nope, I honestly think NFTs/Crypto/Blockchain/Web3 stuff was a bigger bubble, in that it was a technology that has practically NO real use.
AI is definitely more useful. Yes, the money pumped into it is possibly far more than into Web3 stuff, but I think the big players like MS, Alphabet and so on would not invest heavily into it, if they did not see huge potential.
High interest in something isn't the same as bubble. Where's the overvalued assets that are out of touch with reality? The guy quoted in the article even referenced Google losing value after the lackluster launch of Bard, which is kind of the opposite of a bubble. The dotcom bubble wasn't a bubble because everyone was talking about the Internet... it was a bubble because companies were severely overvalued for putting literally anything on the web without having functional business models. The businesses were the bubble, not the Internet.
Could AI become a bubble? Possibly. But we're nowhere near anything like that at this point in time. It's just got mindshare, not overvalued assets.
I mean it depends how you define AI really.... All these chatbots for every nice subject are definitely not going to be maintained when the hype dies out. But we've been using AI for years before this and will use it for years after... Chatbots aren't the only thing AI can do
It'll be hilarious in several years time when they've completely abandoned the entire VR multiverse concept, when they have to explain to people what their company name means.
"Well you see, our king lordship decided that we must set fire to several hundred billion dollars, there was nothing else we could do with it, so we did."
As much as I hate it because it's Meta, they're the only ones still currently pushing mainstream VR tech forwards, and I like VR. I'd love to buy a headset from any other manufacturer, but there's no affordable alternative. I'm in a weird position here. I don't want them to fail out of the VR market because things would stagnate hard, but I also don't want them to succeed in their vision of it.
I feel like the cost alone pushes it out of the mainstream tech category. It's not even in the same product class as the Quest Pro, let alone the Quest 2 or 3. Even if it sells well, I don't think it will bring more development to affordable headsets.
It's cheap for what it is. High resolution (lower than Vision Pro) VR headsets are already expensive. Just the display from someone else is probably $2K. No one else can pass through the real world in full resolution/color with hyper low latency, either, and all that's before being a full fledged computer of capability.
It's not the mass market version, but the pricing is aggressive for the hardware.
Apple's apparently also targeting cheaper headsets but not at first. I'm real curious what those would price out at and what kind of compromises that will come with compared to the higher end stuff they're making.
I gotta say, I forgot that existed but I'm glad you pointed that out! At least there's another out there if things go south with Meta. I don't have a PlayStation myself, but it's great there would still be someone out there innovating.
It’s tethered, uncomfortable (even stock quest2 was more comfortable for me and now I have third party accessories that make it even more comfortable), and you can’t pcvr. Can’t recommend unless you’re a ps5 user, and even then the number of games available is very small.
For gaming, it’s one of the more immersive experiences ever. But I haven’t put on my headset in about a year because playing flatscreen is just so much more convenient
Yeah, I got a Samsung Odyssey HMD cheap (for a VR headset, ~$300) while they were in production and I used my headset to play Half-Life: Alyx, Phasmophobia, and Boneworks. Alyx was very well polished (for a VR game) and nothing came close to that. The rest is varying levels of jank and it will take about 20 mins to set up the headset every time when I could boot up any other game in less than a minute.
And on top of that anything that wasn't those 3 games just didn't feel like it was worth the work to play for me. Boneworks got close to Alyx in terms of polish but if someone was prone to motion sickness at all it would be unplayable. I haven't ever been motion sick in my life but my stomach turned the first time the game "dropped" me down a hole. And Phasmo while it was far more immersive and scary in the headset it just wasn't worth the hassle of setting up the headset only to get a headache in 20 mins of playing because the glare was not great on my headset making dark rooms hard to see in. Better headsets might fix a lot of those issues but the price point, ease of use, and QoL features are not in favor of it ever being more than a party gimmick.
The average person isn't going to want to pay what I did for a few good games that might make them motion sick and a lot of janky garbage. And now most headsets are more expensive than that unless you want the Meta ones that are locked down.
The Reverb G2 can be had for also $300 on sale and the experience isn't nearly as bad as you describe. There's also tons of great VR content out there, it's just not advertised.
Some of my favorites:
Vertical Shift: fairly short and barebones but it's got a full range of powers for you to play with around an open world. Fun VR mechanics worth the sale price, despite the minimal gameplay.
You mentioned Boneworks and Phasmophobia which are also both a lot of fun, but motion sickness and multiplayer can make them not as convenient to always be ready to play. Of course, if we mention Boneworks then we have to talk about Duck Season. Blade and Sorcery should be on the list as well, it's just too good to pass up. And well, if we're talking about B&S we can't ignore GORN.
