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Virtual Reality.; What price point would you pick up a VR device for?
Topic Started: Feb 18 2016, 07:26 PM (2,040 Views)
jamesh
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So as long as it costs about the same as another PS4, you'd go for it?
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Yep.

I mean that that's the highest I would go before walking away from the table.
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Derpstrom
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How do you know they will be selling them on tables?
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I'm not sure. I doubt they will sell them on any kind of flat surface to be honest.
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Derpstrom
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Well then I'm not buying!
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Neither am I. Should probably lock and delete this thread now.
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Derpstrom
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Or you could just change the title/poll to be more table centric
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Red Panda
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The HTC Vive released its price and it's $800 USD.

I'm not surprised by this.
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Well, that's some price. Is it supposed to be much better than the Oculus Rift?

I'm really concerned that the 'flooding the market' with high priced items is going to kill VR straight away. I mean, logically, having more items out there should technically mean it bring the price down, but having two initial setups costing $600 & $800 respectively... who is going to be buying these? Especially because you need a massive PC set up to ensure it runs properly. Who knows how much the PSVR is going to be, but if these two prices are any indication, then we're surely looking at north of $500?

These aren't like expensive mobile phones which you get to pay off in a plan over 24 months. Then, what happens when they improve the technology rapidly in a year... two years time... and these VR units become obsolete?

At least I guess there's Google Cardboard and Samsung VR set ups where you can put your phone in them to give a cheaper VR experience. Of course, you won't be able to run PC games or console games on it... but still... it's a start right?
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Red Panda
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Vive has spatial room tracking. It comes with light sensors that you place in a room and it has a camera input to do stuff like AR.

Two premium high quality products is hardly flooding the market and these two are pretty much it (Im guessing Apple and Google will both release a high end one later). Enthusiasts and early adopters will buy them despite the barrier of needing a good PC, If you can afford the PC, you should be able to afford the Rift provided they have an interest. If the experience is great, in which it is, there's going to be a long-term interest for them, leading to long term demand.

Phones are a poor comparison. VR is merely a display, which tend to have a longer cycle (until they break, or it has no uses). Early generation Plasma/LCD TVs are a better comparison with its hardware life cycle. The 1:1 is there, which is the most important feature of this new wave of VR models. The progressive and 'potentially obsolete' aspect to VR will be dependent on the hardware that's doing the processing and not the actual VR unit: This will be your computer, console or device and that will be more accessible and powerful over time. It will be the progression of those that will dictate 'better' iterations of VR.

I doubt the fidelity of the displays will budge beyond what is being released in the next few months and even if it does, it'll have use just like my old 1080p monitor that I replaced for another 1080p monitor. It's likely that the next iterations of the Rift/Vive will involve mostly ergonomic improvements and have its build quality streamlined rather than it being 'powerful'. It'll progress once people eventually catch up with capable hardware and hit another high target.
Edited by Red Panda, Feb 22 2016, 04:17 PM.
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True, two releases isn't flooding the market... yet... throw in the PSVR as well as whatever Google or Apple or any other major tech company come up with.

As for phones, I don't think phones are a bad comparison at all. What I'm saying is that the cost of these products is prohibitive for a lot of people. At least with phones, you can make your own Google cardboard, and as almost everyone has a phone, you're able to show off to everyone under the sun what VR is capable of. Yes, it's not going to match the Rift/Vive in terms of quality, but in terms of being able to deliver a similar experience it can. And, when trying to explain what it is to people and why they should consider picking one up, then that's an important thing. VR needs to be successful like the Wii was successful. It needs people who wouldn't usually play games to want to pick it up. Using your phone as a VR experience helps move closer to that reality.

All in all, I hope that the money that is being invested in this tech helps create games that are worthwhile and interesting and that will have legitimate financial success. I'm curious to see what their expected sales are.
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Derpstrom
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I agree with Panda about the phone comparison. That's like showing someone a flipbook of stills from a movie and saying it will give them a fair impression of what the experience would be like.

Phones do not have the resolution or refresh rate required to give a proper VR experience. The latency requirements just can't be met (yet) which , in my experience, left me feeling nauseous and uncomfortable. Then again I get the same feeling when driving those car simulator games that are actually in a car so that might just be me. Maybe it's a case of the "3DS slider" where people's eyes view things differently. Proper VR is able to adjust for this whereas a static device holding a phone can not.

