Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Now Open, First Shipments March 28
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The closest one to me is 36 miles away but I don't see myself making the trip.
Well they said they'll add more during the summer, but I get the feeling you guys will see a closer location before I do.
In case you haven't been paying attention, Oculus has been AWFUL with fulfilling preorders (read Backers) of the Rift. Due to supply and logistical issues there's a major backorder list. However, that's not stopping Oculus from selling the same headsets at retail before fulfilling these orders. They're justifying it by saying "Well, just buy one at retail and cancel your preorder!" That's of course assuming you can even GET one when it hits retail. Needless to say, Ben Kuchera, one of the biggest VR fanboys out there, isn't happy.
http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/2/11566444/oculus-rift-pre-order-amazon-best-buy-terrible-idea
http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/2/11566444/oculus-rift-pre-order-amazon-best-buy-terrible-idea
Got my Vive this week, gaming will never be the same. Some amazing stuff. Can't wait to see what future iterations look like as this becomes more accessible.
Jeff Gerstmann speculated that they probably had a contract setup with Best Buy to have them in store by a certain date long before they realized they were going to have a supply issue. That obviously means very little to people who pre-ordered and still haven't received one. It would make more sense that they were doing this to avoid a breach of contract than intentionally trying to piss off people who supported them from the beginning though.
This is one Kickstarter I wish I would have supported. Backers who spent $300 at the beginning got their Rift on day one. I think some of them also received dev kit versions of the earlier hardware a long time ago too.
Ehhh... don't feel too bad. Not like there's a shortage of other games. I think VR will be better once we get the second gen releases of the respective hardwares.
Yeah, but at $300 I would have been willing to be an early adopter. At the current prices I'm not going to do that until actual games I want to play start using it. Everyone says it's an amazing experience but unfortunately it sounds like most of the games are not much more than tech demos you won't want to play more than a couple times.
Yeah that's another issue too. There's no real games that shine or make you say "YES, I MUST own a VR headset." I mean there's only so many speed simulators and First Person horror games you can throw out there before people get bored, and there aren't many other genres of gaming that VR can really enhance so it's not worth crowbarring a game into VR and limit your potential audience. And until VR Porn becomes more widespread that's going to prevent mainstream audiences from adopting it also (well, that along with the high price barrier of entry for PC users.)
Oculus recently released a patch to help curb piracy and also disable any Vive users from using their "exclusive" software. The developer who originally cracked the OR to allow Vive users to play their games ended up being able to crack it again, but in the process also allowed users to basically pirate all Oculus software. Oops.
http://kotaku.com/oculus-rift-piracy-crackdown-actually-makes-piracy-easi-1778108355
http://kotaku.com/oculus-rift-piracy-crackdown-actually-makes-piracy-easi-1778108355
It's real sh!tty of Oculus to make games exclusive to their headset. We are essentially talking about fancy computer monitors here, not game consoles. What they are trying to do would be similar to AMD signing deals to make games run exclusively on AMD GPUs.
In the end I'm not too worried about this because I can't see many big games choosing to sign a deal that would keep them off Steam and put them exclusively on the Oculus store. Luckily Valve is leaving Steam VR open to other headsets like the Rift. I think it would be a much bigger issue if they started locking Steam VR games to the Vive headset.
Apparently Croteam, the developers of Serious Sam and the new VR game, were offered a nearly indescribable amount of money to be a Rift exclusive, but luckily they turned it down.
http://uploadvr.com/serious-sam-oculus-offered-shitton-money-rift-exclusivity/
http://uploadvr.com/serious-sam-oculus-offered-shitton-money-rift-exclusivity/
In case Oculus didn't have enough bad publicity between selling their headsets to consumers before backers got theirs or paying developers for exclusivity or implementing useless DRM on various programs through their separate and unnecessary storefront, it has now been revealed that the founder Palmer Luckey has been funding a Trump organization dedicated to making negative and disparaging memes about Hillary Clinton. Seriously..
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...re-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html
Now I'm not posting this to start a political debate over the candidates, but it is related to the OR in that because of this, many in gaming media have an even more negative impression of the OR platform, and given how much better the Vive is doing now it's certainly not going to help turn things around for them.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...re-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html
Now I'm not posting this to start a political debate over the candidates, but it is related to the OR in that because of this, many in gaming media have an even more negative impression of the OR platform, and given how much better the Vive is doing now it's certainly not going to help turn things around for them.
It definitely doesn't seem like a great business decision and I'm sure Facebook isn't too happy with this becoming news. I don't agree with his political beliefs but this won't be the thing that prevents me from buying an Oculus. The things that would prevent me from buying an Oculus are the high price point, proprietary storefront, lack of games I actually want to play, and the Vive being a better product.
Sure the Vive is more expensive but according to Giant Bomb, who has done tons of VR coverage and special streams of just about every big VR game that comes out for both headsets, the Vive is the much better choice. The room scale features and special controllers make for a much more immersive VR experience than the Xbox One controller that comes with an Oculus.
