HP Reverb (Copper) VR Headset

Tiger Feet

Yea I know...  Im just urging them along abit .     

Ive read that stock should start appearing on 6 or 7th June.

thesnowdog

Probably not future proof. The WVR headsets never had outside in tracking, HTC have abandoned Lighthouse tracking and Oculus have abandoned outside in tracking.

In three years time not only will Pimax abandon Lighthouse tracking but Valve themselves are also likely to switch to inside out tracking. It's the way the entire industry is heading.

Those spending £919/$999 on a full bundle might end up with some very expensive paperweights in a few years time.

ArmitageShanks

Like the Rift then?

thesnowdog

Nope, because Oculus have made the switch to inside out tracking with Insight for the Rift S and will continue to do so for future headsets.

And if there's enough demand for it Oculus have said that they'll add sensor support to Insight too, and Valve are unable to do this because of the way that Lighthouse tracking works. They can't add those base stations to an inside out tracking system.

Rift owners have had to buy another set of Touch controllers but the headset is so cheap that it doesn't matter. And when Oculus continue to use inside out tracking going forward they can have two SKUs, a headset only one and a full bundle. Meanwhile, Valve will end up releasing another full bundle for the Index 2 leaving you with those paperweights.

ArmitageShanks

Considering there are now several headsets and controllers available using the native SteamVR tracking, I seriously doubt your assumptions.

Enthusiasts want the best tracking that works everywhere in the playspace, not some dodgy tracking that flakes out if you happen to hold your controller behind your back or head for slightly too long.

thesnowdog

Only the Vive, Vive Pro, Pimax and soon to be released Valve Index currently use Lighthouse tracking. I'm not talking about right now, I'm talking about the likelihood of Pimax and Valve both abandoning Lighthouse tracking for their NEXT headsets in a few years time.

HTC have already abandoned Lighthouse tracking for their next headset and it won't be long before Pimax and Valve themselves do the same. By 2022 all new headsets will be using inside out tracking.

Lighthouse tracking is too expensive to produce, it's one of the reasons why Oculus could cut the price of the Rift so aggressively leaving HTC in the dust in terms of sales. Base stations with lasers in and a headset and controllers with light sensors are a great deal more expensive to produce than sensors with a black and white glorified webcam and a headset and controllers with IR LEDs.

And because Oculus are using another IR camera solution for their tracking they can supplement the Insight tracking of the Rift S with the Constellation tracking of the Rift without too much of a problem.

Outside in tracking is going to join the dinosaurs in a few years.

aoaaron

Really really good point. With how fast the tech can potentially move forwards, its quite risk to invest that much money into VR.

Especially given Oculus seem to be holding back tech to not take away from the Oculus Quest. I would not be surprised if in 1-2 years time they release a ridiculous headset for PCVR. The reason why I thinks this might happen is they just keep pumping out awesome PCVR games, despite their hardware plans indicating they are going to gear towards the Quest. Surely if they only saw Mobile VR as a viable platform, they would have downgraded Stormland's scope heavily to make it Rift compatible.

I don't see Valve leaving light house tracking though. Its just the best form of tracking there is and their unique selling point. When they abandon light house tracking, the competitive pricing and the ability for Oculus to eat up profits will destroy them. At present, Valve offer the best fidelity in tracking  at any price point and no can argue with that.

I don't see Pimax really doing much else for a while. Their headset is a mess. It isn't even consumer friendly. It doesn't have a built in audio solution. It still doesn't have the promised wireless functionality. Its still not comfortable. Lots of questions still about if they could have decreased the FOV slightly to make the distortion and resolution better.

The main players to make their move are definitely Oculus, HTC and Playstation now. Ultimately I see HTC releasing a promising product which is totally mis-priced. Playstation I think will actually really disappoint us and half-arse their VR2 headset, just fixing the basics of controllers, tracking, and a marginal increase in resolution to Quest levels. Oculus are a mystery to me now. They seem to concentrate on the Quest but continue to develop awesome PCVR titles. They've showcased great PCVR tech and people who have left the company over the direction they took for PCVR have indicated evidently that they do have something in-house which would have competed properly with the Index, and its probably a matter of when and not if they gets released (probably in a year or two once they see who they can bring in via the Quest).

I still think Oculus will probably need to create their own home console to push the CV2 to the masses of people who have bought an Oculus Quest. I don't see a clear pathway for a casual person who has bought a Quest and loves it to then buy a Gaming PC. An Optimised VR box complete with optimised architecture for PCVR, built in chips which smoothly deal with ASW and don't have any bloat, where Oculus Home IS the OS would be amazing; and then having the option for PC gamers to use their powerful RTX hardware instead.



I think the main limitation with Light house is I don't see it ever leaving the PC gaming market. I think Oculus on the other hand could pull it off but its really hard to sell a VR-console when there aren't enough VR-exclusive games. A really crazy plot twist would be if Oculus released a home console which competes with the PS4 and Xbox but prioritises VR. Then they would surely win the VR-war VERY quickly. I don't think they can do that at the moment aslong as the Rift S by itself costs £399.

ArmitageShanks

Doubtful, at least in the enthusiast space. But keep believing what you will. You left StarVR off the list. For cheap consumer-friendly headsets, sure.

thesnowdog

We'll see the CV2 being released in 2022 and being the Half Dome prototype made into a final commercial product, but it'll use inside out tracking instead of Constellation. I think the reason why they haven't released it this year in place of the Rift S is because they want to keep the manufacturing costs down. What the Half Dome was is too expensive to manufacture and they don't want an overpriced headset like the Index and Vive Pro that's going to sell bugger all.

Oculus are using the Tick Tock model for their PC VR headsets by the looks of things, the Rift in 2016 was the first Tock. New and expensive technology sold for a premium price. The Rift S is the Tick, a refinement of the Tock model with enhancements at a cheaper price due to manufacturing costs coming down. The Tick is considerably cheaper to manufacture compared to the launch price of the previous Tock model and will be sold at a profit right now so will be ripe for a price cut in a year's time to $299/£299.

After the Tick model comes the second Tock, the CV2. New and expensive technology sold at a premium price. This time it'll be $500, $600 at the most. Oculus COULD have released the CV2 this year but there's no way in hell that they'll be able to sell it for less than $800. After the CV2 we'll have the CV2 S in 2025, same as the Rift S the CV2 S will be cheaper to manufacture with an enhancement over the CV2 and will probably release for around $399, $449 at the most.

And once the high end PC VR headsets have sold enough and the manufacturing costs come down enough some of the new tech will filter down through to their two standalone lines, and some tech will filter up to the PC VR lines too. Oculus are releasing three different lines because each of these lines are aimed at different demographics and out of the three the big moneymaker in the not too distant is going to be the standalone Go line of products because they're cheap and will have plenty of content during the next few iterations. Sports events, VR Porn, films etc. It's going to take a while (Zuckerberg said anywhere between 5 and 15 years a while back) but the Go line of products will go truly mainstream when the cost is down to under $50.

Facebook are funding developers with so much money and support for PC VR because they need it.

ArmitageShanks

Oculus have been steadily heading towards mobile-only VR since the FB buyout. The Rift S is very likely going to be the last PC VR headset they (or rather Lenovo) will release.