn't going to drive AA or AAA devs to the VR space and isn't likely to drive down the cost of the hardware as manufacturers want volume in return for cheaper margins.
http://imgur.com/a/PO9Z7
my biggest worry is touch. How much is that going to cost now ? $400 ? They aren't announcing the price and since its delayed till the second half of 2016 we might have our rifts before touch. Which locks us into whatever price they come up with in their head
my biggest worry is touch. How much is that going to cost now ? $400 ? They aren't announcing the price and since its delayed till the second half of 2016 we might have our rifts before touch. Which locks us into whatever price they come up with in their head
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Exactly. There's little room for calling this bad messaging. Oculus was using the same expensive optics and oled screens at trade shows for months, while they reiterated the 350 ballpark. This is not a last minute change to increase the quality, it's the device they were using to sell to the public.
It's very clever. Every consumer and journalists writing comparative reports of Oculus, PSVR, and Vive at trade shows were operating under the assumption of around 350 or 399 for all three competitors, many giving a slight edge to Oculus on that premise (it's a bit better for the same price, so it's obviously the best product, right?). If they all have similar engineering limitations (which I talked about in the other thread), Oculus successfully stole the show by using a 600 device masquerading as a 350 one. I can only imaging competitors engineers seeing the device and price target, and think "this can't be right" but unable to announce their own price until Oculus corrects it's.. uh ... messaging.
I am still upset that when I tried to place my order I kept getting an error before the final checkout page, yet they put a pend on my card 4-times (the $1.00 thing). This was 9-minutes into the process of the pre-order. I tried today on a different web-browser and did not get the same error, and it said June for the delivery date. So now I am kicking myself for not trying three browsers yesterday, I only tried two. Haha
I sent them a request shortly after it kept giving me the errors on checkout, but I doubt they will honor where I was in line. I don't want to order again until they tell me for sure what happened, plus with it being June I might just now wait to see what the Vive Pre is going to do and the so called retail locations. Amazon has a pre-order alert for the Rift for example.
Ranting aside, the price did shock me but I was somewhat expecting them to go higher. Once accounting gets involved and starts talking to legal who starts talking to the executives things tend to change, so I can easily see how the original vision and idea of a lower price point got lost. I don't blame Palmer, his goals got lost when lots of other people got into the mix of decision making. (just a guess) But now PR has to spin his older messages, make him spin his older messages, etc. Blah all around. I almost get the feeling they will play the new product next year at the same price, while then lowering the price of the V1 device.
I have owned some older Sony headsets that cost more than the Rift and did way less, so I do worry about the pricing on PSVR. Valve might match Rift? Maybe HTC has the supply chain figured out and they can undercut Rift with a good supply for the April release.
I sent them a request shortly after it kept giving me the errors on checkout, but I doubt they will honor where I was in line. I don't want to order again until they tell me for sure what happened, plus with it being June I might just now wait to see what the Vive Pre is going to do and the so called retail locations. Amazon has a pre-order alert for the Rift for example.
Ranting aside, the price did shock me but I was somewhat expecting them to go higher. Once accounting gets involved and starts talking to legal who starts talking to the executives things tend to change, so I can easily see how the original vision and idea of a lower price point got lost. I don't blame Palmer, his goals got lost when lots of other people got into the mix of decision making. (just a guess) But now PR has to spin his older messages, make him spin his older messages, etc. Blah all around. I almost get the feeling they will play the new product next year at the same price, while then lowering the price of the V1 device.
I have owned some older Sony headsets that cost more than the Rift and did way less, so I do worry about the pricing on PSVR. Valve might match Rift? Maybe HTC has the supply chain figured out and they can undercut Rift with a good supply for the April release.
I don't understand why people keep talking about the price point. It's pointless IMHO.
It's no logical to assume that Oculus deliberately talked about a lower price point to keep the buzz going. If Oculus said that the price point would be US$1,000 initially, do you think people would simply say, hey, it's so expensive it's not my thing! Not likely. People would simply assume that the price will be lower at some point and kept talking about it. Just look at Tesla: it's out of most people's budget for a car, yet people are still talking about it.
The point is that people buy the hype of VR. It has nothing to do with price. It's simply because people want it. Heck, even if the price is ridiculously high (such as US$10K for a pair) people would still talk about the possibility of a renting model (e.g. some sort of a VR arcade). And now people are arguing over something like US$100 or US$200.
As someone who care about the future of VR, I'm more interested in how the eco-system will develop. Will there be some standard SDK for all VR headsets? Or will everything be fragmented? Or will one product rule all? Isn't that something better worth discussion rather than some trivial price expectation?
It's no logical to assume that Oculus deliberately talked about a lower price point to keep the buzz going. If Oculus said that the price point would be US$1,000 initially, do you think people would simply say, hey, it's so expensive it's not my thing! Not likely. People would simply assume that the price will be lower at some point and kept talking about it. Just look at Tesla: it's out of most people's budget for a car, yet people are still talking about it.
The point is that people buy the hype of VR. It has nothing to do with price. It's simply because people want it. Heck, even if the price is ridiculously high (such as US$10K for a pair) people would still talk about the possibility of a renting model (e.g. some sort of a VR arcade). And now people are arguing over something like US$100 or US$200.
As someone who care about the future of VR, I'm more interested in how the eco-system will develop. Will there be some standard SDK for all VR headsets? Or will everything be fragmented? Or will one product rule all? Isn't that something better worth discussion rather than some trivial price expectation?