There is also the store front thing I mentioned before. The Oculus has it's own store while the Vive just uses Steam VR. Lots of games have VR and non VR support and if you buy it from Steam you are usually going to be able to play either way. This includes games you might have already owned that recently added VR support. That makes a lot more sense to me than using a storefront that only sells VR games and might want you to buy a game you already own on Steam to get VR support.
A number of devs have announced they are dropping Oculus Rift support until Palmer steps down.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/vr...palmer-luckey-steps-down?utm_source=mbtwitter
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/vr...palmer-luckey-steps-down?utm_source=mbtwitter
Okay, this is just dumb. As far as I know Palmer Luckey hasn't committed any crimes and I'm not even aware of any bigoted quotes from him. A billionaire paid for $11,000 of advertising for Donald Tump, mostly on Facebook. The only difference between him and all the other billionaires who donate to political funds is that he donated way less money and his money was put towards getting dumb memes as advertisements on Facebook instead of giving it directly to the campaign.
Without trying to start a political debate, I'll be the first to say I can't stand Donald Trump. I still think the idea that these developers will no longer work with Oculus until Palmer Luckey steps down because he supports Trump is ridiculous. He founded the company and he is entitiled to his political beliefs. To try to force him to resign because he supports a different politician than them is absurd.
John Carmack is warning VR Devs that they need to start innovating and stop relying on the "novelty" of VR. Translated, stop making tech demos that are less fun than normal games.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-10-10-john-carmack-says-vr-is-coasting-on-novelty
I do have to say that even if VR cost $100 and my PC could run it, I wouldn't see myself picking it up. And there's just so many barriers to mass adoption, aside from the fact that regardless of which one you want you need to spend at least $500. Issues with the headsets themselves, setting up stuff for whole room VR, people with disabilities, etc etc. Jim Sterling's recent video I think sums up all the issues with VR pretty well IMO.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-10-10-john-carmack-says-vr-is-coasting-on-novelty
I do have to say that even if VR cost $100 and my PC could run it, I wouldn't see myself picking it up. And there's just so many barriers to mass adoption, aside from the fact that regardless of which one you want you need to spend at least $500. Issues with the headsets themselves, setting up stuff for whole room VR, people with disabilities, etc etc. Jim Sterling's recent video I think sums up all the issues with VR pretty well IMO.
If I could get a Vive for the $400-$500 that PSVR charges I would probably buy one. At $100 I wouldn't even hesitate.
The biggest barrier for me (and probably a lot of other people) is price. $800 for the headset I would actually want (Vive) is just too much of an ask. I already have a PC that would be great for VR but most people don't so that $800 barrier can easily become a $1500 barrier on the low end. This high price point is keeping the install numbers low. Low install numbers mean that developers and publishers aren't going to invest large budgets into making AAA VR games. The lack of these AAA VR games makes the $800 seem even more unreasonable. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that all stems from the high price point.
If they were able to bring the price down to $400 I believe that the install base would rapidly grow. Once that base starts to rapidly grow publishers would be more willing to invest bigger budgets into making quality VR games instead of the extremely low budget tech demos we see now. The problem is that $400 is half of what they are charging now. They are a long ways off and I don't see them getting down to that price point any time soon because quality headsets are expensive to produce.
PS VR has solved part of the problem by coming in at a price point I would be more comfortable with. Sony also has reason to get their first party AAA games compatible with VR even if the install base might not justify it at the beginning. The main reason I'm not buying a PS VR is that it isn't compatible with Steam VR. I'm not spending $400 on a headset that only works with my PS4.
The other major problem with it is that there is a reason it is so much cheaper than the other headsets. The tracking isn't nearly as good and the Playstation Move controllers are 2010 tech that doesn't work nearly as well as the Vive controllers or Oculus Touch controllers. The tracking is bad enough to make them feel sick and that's just not what I want after spending that much money. Take a look at the Giant Bomb special and you will see what I'm talking about.
Took the kids by Best Buy yesterday.
They were demo'ing both the Oculus Rift and the Playstation VR.
My older boy tried out the Oculus Rift, and he, myself, and my daughter each tried a different game demo on the Playstation VR. My son tried out Batman Arkham, my daughter tried a carnival game, and I did a space flight game.
I was actually impressed in how well it worked. So it looks like the kids will be getting the Playstation VR for Christmas.
As for Oculus Rift, not so sure about that, as it's $200 more than the Playstation VR, plus it has some beefy hardware requirements, and I'm not 100% certain the computers we have are worthy of it, have to check, as the demo person gave me a card of the website that you can check out your hardware on.
They were demo'ing both the Oculus Rift and the Playstation VR.
My older boy tried out the Oculus Rift, and he, myself, and my daughter each tried a different game demo on the Playstation VR. My son tried out Batman Arkham, my daughter tried a carnival game, and I did a space flight game.
I was actually impressed in how well it worked. So it looks like the kids will be getting the Playstation VR for Christmas.
As for Oculus Rift, not so sure about that, as it's $200 more than the Playstation VR, plus it has some beefy hardware requirements, and I'm not 100% certain the computers we have are worthy of it, have to check, as the demo person gave me a card of the website that you can check out your hardware on.
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