Pistol Whip is basically a rhythm John Wick simulator. Very worth the cost of the game, lots of content, multiple free content updates - just a stellar game through and through. Also much more engaging than BeatSaber IMO, never been a fan of flailing my arms to slash blocks on beat. But shooting and dodging? Give me more!
Bonus: They just released a map creator. The life of the game is virtually infinite now, so that's exciting :)
Superhot VR pre-content removal. Still a great game without the ending though.
V-Racer Hoverbike is a great VR game oriented Hoverbike Racing. Great sense of speed and feel, motion sickness is somewhat a given given the nature of the game...
Rez Infinite for anyone who remembers Rez for the PS2.
Pavlov VR is also a good popular fun game for your VR FPS itches. For more, there's Into the Radius, Arizona Sunshine, ARK and ADE, Naked Sun, Bandit Point, Risk of Rain 2 VR (mod).
Speaking of mods, Subnautica in VR...
And one of my favorite pass-times, Holo-ball! It's basically racquetball :)
There's a couple party games that are fun as well, Wii Sports style with Pure Bowl VR, NVIDIA's VR Funhouse, Tennis Arcade VR. All pretty decent (particularly compared to others that are available). Oh, also check out VRNoid which has brickbreaker and Hyper Psychic Gauntlets for a unique game. You can also play all your NES roms in VR with 3DSenVR which is pretty awesome. While we're here, give Metroid Prime a playthrough with Dolphin VR, or all 3 if you get it running :)
Then there's the whole world of productivity/not quite gaming programs.
I love, love love SynthVR. It's just one of the smartest uses for VR, period. Create your virtual environment and just make it a giant music setup. Absolutely stellar. Similarly, Vinyl Reality for using your own music to DJ and mix! There's also a drumming program called Paradiddle which is awesome for the same reasons. For painting, Vermillion.
If you've got a HOTAS or a racewheel there's also a number of games that work great in tandem, Elite Dangerous for your space trucker sims (for this one, be sure to get SCRCPY for your android phone and run XS Overlay or OVR Toolkit to bring your phone with you in VR), Star Wars Squadrons, Drone Hero.
All in all - I'm with you. I bought a ton of VR games and these are just some of the most memorable, but they are all very easy to jump in and play, no setup required with fairly minimal issues regarding compatibility or potential for motion sickness.
Especially the hobby oriented one, any music and art programs in VR are just such great concepts that are executed very well.
As an OOOOLD geek who has listened to the promise of VR for decades, it's AR I'm excited about. Give me lightweight glasses that provide an overlay to interact with either everything or even only specific things and I am so there.
I don't mean something like Google Glass, I mean more like an affordable, compact Hololens. (and I hate MS, but damn Hololens is cool)
Edit: I probably used a couple too many 'O's there. I'm OOLD, not OOOOLD yet. ;-)
Had the opportunity to try out and develop for the hololens 2. I don't dig it at all. It's still big, has a tiny field of view, and when I compare it to VR, it's so much less immersive. Not that it's not impressive technology - it totally is. The best IMO would probably be a mix of both - high FOV, direct, no-camera passthrough that can be blacked out on demand. Meanwhile, VR is king, although a bit of a niche because of all the setup, required room etc.
I was just using it as the only example I know of that has really demonstrated some of what AR can do. I agree (based only on what I've seen) that it's not ready for primetime, and plus it's expensive.
However - my son has a Quest 2, we've played it, I love it. But whereas I can't imagine wanting to spend my day in VR all day every day, even if it were smaller and lighter, I would LOVE to reach the point before I die where everyone has some normal looking glasses (or even contacts) that are adding a functional or decorative (but mostly functional) layer over everything they do all day long - that seems both useful and futuristic in a way that could be a paradigm shift as big or bigger than smartphones were.
VR is cool, it's fun, and I'm sure it will get cooler and more fun - but while I am guessing it really will finally revolutionize gaming someday, and may also revolutionize very specific industrial or medical uses, AR seems (to me) like it's got a lot more potential to become ubiquitous and life-changing for more people in more circumstances.
Lol, but I get that. A proper affordable heads up display will add so much more value to my life. I ride motorcycles and that is where it can be really useful. A Kickstarter tried ot a while ago with a helmet,but that flopped badly. A pair of glasses that will fit in my helmet, beaming useful info to my eyeballs could be lifesaving.
I had a long rural night ride a while back and it was bloody tricky navigating with the mounted phone. Not out of choice, more of a needs must scenario. The Gaiman map app was very useful in indicating the road ahead, bit the split attention needed was insane.
Really don't agree with you on that. I think consumer VR has a bright future but some big technical hurdles to clear first. Primarily comfort and image quality. It may take 10 years but it'll get there.
