Valve index VR headset

Nivek TT

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Sounds good to me!

PC VR will only ever be as 'mainstream' as PC gaming... And PC Gamers don't like to compromise (much)! Leave the cost and accessibility compromises to PlayStation and Facebook. Bring us the best headset, the best tracking, the best VR experience... Please!

Presuming Ed

Well there goes the accessible price point!

MikeKay1976

Whilst you probably are more likely to be correct to the kind of folk in this forum, the most popular pc gaming GPU is a gtx 1060 with many below that. Even PC gamers are rarely at the sharp end. That said we DO needed someone servicing the high end and that ain't oculus for now and pimax hmds have too much of a Dev kit smell for my tastes...

I just wish I didn't have to step out of the oculus infrastructure as it is just much better (for my tastes). I am still crossing fingers for open xr to make it moot so we can buy what ever hardware we like but without being tied to crappy wrappers like steamVR or reVive

Presuming Ed

Absolutely.

It can't hurt to have some cutting edge, high quality equipment available for those who want it.

And currently, 3 years on from the original Vive / CV1 launch, we don't have that.

If that's what Valve are planning, then good for them, and good for us.

But be prepared. The markup is likely to be high to accommodate comparatively low sales.

Atmos

We already learnt from WMR that price counts for nothing. Oculus has learnt from GO that price counts for nothing.

It’s not a battle between Rift and Valve. Rift has less than 0.5% of Steam market share after 3 years. This is a battle between VR and the other 99% of monitor gamers. Low profit and low sales will doom any company trying to push cheap VR which is why Oculus needs Facebook to keep it afloat.

Getting the headset right first and then reduce the price later is a good strategy imo.

Nivek TT

The original Vive with controllers released at £800. The Rift was £600 without controllers which later released at £200 (I think). Pretty sure Valve must have had some influence over HTC's pricing and I recall them being critical of Facebook's price slashing. £800 seems to be the sweet spot for a package.

Though I recall being disappointed by this, not helped by Luckey's comments.

I understand Microsoft are effectively giving away their WMR tech for free, which is partly why the WMR headsets are rather cheap. The consumers aren't paying for development. Have to wonder how much Valve are looking to charge above the hardware costs, many are speculating (or hoping) Valve will sell these at close to cost.

Oh, I must stop. We'll know the full story tomorrow!

Presuming Ed

Not sure what you mean by this. Don't they have around 45%?

Share of what market?

You don't know this though, do you? You don't know what Oculus margins are, you don't know what their profit or loss is, you don't know whether they need Facebook to keep them afloat or not do you?

Additionally, their entire strategy will be different depending on investment from Facebook. If they do get substantial investment from Oculus, then their strategy will be completely different to if they were an independent body.

They don't need Facebook to keep them afloat, they strategise according to Facebook's investment.

Wasn't that the Oculus strategy with the Rift?

Atmos

Sorry to use Steam Survey again. But VR adoption shows at around 1% of all Steam users. Half of that is Rifters so I rounded to 0.5%.

As for the Price of HMDs. We can work out how much they are because we had the BOM if the Rift 3 years ago which was around £200. Then there’s 30% manufacturers profit and then 30% retail profit. So if the BOM is £200 the retail price is usually £600. If Oculus knock off the manufacturer cost then its £400 and if they’re real generous and knock off the retail cost they can get it down to £200.

As for Facebook keeping Oculus afloat that is absolutely true. Facebook paid 3billion to purchase Oculus and more on that failed court case with Zenimax. Take 3billion divide it by 1 million Rifts and each Rift has cost Facebook £3000. Facebook have spent al lot on exclusives too. For example 4 million on Epics Robo Recall. To recoup 4million in games sales they would need to sell 400,000 copies but they gave Robo Recall away with Touch if I’m correct. Oculus are no where near close to breaking even and no doubt Facebook with write off all those loses because they can afford it. I haven’t even got onto R&D cost, marketing costs or all the other operating costs associated with running a VR company.

Atmos

It will be interesting if Valve offset the cost of their games to traditional gamers or keep them purely VR compatible.

Nivek TT

Though the GTX/RTX x080 are not the most popular graphics cards on Steam, Nvidia keep making them, they get all the press attention, and evidently people keep buying them in sufficient numbers to drive Nvidia to keep developing them and games developers to keep taxing them! I would argue it is the people buying these cards that are going to be buying VR headsets, not so much the GTX x050 or x060 owners.

Valve are in a pretty sweet position thanks to the 1 billion Steam accounts. They can see who owns what hardware thanks to the Steam survey, they can see what games these hardware owners are playing (or buying and not playing) and they can see how much money they throw at their hobby. They are very well informed with how to pitch the spec and the price to appeal to who they want to appeal to.