Facebook Announces $399 Oculus Quest Standalone VR Headset (theverge.com) 68
Facebook's Oculus has announced its new $399 standalone virtual-reality headset that's scheduled to launch in the spring of 2019. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that "with Oculus Quest, we will complete our first generation of Oculus products," adding that the Oculus Quest combines "the key attributes of the ideal VR system" -- a wireless design, virtual hand controllers, and full positional tracking. The Verge reports: The Oculus Quest is a consumer version of what was previously known as Project Santa Cruz. It uses motion controllers similar to Oculus Touch, and four wide-angle cameras provide positional tracking that lets people walk through virtual space. It's supposed to support "Rift-quality" experiences, with a starting catalog of over 50 titles, including well-known existing games like climbing simulator The Climb and adventure-puzzle game Moss.
Oculus Quest essentially combines the high-end, tethered Oculus Rift headset with the relatively cheap, standalone Oculus Go device that was released earlier this year. It uses the same optics as the Oculus Go, with a resolution of 1600 x 1440 per eye, but with the option to adjust lens spacing. Also like the Oculus Go, the Oculus Quest includes built-in speakers that pipe sound into users' ears, but supposedly with improved bass. But unlike the Oculus Go, you can walk around, apparently for large distances. Barra describes it as having "arena-scale" tracking that supports at least 4,000 square feet of space. Its controllers have the same button layout as the Rift's Touch controllers, but with the half-moon tracking ring reversed, so it loops above your hands instead of below them.
Oculus Quest essentially combines the high-end, tethered Oculus Rift headset with the relatively cheap, standalone Oculus Go device that was released earlier this year. It uses the same optics as the Oculus Go, with a resolution of 1600 x 1440 per eye, but with the option to adjust lens spacing. Also like the Oculus Go, the Oculus Quest includes built-in speakers that pipe sound into users' ears, but supposedly with improved bass. But unlike the Oculus Go, you can walk around, apparently for large distances. Barra describes it as having "arena-scale" tracking that supports at least 4,000 square feet of space. Its controllers have the same button layout as the Rift's Touch controllers, but with the half-moon tracking ring reversed, so it loops above your hands instead of below them.
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VR for the Masses (Score:4, Interesting)
Finally we can get a user base in all of these empty multiplayer games!
Too bad it's not out in time for christmas, this is something you can gift to someone without worrying about what kind of GPU their computer has.
It's a great and necessary step forward.
Get enough users that major creators like rockstar, blizzard, supercell, etc start to develop games for VR.
Get these new people addicted to VR with the Quest and then they'll be lining up for the premium experience when generation 2 rift is released.
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TV? Last night I was the captain of a star ship giving orders to other real people on my bridge. WTF TV are you talking about
You sound like an ignoramus but then again you're an AC. so you probably are exactly as dumb as you sound.
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Yep all those couch potatoes will be jumping off the asses to play VR games for eight hour sessions. Moving and flailing their limbs getting super fit, well, only the ones who don't get sea sick (get sea sick than VR is most definitely not for you), ohh wait, they won't. Maybe younger people will, maybe children will develop the habit of living in an immersive virtual world. Probably wont damage their psychology for the rest of their life, spending a substantial portion of their youth in an immersive virtua
Mouse VR (Score:2)
Yes the people with mouse and keyboard are superior in FPS if you go head to head, it's true.
The people in VR would lose.
But learning to kill people with a mouse is absolutely silly in comparison to learning to kill people in reality.
the only head-to-head advantage in VR is that you can actually dual wield guns, you can shoot two pistols and two different targets at the same time.
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Yep all those couch potatoes will be jumping off the asses to play VR games for eight hour sessions.
Been there done that. Sweating really sucks wearing an HMD. Equally disappointing virtual refreshments in Rec room are not actually refreshing.
Moving and flailing their limbs getting super fit, well, only the ones who don't get sea sick (get sea sick than VR is most definitely not for you), ohh wait, they won't
Not an issue with a large play space enabled by inside out tracking with 1:1 correspondence between visual and vestibular systems.
In current VR (3DOF does not count as VR) with suck hardware/software sickness is mostly limited to n00bs. It's not an issue for those who log any amount of time in VR.
Maybe younger people will, maybe children will develop the habit of living in an immersive virtual world. Probably wont damage their psychology for the rest of their life, spending a substantial portion of their youth in an immersive virtual world, reality will not be problematic for them and the psychiatrists of American are probably torn right now, choose the less profitable path or choose the far more profitable path, the one where they have to treat adolescents damaged by excessive VR use.
I don't put much weight into the argument VR is necessarily any mor
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It's a great and necessary step forward.
Get enough users that major creators like rockstar, blizzard, supercell, etc start to develop games for VR.
More vendors pumping out smartphone quality VR software sounds like a step backwards.
Get these new people addicted to VR with the Quest and then they'll be lining up for the premium experience when generation 2 rift is released.
No they won't.
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No they won't.
Based on what? I know a few Rift owners. They all used cheaper setups like a gateway drug. I'm a GearVR user myself using ALVR to stream from my PC to the headset and I'm eagerly watching the developments in the higher end.
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Based on what?
Based on the same standard of objective evidence as original assertion?
I know a few Rift owners. They all used cheaper setups like a gateway drug.
