HP Reverb (Copper) VR Headset

aoaaron

Yeah constellation is dead, otherwise they would have supported it on the Rift S. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth in regards to how quickly their tracking solution became legacy hardware whilst Vive users have hardware that is still relavant today.  but I think we all kind of sensed it and that the sensor tracking was a knee jerk emergency solution to oculus's terrible decision to not embrace roomscale from day one.

Yeah, I see Oculus doing the same. Its just a bit frustrating for VR fans who are willing to spend money for the best experience possible. It would have been nice for Oculus to just split the product line into 3 (Quest/Rift S/Rift Pro) and let us as consumers decide how much we want to spend. The fact we still haven't seen a PCVR wireless add-on from them is concerning. If all the new tech is going on within the Light house side of the pond, I think people will want to jump ship.

What keeps me in the Oculus corner in regards to which headset I own is the games and platform. They've nailed it. Their exclusive games are excellent and there are plenty of them which are coming and which are here now. Also the crossplay with the Quest and the potential integration they can do with that will be fun. This is an area which no one else bar Playstation are touching. Close the door and gate the garden fence if you're going to give me the best VR gaming experiences which no one else is producing.

Yeah the Go is a cool device once it hits a bargain basement price point. Until then, its irrelevant IMO.

I do think inside-out is the future if they can fix the issues of the controllers close to your face etc.  They could also do with a controller re-design.

What is cool about Oculus is they've normally responded very well to competition. The controllers sucked - they released touch the controller. The price was too high - they cut the price. They didn't support room scale - they released sensors and pushed software room scale support.  They didn't have enough exclusive games - they released exclusive games. They don't have RTX support - they're building ASW 2.0 RTX support... They are reactionary and willing to make up for mistakes they've made and I like that about a company.

But I would also like them to cater towards a product line which is a bit more expensive to stop people jumping to the Index ship. If they had released a Wireless OLED 140 degree FOV headset with inside out tracking, I think it would have been sold out. Even just a wireless peripheral for the Rift S would do given how dodgey the Rift S's cable requirements are and the inability to easily extend the cable.

thesnowdog

Nonsense, for the reasons I've given above. Oculus and Facebook need PC VR for their standalone headset lines to develop.

If they don't have PC VR and a headset that enthusiasts are willing to spend $500  on then their future standalone headset lines will suffer. Sure, they can bring out the Quest 2 in three years with 4K displays, eye tracking, foveated rendering, a varifocal feature and a 140 degree FOV in a small form factor - but who will buy it? If you add in the Snapdragon hardware you'll be looking at $800.

Oculus will release the CV2 in three years time with those features for $600 max, and assuming they're going to continue to use Insight they'll have a headset only SKU for $100 less.

Then in two or three years after that, once the cost of production has come down, we'll see the Quest 2 having those features.

It's the Tick Tock model, it's used in the hardware industry all the time.

ArmitageShanks

We shall see. I'm betting they abandon PC and focus on mobile (i.e. Quest/Go) in the next 3 years. It's a platform Facebook can control completely, whereas the PC is simply not.

Tiger Feet

Available to order now from HP.   I'm going to wait to see if Amazon get stock incase it's a turd.

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=6KP43EA&opt=ABB&sel=ACC&p=b-hp-reverb-vr-headset

aoaaron

I don't think so.

Their software roadmap for this year really points towards they still have a strong vested interest in PCVR.

Also I think for the general progression of VR, Oculus needs its studios pushing forward AAA games and porting to the quest as able. Otherwise no one else except Valve's 1 game/year thing is going to really cut it.

I still think Oculus should have just released that killer product which is an Oculus Quest and CV1 fused together. Of course it would require a re-design to re-distribute the components so its more comfortable but if they manage to engineer something like that, it becomes an even more crazy value proposition. I also don't think they'll do that.

PCVR is where the software advancements, optimisations and AAA games will always be matured and pushed. Its in Oculus's best interests to continue this.

Even if the Quest sells like hot cakes, I don't think game development for the Quest given its technical limitations is going to be that difficult for them.

Will Oculus ever be involved in high-end PCVR with headsets hitting the £800  price point? I think thats a better question and I'm not sure if they will.

audimushroom

Unfortunately it’s out of stock still

thesnowdog

Yup, I don't think they'll do an £800/$800 headset again. I suspect that the original plan (before Iribe got his knickers in a twist and quit) was to release the Half Dome/CV2 as a high end PC VR headset but they decided against it in favour of following the trusty old Tick Tock model.

