Posted on 07/11/2017 10:56:57 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s early enthusiasm for virtual reality, the technology has stubbornly remained a hard sell for Facebook (50 Smartest Companies 2017). Now, in yet another sign that VR is failing to capture the imagination of the public, the company has just cut the price of its Oculus Rift hardware for the second time this year.
For the next six weeks, the Oculus Rift headset and its matching controllers will cost just $399. That’s $400 less than when it first hit the market, and $200 less than when its price was first slashed in March. It means that the Rift now costs less than the package offered by its cheapest rival, Sony, whose PlayStation VR currently totals $460 including headset and controllers.
Even so, it’s not clear that it will be enough to lure people into buying a Rift. A year ago, our own Rachel Metz predicted that the Rift would struggle against Sony’s offering because the former requires a powerful (and expensive) gaming computer to run, while the latter needs just a $350 PlayStation 4 game console.
Jason Rubin, vice president for content at Oculus, tells Reuters that the reduction isn’t a sign of weak product sales, but rather a decision to give the headset more mass market appeal now that more games are available. Don’t believe it: this is the latest in a string of bad news for the firm, which has also shut down its nascent film studio, shuttered in-store demo stations of its hardware, and stumped up $250 million as part of a painful intellectual property lawsuit in the last six months.
Of course, nobody said that rolling out VR would be easy. Three years after Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that it would probably take 10 years or more for VR to reach the mass market. But if prices have to keep falling like this, it looks like VR may be a tougher sell than even Zuck imagined.
It’s not so much the cost of the Rift, but the cost of the computer to run it.
You need an Nvidia 970 or better video card (or equivalent) as a minimum. Your average mom’s-basement-dwelling jobless plastic-banana good-time rock’n’roller punk can’t afford that.
So if they’re trying to get market share, this helps. It’s the software that will generate the most profits, but if there aren’t enough sets out there then the software developers might not engage.
Been thinking about getting VR. Not likely oculus but one of them. Tried a game on HTC Viva and am very intrigued.
All the VR graphics I have seen look like something from 1992. Definitely not ready for prime time. When they can give me Skyrim graphics, then we’ll talk. But that may have to wait for quantum computers.
AR (augmented reality) has more promise, and there are more tech companies engaging in producing hardware and software towards getting AR widely accepted.
I ain't no eeeconomist, but sounds ta me like free market capitalism at work.
I'm shocked... really. d;^)
I have the Oculus with the Touch controllers — get the fastest computer you can afford. I bought one with the GTX 1080 card — liquid-cooled, insanely fast. Very smooth, never misses a frame.
It’s worth having the Oculus just to have Google Earth VR, not to mention all the Touch-enabled titles.
I don’t think so. I remember 1992 pretty well.
Only one problem: Samsung may get their first with their Gear VR headset combined with the Galaxy S8 (and soon Galaxy Note 8) cellphones.
Yeah, it’s not even that good.
>You need an Nvidia 970 or better video card (or equivalent) as a minimum. Your average mom’s-basement-dwelling jobless plastic-banana good-time rock’n’roller punk can’t afford that.
The problem isn’t so much that ... it’s that the stratospheric rise in cryptocurrencies has taken a $220 Nvidia 1060 and turned it into a $420 Nvidia 1060. Mr. Jobless, if he’s bought a fast GPU, is using it to mine Bitcoin or Ethereum, not do VR.
Update: Just saw Ethereum prices dropped 50% just now (!!) but I don’t think it’ll hold that low. “50%” means that it’s under $200 vs. the $8 (yes, 8) it was at the start of the year.
You clearly haven’t seen games like The Climb. Absolutely fantastic, and pulse-pounding.
They just need to get World of Skycraft or Medal of Call of Battlething ported over to it and watch the money roll in. Without the big titles, or big t ... something else, they’ll be missing out on the big money.
i bought a 960 a while back then found out about the 970 soon later.
Whatever, VR isn’t going anywhere..
Or Robo Recall, my favorite so far. When I play it, I’m moving around so much I sweat like I’m on a treadmill. Fantastic game. And it ranks your performance for each level against all other registered players in the world.
I’ve played a few multiplayer games but since I only have weak wifi to the host computer I get my butt kicked because of latency. Or something....
Some of the Microsoft stores have a demo set up to try the Oculus. Or maybe not, if the article is right.
I love having friends over who’ve never tried it — lots of oohs and aahs. The best testimony to how much different and fun it is.
I think the biggest problem with VR isn’t even mentioned — many people get motion sickness from playing some of the action titles. A little too realistic for certain situations.
I want to tour the world in VR.
Shop in VR.
Tour the Titanic, witness it’s sinking in VR
Watch movies with far away buds in VR
tour the pyramids, other cool places in VR
Play Battlefield in VR
Unlimited potential....
It looks great but it requires an expensive gaming rig to run it.
All at a time when gaming is being conducted on smart phones and tablets.
It’s just a bit too soon, soon enough you’ll be able to run something like the Oculus through your smart phone.
A smart phone blows away a 1999 gaming computer in computing horsepower.
VR, especially goggled cut off from the world VR, is the opposite direction to how entertainment consumption is going. People are looking for more multitasking, more ability to interact with people during entertainment. Then of course there’s the fact that VR just can’t seem to get away from holmes stereoscopes, which stopped being cool a hundred years ago.
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