Every single person I've shown VR to has thought it was fucking amazing and was surprised how good it already is and this was just a Quest 2.
I want a VR rig like the gaming devices in that TNG episode where everyone got addicted to the games. Lightweight, overlaid onto the real world, and beamed directly into your eyeballs.
I'm only interested in the gaming at the moment, so I'm not necessarily looking for it to solve issues with using a computer. Fully immersive games are pretty cool, and being able to play beat saber is exactly why I like it. Things like that and Half Life: Alyx are uniquely suited to VR, and you can get more out of them than you could on a monitor.
I tend to agree, we had some some with the Rift S, but it’s been probably a year since we’ve put it on. When I wanna game I wanna relax, and VR just requires too much movement to be something I wanna do after work. Superhot is fun tho.
I can see consumer VR having a couple killer apps that could make it (maybe) worth it. The first is walking through driving trips. It's extremely helpful when going to a new city to be able to walk through your route to get a better feel for what it looks like, how the lanes are laid out, etc.
The second is doing 3D design work. Give me a simple way to scan my house and then let me see what it looks like if I knock a wall out, or move the furniture around. I haven't found a way to do this easily yet, but it should be fairly straightforward considering how the Quest's boundary cameras work.
But, yeah, beyond some beat saber or super hot are fun but ultimately not worth it. (And I got mine for free.)
I mean, talking specifically of the Quest Pro, it was too expensive with a lot of half baked features at launch. It's main feature being pass through, and that's probably the most complained about thing from reviewers. So this news isn't really surprising. As for VR itself, it may be a niche, but it's still a growing market. A veeerry slowly growing market.
Consumer VR as currently envisioned is not going going to ever get out of the niche it’s in.
You mean, with Oculus Quest 2 being a cheap headset offering great performances and satisfying many customers (10m units sold in nov. 2021), with many good and great games being ported, major video game editors publishing games with VR support, and headset appearing in museums and other cultural places?
Maybe Apple' and other « pro » headset sold at outrageous prices are not going out of the niche they are, but affordable VR is a thing many people use. Majors exhibitions now often have VR discoveries for everyone and games are of a great quality for anyone taking more than 2 minutes to find what they like (so beyond beat saber and demos). Meanwhile, AR is nowhere to be seen despite Microsoft, Google and Apple' big investments in APIs, OS support and hardware.
The move is a wise one from Meta: they focus on affordable yet great quality headset that anyone can buy instead of focusing « pro » market which, in reality, doesn't have a market. I haven't heard of any company or cultural places willing to buy any of these « pro » stuff given how expensive they are. They instead buy from the many affordable brands like HP or Samsung and, obviously, Meta.
It's like connected watch: nobody really needed them, they took time to kick off, but affordable ones are now everywhere, not only for tech-savvy people.
Apple will do the same I’m sure after they release their Vision Pro headset. People still aren’t totally sold on VR so there will need to be a race to the bottom before we can start climbing back up to high end headsets.
Apple’s headset is a new thing, with a lot more features than VR. We’ll have to give it time to really know if it will find a market.
VR’s main issue is price I think, because most people don’t want to spend a grand on a gaming peripheral system. So the VR market is a niche but seems to be going well from what I can see in the Steam store. I’ve been playing mostly VR games since I got an Index set, because it’s a lot more interesting and fun overall than regular 2D games. The fighting games are good exercise too.
I picked up a used psvr pretty cheap as an intro to see if vr will hold my attention long-term before dropping a few grand on an index and pc to run it, only for the novelty to wear off the next year… I wouldn’t be able to justify getting a nice setup without this intermediate step.
I know the psvr tracking is very imperfect, and the games are older/less refined, but I’m considering it an entry level model based on the price point ($120 for headset, controllers, camera, and cords/connectors, tho ofc that doesn’t include the console or games). For that, it’s pretty good.
VR’s issue isn’t just price. It’s obtrusiveness. You can watch TV or play a game in a room with others and often with other things going on. With VR, you need more or less a total commitment to isolation. That inherently limits It to niche users.
My Quest has basically been picking up dust since the day I got it because my life isn’t conducive to shutting out the world.
That sounds like a problem that you might have if you live in a war zone or something. But anyone else who has some downtime can easily jump into a VR game and have a blast.
I guess another situation that would make VR hard to use is if you have dozens of small creatures running around near your feet. If you’re raising an army of cats or ferrets, something like that.
Yep that’s no problem to accomplish and still use VR if you wanted to. Nobody said you have to neglect your kids to use it, you just might have to wait until they’re in bed or away.