They purchased PCs capable of playing Rift based on their experience with cheaper HMDs? Like what? Cardboards? Smartphones?
I can buy someone trying Rift and then purchasing a system capable of running it. I've seen it happen myself.
What I can't imagine is anyone trying a smartphone barf machine with last century graphics and decide based on that to go get themselves a Rift.
I'm a GearVR user myself using ALVR to stream from my PC to the headset and I'm eagerly watching the developments in the higher end.
My personal opinion 3DOF HMDs should not count as VR or even
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They purchased PCs capable of playing Rift based
Huh? Just what are you on about? You don't need much of a beast at all to achieve a far better VR experience than a GearVR. If you can't get your Rift running on a 6 year old computer with a semi modern but still cheap GPU you're doing something fundamentally wrong.
Hard to imagine anything that would make someone more nauseous and stand a better chance of forever turning them off to VR.
You get nauseous using a 3DOF HMD? Just as well you identified your sensitivity before you parted with real money.
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Huh? Just what are you on about? You don't need much of a beast at all to achieve a far better VR experience than a GearVR. If you can't get your Rift running on a 6 year old computer with a semi modern but still cheap GPU you're doing something fundamentally wrong.
Assuming people have a rift capable desktop PC in the first place is a mistake.
Many people I know only have laptops if they have PCs at all.
You get nauseous using a 3DOF HMD?
YES. It's a gross feeling moving your head/body and nothing changing around you. There is no fun in that. GearVR is garbage.
Just as well you identified your sensitivity before you parted with real money.
This is backwards. The problem goes away when you spend more money on a real HMD.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, I refuse to buy Oculus for just that reason, and I'm hardly a hardliner for boycotting evil products and companies. Facebook is just that bad. But the only viable alternative is Vive, and they just don't seem to be trying anymore. They just came out with a wireless adapter that costs almost as much as the entire Quest system, and they haven't updated the core hardware in forever. The Rift, also, hasn't seen updates but they're at least shitting out new low-end stuff, the Vive ecosystem seems to be dea
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they haven't updated the core hardware in forever.
The Vive Pro just came out recently, you don't consider that 'core hardware' since it's more expensive and doesn't replace the original?
Also, a new prototype of the Knuckles controllers was revealed a couple weeks ago, the retail release shouldn't be far off.
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since it is not attached to your pc or phone, it is pretty limited in scope and stays in the facebook circle.
you could possibly create a new facebook id, use it only to play games?
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In our family of 5 everybody uses facebook, we're on the same network/internet link. How is it going to link this VR headset to any of those accounts?
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I have a Gear VR (gifted to me) which is pretty neat. However, when I tried to watch a feature-length movie (I rented The Martian in 3D) it was disappointing.
The 3D effect was far better than a TV with shutter glasses, but the resolution on my Galaxy S6 was not sufficient to make out far details in the scene.
Add to that that the phone kept overheating and had to pause the movie to cool down, then the battery was exhausted before I rea
Can't be sued for false advertising (Score:2)
This solves nothing (Score:2)
The "mobile phone grade graphics VR" has been out for a long time, using Oculus' tech no less. It's awful, because of lack of GPU capability. This will suffer from all the same problems that Samsung phone VR does, and why it's barely a curiosity.
Desktop VR on the other hand sorta kinda has the ability to deliver at least some level of meaningful performance. But it's dying off. Nvidia's 10xx series release a couple of years ago was swimming in "VR ready" PR. Recent 20xx series? I don't think there was even
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I'm sorry I hurt your feelings so much, that you can't even bother to log into slashdot to try to have a discussion on this topic, and instead are just flat out trolling as AC.
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Recent 20xx series? I don't think there was even a mention of VR, much less any kind of a PR drive.
RTX series cards have a dedicated VirtualLink VR connector on them for the next generation of VR/AR headsets. It's a single USB-C port capable of delivering power as well as ultra high def video signals needed for intensive VR. Nvidia will market it very hard when next-gen headsets hit the market.
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They already have. Vive had its second gen refresh. It generated zero traction.
And like I mentioned, nvidia utterly ignored this in their massive PR push for 20xx series.
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Then I guess we'll see soon. Best of luck with the push, if VR actually has any kind of a meaningful breakthrough into mainstream gaming, I'll probably be buying a PC connected HMD myself.
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It's a niche market that few if any developers develop software for
Sure. But if one of those developers is Bethesda who've released multiple AAA titles for the platform that's hardly an issue.
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Didn't they release just some highly unpopular mods to their mainline products that have VR bolted on top with the software equivalent of duct tape and a little hammering?
Which have gained little to no traction in VR world because of it. It's just like other similar "titles" from big name studios slapping a VR mod on their major titles, like Doom VR. Sounds like a good mod to existing game, until you try it and realise that gameplay is just awful compared to original because of VR limitations.
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Depends on the title. Skyrim VR is rated quite highly. Doom VFR is a completely rebuilt game which unfortunately sucks quite a bit IMO.
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"Unpopular" didn't refer to "how did the fans of both the game and VR liked it" as common denominator for these two is numerically very low. It referred to the fact that no one else did, which is why they generated no real traction.
Standalone? (Score:2)
As in, without Facebook spyware?
I hardly think so.