OrangeDragon wrote:Developing in Unity now... it's not just for Occulus. I still think the overhead on Occulus is over the top for any real "go to market" above initial novelty sales.

ryoon wrote:

OrangeDragon wrote:Developing in Unity now... it's not just for Occulus. I still think the overhead on Occulus is over the top for any real "go to market" above initial novelty sales.

Wrong the cardboard are the novelty sale item here .

For any kind of serious application (meaning game or work ) you need :

- Power that phone do not have
- input system that phone do not have, or if you adapt it the portability factor of the phone go down seriously . Occulus for example has already a wide variety of input device.

Occulus is around 350$ and you found this expensive compare to a phone at 800$ ? Ok you need a 1500$ computer to make it run but the experience can not be compared to a cardboard and when the commercial version come out it will be even more evident.

VR or AR will be a world apart Mircrosoft, Facebook and google agree on that , the cardboard and such are just a side show.

OrangeDragon wrote: The thing is, aside form some edge case applications it's going to remain novelty until it is able to hijack your body's motor controls and give you a "full dive" experience.

needing an open space to move around in with no obstructions limits it too much to be full VR. A full VR shooter, where i walk by walking and jump by jumping would have the potential to be next level...

Here you are either speaking of VR or AR in both case you would need quite a big amount of processing power and software to be able to do this. The technologies is not yet there.
VR and FPS work quite well sited but you have to move more or less a the same speed as you would in real life.
You can go faster "relatively " in open space winlands is one game you have to try. Boring or average in 2D mind blowing in 3D despite the fact that you have almost nothing to do.


beyond that it's novelty still and really less convenient than flat display. turning 360 degrees in a regular game is pretty quick, way faster than I can turn around in my living room without being able to see if i'm about to bounce off of my coffee table in the process.

This is because you use the logic of 2D game and transposed it to 3D games complaining that the 3D games are less convenient than 2D . It is like if you were doing theater and someone giving you a camera and a TV set, you start putting the camera in front of the scene and filming a whole performance without moving it. In essence you would have recorded what a spectator would see, but the usage you make of the equipment would not take advantage of the possibilities.
You can see this with the Desktop application for occulus, to make it short you have a giant 2D screen in front of you, yes it is nice but fundamentally there is nothing news. Same with the "theater" app, yes you have a giant screen to watch the movie, yes you can simulate a theater, personally after the novelty effect I stop using those app.

3D game have their logic and rull, you can found on occulus forum guidline on what to do and what not to do in VR.

So now that it's novelty... in general... lets talk costs. Yes, I think $350 for a whole new piece of hardware vs the $300 phone I already have (Nexus 5... your price estimation of phones is a bit mad, only apple fanboys spend so much) and a $15 add on for it is rather expensive. That's the catch... people already HAVE phones. Getting them to buy a cheap headset for them to turn into VR systems is way more realistic than getting them to shell out an EXTRA $350. Especially with the then needed computer/console to complement it...

You forgot the process the fact that with an occulus and a computer the potential application are much more powerful. Only with gaming could you play alien isolation on a phone? or assetto corsa ? You need a powerful computer and huge amount of memory to make those

As for input systems... ever heard of bluetooth? As it is the cardboard works with a ps3/ps4 bluetooth controller just fine. A friend is working up a nice design for a cheap bluetooth glove control system as well. All still very portable.


Curious about these Occulus input devices you're speaking of... as their forums are mostly filled with people doing the exact same thing. Making bluetooth devices work with it that were designed for other applications.

You do not have reall good one, but leap motion has some good use, in particular it allow you to see "the real world" with the front camera without having to remove your glasses.
A team is developing an application that merge real and VR environment, like if something change in your physical environment it will be shown in your VR environment. For example if someone walk into the room you will see him. You can also integrate object like your desk to be visible.

Everybody kind of agreed that the controller is one thing that do not exist yet. VR and 2D have different logic and it take time to adapt. You can make a comparison with computer, the mouse is perfectly adapted for 2D but it took several year before someone came with the concept.
VR has not its mouse yet.

And I'm not alone in my opinion:
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/future-vir ... martphone/

Yes that why I gave you link with a panel of several expert in this field ( all the major player in fact ). This is a newsman who give is opinion on a subject he does not master so well, more philosophical than technical. I would advise you to listen also to what the top player who invest in the range of billion are saying. And concerning the phone it is seen as a way to show VR to the mass in order to introduce the real thing.

The biggest point raised in there is how fast phones are evolving... it's insane. And because they're a much more saturated market with lots of competitive driving factors they'll keep evolving at a much faster pace than consoles with 1 or 2 competitors or a stand alone VR headset with none.

If you look at VR you will see that the limitations are :

- the displays all the player agreeing that even if phone screen are used now that not what will be the future, specific more adapted screen will need to be develop. Granted for the next 3 or 5 years it is probable that phone screen will still be the norm (the occulus is using Samsung screen ). But at one point specific VR set will have screen better suited for the task than phone.

- The processor power : here the situation is as follow, for the occulus you need an above average computer to display application with somewhat basic graphic ( the resolution is not really that good ), when the comsumer version hit the shelf you will probably be able to make simple application run with a good computer but for anything serious you will need an quite above average equipment.
You can wait very long time before any phone has close to this amount of power, you also need more memory than the phone currently have.
Here I already hear you say that people are not willing to pay around 3000$ for VR and they will for the majority content them self with phone.
I strongly disagree with this 3000$ for the kind of experience the VR can offer is possible for quite an high number of people. You only have to see how many will pay 800$ for an iphone 6 when a 300$ would offer the same service.

StroppyChops wrote:I might post the content when I'm near my PC, but Oculus just announced to Kickstarters that the retail Rift is now ready for shipping to the market. Nothing about price-point though.

ryoon wrote:

StroppyChops wrote:I might post the content when I'm near my PC, but Oculus just announced to Kickstarters that the retail Rift is now ready for shipping to the market. Nothing about price-point though.

They annouced it 4 days ago, no official date just the time frame Q1 of 2016.
The price of the unit is not very important ( between 350 and 500$) , what everybody await is the technical spec of the device, it will tell you what kind of computer you need to run it. Depending of the resolution and FPS needed you could have to do quite a costly upgrade.

ryoon wrote:If you follow oculus forum you will see that concerning the price :

- nobody care or at least post speculation about it. This is a fetishist market and in the range expected the price is not an issue.