Google Cardboard is a cool trick but, in my mind, shouldn't be considered a comparable VR experience.
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jamesh
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I think PS VR has the possibility to become obsolete a lot quicker than the other two devices due to its "processing box". Rather than the device being just like a monitor with all the smarts in the computer/console, this box seems to be responsible for:

1. Conversion of output from 60 Hz to 120 Hz. This probably involves some motion prediction algorithm: the interpolation algorithm used in high refresh rate TVs wouldn't be appropriate due to the latency it introduces (i.e. the need to receive the next frame before sending out the sub frame).

2. Some articles seem to suggest it will correct for head movements. Since there is some latency between the console generating a new image (especially since it is running at a lower refresh rate than the goggles), the processing box can shift the previous image to approximate what should be displayed from the new head position.

3. Produce an undistorted image to be output to the television for others to see.

So if the PS VR headset was going to go cross-generation, for instance, I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to replace all of the stuff done by the processing box. Maybe that would come in the form of an upgrade kit, or maybe they'd just release a whole new model.
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Ghost of Chickan
Feb 23 2016, 09:32 AM
I agree with Panda about the phone comparison. That's like showing someone a flipbook of stills from a movie and saying it will give them a fair impression of what the experience would be like.

Phones do not have the resolution or refresh rate required to give a proper VR experience. The latency requirements just can't be met (yet) which , in my experience, left me feeling nauseous and uncomfortable. Then again I get the same feeling when driving those car simulator games that are actually in a car so that might just be me. Maybe it's a case of the "3DS slider" where people's eyes view things differently. Proper VR is able to adjust for this whereas a static device holding a phone can not.

Google Cardboard is a cool trick but, in my mind, shouldn't be considered a comparable VR experience.
I think you're thinking of having games like Elite: Dangerous on phones, when simply phones can provide a lesser version of VR. The quality is not - and possibly won't be for a while yet - at the same quality as Oculus or other VR, but it's a platform that people have easy access to and is currently being used as a VR platform by companies like Google and Samsung.

In my experience with phone VR, it's worked well for 360 videos. I haven't personally tried it with gaming, but in my opinion at least with videos it's given a great experience with VR that is reactive and similar enough to the higher range VR.



To say it's like a flipbook versus a movie is wrong. It's not the same level as the higher range VR, but it's also not as primitive as a flipbook v movie comparison would suggest. As the Oculus starts to come out and more people - people that aren't developers or backers - get their hands on it, then the discussion of VR will strengthen in mainstream media, and I would guess as well that you'd possibly see a company like Google pushing cardboard even more at this stage.

Understandably we look at VR as a sole gaming device, but in todays world, we need our gaming devices to do more than just play games. Our Xbone's and PS4's are media servers and streaming devices. Phones are surpassing 3DS's and Vita as mobile gaming platforms. So, VR naturally will need to be open to other media as well. Which is why I'd imagine you'll see a lot more nature documentaries and concerts being filmed or live streamed in 360 VR. Which again brings me back to phone based VR. For concerts and movies, you won't need an $800 Vive headset just to stream it, you can use your phone and a makeshift headset to watch it.

You're right that phones aren't able to provide a proper VR experience - but that's not what phones are intending to do. Just like phones aren't intending to provide a great SLR like camera, instead just provide something that's available. I'm curious to see how mobile gaming will work with VR in the future and what steps will be taken to improve the experience. We'll never see a No Man's Sky style game on a phone, but I can imagine an infinite runner game working just fine with a phone VR.
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To further the phone talk as well, it looks like with the Galaxy S7 (and no doubt, the Note 6 in the future) is doubling down on gaming capabilities with:

YouTube Let's Play videos of console and desktop games are a huge industry now, and Samsung is also making it easy to record mobile gameplay on the S7. Launching game recording will also trigger the front camera so you can commentate over the top of your gameplay with a picture-in-picture mode.

Finally, Samsung also offers the ability to tweak graphics performance between three settings so you can dial things back a little if you want to put battery life ahead of gameplay. The standard setting will run games at maximum resolution and at 60 frames per second. The "low power" setting reduces frame rate to 30 frames and dials down the resolution somewhat, while "extreme low power" sticks with 30 frames but drops the resolution again. We didn't catch exact figures here, but we could guess at a reduced resolution of 720p or thereabouts. This may depend on the game in question.


Also, thrown in, is a cooling system too.

http://www.cnet.com/au/news/samsung-galaxy-s7-water-cooling-for-games-alerts-recording-battery-life/
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