One of the biggest issues I encountered with mine was simply needing space. Nobody wants to rearrange all the furniture in their living room every time they want to play a video game. It caters almost entirely to people with large houses or spare rooms, where they can dedicate an entire space to VR. Because if you need all the furniture up against the walls to play VR, that doesn’t necessarily work when you also want to use the space as a living room, office, or den. Because the alternative is constantly hitting walls, furniture, ceiling fans, etc…
And that’s a very tight demographic, because (on top of being very expensive) it automatically excludes pretty much anyone who lives in a city or small/mid-sized apartment/townhome.
I have a custom gaming rig and an index. I don’t play it. We used it a bit when we first got it. Then it got put away because it wasn’t being used much, and it’s not fun having sensors, a headset, wires, cord suspension rigging, gaming rig etc. strewn about a large spare room (which most people don’t have), and I don’t feel like getting it back out. It’s just a level of commitment that is too much for me to bother. I’m not suggesting I’m like other consumers, but I feel like people simply don’t care enough to deal with VR until it’s fully fleshed out, easy, wireless, lightweight, affordable with a plethora of games. Which might be quite a while from now.
Aside from the easy part, and a game selection that’s clearly less than pancake, wireless with the Q2 is cheap, wireless (even for PCVR), and stupid fun. Setup is still a bit onerous as nobody in the money chain has a reason to make it easy. OTOH, a $40 router, $10 for virtual desktop, and a balling game PC is all you really need.
I rarely have more than an hour or two for gaming at a times. So the weight of the headset and any battery life issues are moot.
You summed it up exactly. I had a vive and oculus. I barely used them. Only when people came over to try it. Eventually just sold them both as they were collecting dust.
Apple has infinite money to burn on failed projects. The Apple Watch sold very poorly the first few years it was out. Now they’re literally the most sold watch on the planet.
They called this headset “Pro” because they’re 100% going to release a cheaper model in two years and be like “We figured it out guys! Same shit, half the price!” And they’ll call it the Vision Plus or some bullshit.
Apple is touting AR for its headset, but it drops into VR with the twist of a knob. It will never sell in volume at that price, but there are already people lining up to get one.
I want it bad. It's not cheap and I absolutely respect the price tag, but there's a bunch of first/best in class features that change what it can do.
It's too big to just wear in your day to day, but the resolution and responsiveness in the passthrough combined with a very comfortably powered laptop chip allow for all kinds of cool stuff that you couldn't do on other headsets. Clearly seeing your environment while also being able to replace whatever and have sufficient resolution for at least intermediate sized clean text is a lot in that package.
Yes, but if you’re willing to drop $1k on a non-gaming VR headset you’re probably also willing to drop $3k. Might as well spend the extra and get the premium product if you’re going to pay the premium price (or so the thinking is likely to go).
What if it was all just a distraction all along, made so that people wouldn't associate every service they've bought quite so strongly with their own failing platform.
The meta verse never made sense anyway. Technology is about making stuff simpler, how is going to a virtual store inside a 3D environment simpler than going to a website? What sort of benefit does it being 3D add?
It’s just a bunch of extra overhead (both operating and using) and no one will use it. The meta verse would never evolve beyond things like VR Chat.
I think browsing in 3D is a lot more pleasant. I'd be extremely tempted to make myself a virtual library to browse my book library if the Apple Vision Pro resolution ends up being enough to make text crisp enough for comfortable reading. There's a reason I still go to physical bookstores or library on occasion to browse. It's different than scrolling a list on a page.
Fair, but I don’t see how navigating a virtual three-dimensional mall is going to be more efficient than just ordering stuff online.
The up-side of visiting a real mall would be the ability to view objects, touch them, smell them, and so forth. You’re also be able to purchase the object on the spot and bring it home with you. VR doesn’t really offer that though. Maybe you’d get a rough idea of the size of an object but you wouldn’t be able to say, try it on or smell it, and you’d still have to wait for it to be delivered to you.
Honestly, the biggest problem with the Quest headsets is that they're made by Facebook. Sorry, "Meta". The Quest 2 stand-alone headset would be an obvious recommendation to anyone curious about virtual reality if it weren't a Mark Zuckerberg product.
Yep. It kills me, but I won't do it. It otherwise is a nice little piece of tech, but the price of dealing with Facebook is a lot bigger deal to me than the price tag in cash.
It's a neat, young tech that unfortunately still hasn't been given a fair shot (it's being used as a bunch of get-rich-quick schemes by most). I was hoping Meta would continue to develop it and gain some integrity karma, even at least as a very small team/project. At least a lot of progress has been made this round of vr hype. Maybe in 20-30 years, another wave will happen and it'll actually take root. I'd like to see VR actually take hold and be as cool as the sci-fi stuff in my lifetime, or even proof of concept before I die, knowing that it'll probably happen.
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