Like I've said before they need high end PC VR because enthusiasts are quite happy to pay a premium for Tock models, and once manufacturing costs come down as more are made and sold the Tick model will come 3 years after for a couple of hundred quid/dollars cheaper.

We'll see the CV2 coming in 2022, the CV2 S coming in 2025 and we'll start to see the eye tracking and foveated rendering tech and software filtering down to their standalone lines later on down the line.

I'm expecting the CV2 to sell for 600 and the CV2 S to sell for 400.

Oculus know that the sweet spot for enthusiasts is 600.

The Tick models (the S ones) starting with the Rift S will also have the benefit of decent price cuts before the Tock models release too. A PC VR headset for 300 is impulse buy for a lot of people and once people have experienced the Oculus Home and Store environments they're more likely to stick with Oculus headsets going forward too.

I also think that when the CV2 launches with eye tracking and foveated rendering and 4K displays we'll see them sticking with an 80Hz refresh rate too. This should keep the minimum spec the same as it has been for the Rift line since they implemented ASW a couple of years.

It's all about getting headsets on heads and users in their Store at the end of the day.

I think HP will sell a good few of these things because they're at the £600$600 sweet spot, and Valve will end up with the same problem that HTC have had with the Vive Pro. They won't sell that many because it's too expensive.

aoaaron

Yeah. I think not offering a high end option however is just making high-end users move to Index.

I know I probably will by the time Valve have them readily available. And once someone owns a pair of light house base stations, they'll likely just stay in that eco system for a very very long time.

I guess Oculus are just happy to lose the higher end demographic to try and grab the more casual entry-level market. I can't say I blame them but I also can't see the logic in not diversifying the product line to have a higher-end headset to compete with the Index.

The only move they could do, which would be quite weird but smart is release CV2 next year as a product which is just simply better than the Index. It will make the Index obsolete less than a year after most people have bought it. I'm thinking OLED or LCD displays with 150 FOV and HP Reverb-like resolution, built in headphones which are a step above the CV1s, new updated controllers, push all the money valve have invested into higher refresh rates into more tangible obvious benefits and see where it gets us.

The other option is to just jump the queue and release a wireless PCVR headset which we all secretly really really want.

However I don't see them doing either. I think they will just concentrate on their software now which is also not a bad move. VR needs games.  

I totally get their model but I honestly think the sweet-spot price for enthusiasts is whatever they're willing to pay which at this point in time is £919 as proven by the Valve Index being sold out and people like me having to hold a reservation to have the chance to buy one.

So if Oculus are going to release an inferior headset to the Index for £600 or £700, I think most people will just grab an Index. They should compete nearer the price point of the Index to ensure specs are up to date with it.

The big hurdle I think for Oculus are the Knuckle controllers. I don't see how they're going to easily out-do them although I'm sure they do have a plan/

thesnowdog

They don't really need to do anything about out doing the Knuckles controllers because tracking those two extra fingers is pretty pointless.

Developers will just use them for waggling your fingers just for the sake of it. We've already seen this from the Arizona Sunshine devs amongst others. We hardly ever use those two fingers in real life. You could have the things amputated and the only things that would be affected is the strength of your grip and the ability to make a fist.

Same goes for the grip pressure too.

And with regards to the Index there'll be plenty of orders to begin with but once twenty to fifty thousand or so have been sold Valve will struggle to sell the things. And if Valve are anything like the rest of the VR hardware industry they'll drop outside in tracking for the Index 2 in favour of inside out tracking...leaving people with some very expensive paperweights.

I find it highly unlikely that Index owners will get 10 years worth of use out of the base stations, not even the people that bought Vive headsets on day one will end up getting that long with them.

Mark my words, the Index 2 and the Pimax 3 will both use inside out tracking at around 2022. It's the way the entire industry is heading.

thesnowdog

Forgot something!

Oculus won't release an inferior headset to the Index for £600 or £700, they've already done this for £400. What they will do is release a superior headset to the Index (and possibly the Index 2!) for £600 in 2022. 4K displays, eye tracking, foveated rendering and possibly the varifocal feature from the Half Dome prototype.

Like I've said, they probably planned this for this year, or maybe next year, originally for around £800 but what they (and everyone else) need to do is get more headsets in homes.

This is why I'm so pissed off with Valve's blatant price gouging for the Index. If it was a couple of hundred quid cheaper I would have ordered one on day one, and so would thousands of other people, but for the specs you're getting Valve are just taking the piss.