this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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Steam Deck
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Yeah, it's really sad. VR is great for some experiences. There's just two issues with it. The largest is the price. It's pretty expensive for something that doesn't have much content. The second smaller issue is that it's too hard to swap into and out of. I can just sit down at my computer and instantly get into something, but switching to VR takes effort.
The price can probably be solved over time, assuming we keep making VR hardware. The convenience is harder. I don't think there's a solution to that, at least not in the near future.
You can now get refurbished for around $200. Mostly the meta quest 2. I'd be happier with something that isn't meta affiliated, but it's a solid headset. Considering how expensive most of the rest are, getting it down this far is pretty good. Maybe in a decade, there will be more entry headsets at this price point or lower.
Convenience: meta has hand tracking as controllers and can play games by itself so you only need to put the headset on, and theirs is much lighter than the old vives I cut my VR teeth on. The head strap isn't great still for convenience, but there are third party straps that are much easier to put on and take off. The framework for convenient VR is there, but support is dwindling as there's not much money in the VR market compared to the cost vs anything else in games.
I hate that most of this is about meta, but I haven't seen anyone else really making great strides in VR. There's a Chinese company I need to find again which apparently made super light headsets I was going to keep an eye on and forgot.
Unfortunately, my understanding is that Meta's offerings are so cheap because they're making a loss on the hardware to undercut competitors that don't have the resources or desire to do the same.
I don't see them turning a profit on the market after killing their competitors. I don't get their angle. Unless they can offer something truly transformative, they're going to put themselves out of business doing that.
But yeah, they have this all in on VR/AR mentality which I don't see working out. Killing the competition does guarantee no one else makes a good product either.
Eh, I think they also really have an infinite money pump with all of their worldwide products. I don't think they would be able to hold out if VR were more widespread and actually became a market that big players were entering instead of dipping into and then exiting, but with the market the way it is, for people that don't have powerful enough standalone computers to back them up... They're the only product that truly could become the standard as of now. Even if you have a PC capable of running desktop VR, the Quest 2 is incredibly attractive with a reasonably good wifi router and steam link. "And if you have a Quest anyways, you definitely gotta re-buy beat saber because what if I go out to a hotel and wanna play, and hey look this game that I wanted on PC was on sale" and so on.
I say this as the owner of an index and a quest.
Yeah, but I don't think they'll keep it unless it turns a profit. Meta as a whole will always have ads which literally print money for free, but they'll Google the VR line as soon as their lizard overlord gets bored of the metaverse idea. Maybe they'll sell it instead of close it like Google always does, actually... That would be nice.
I am being somewhat exaggerative with word choices.
capitalism <3
Yeah, I had a Vive. The lighthouses have failed now so it's not currently usable, and I didn't use it frequently and am now on Linux and haven't looked into if VR will work for me now, so I haven't gotten a replacement. I've thought about it though. It sucks that even I, who has used VR and enjoyed it, doesn't currently feel the need to have a working headset.
Im going to look into a used headset and support on my device though. I might get back into it.
I get what you are saying but your entire post dances around the actual problem. All of this is fine if there was actually good software. Ive yet to see any killer app or must have software. If there were really good games it would make the hardware short comings less important. Even apple with their typically polished experiences seems to have just dumped their headset on the market and hope for the best.
My comment they were replying to didn't touch this, so they weren't responding to that. However, I disagree we need some "killer app" to make adoption more likely. It'd be great, but I don't see it happening. There's nothing really that is done in VR that can't also be on traditional displays. The advantage is immersion. It just has to be at a price that people find worth it.
People, especially companies, don't like talking about this because it's "obscene" or something, but, like so many things, I think porn is the way to sell VR. It gives an experience that, while still available in traditional formats, is quite different. It's not a "killer app" but does provide distinct advantages not seen anywhere else.
Thank you. Also, kind of fair, but the library probably needs to be bigger before people are willing to adopt too.
I always kind of thought a good desktop system, where wearing the headset is cheaper than getting a new larger monitor or more monitors, but the long term comfort of wearing a headset instead kills that idea pretty strongly right now. Even just a theater experience is kinda meh.
Porn does tend to sell technological advances though.
lighter headsets that work well in MR, so you don't need to take it off to reply to a msg or find your login. you'd leave it on in mixed/augmented reality mode, then swap it back to VR to play your game.
Slowly, we're moving towards that. I'll be very interested to see what comes after the quest 3s / index etc.
Something I wanted to do when I had my Vive working, and I'm unsure if this is actually possible, is integrate the android watch OS into it. It'd be so nice to always have quick access to your device that is integrated into the VR space. I'm not sure why someone hasn't done this yet (assuming they haven't).
I know a startup tried to do phone reflection in VR, that is, to mirror a phone's display into a render layer, and try to use the phone's touchscreen as an input for that 'display'.
they went out of business. I wonder if they ever got their patents figured out. seemed like promising tech.