Valve reveals their "Index" VR headset - Puts Fidelity First
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
Yeah I'm gonna wait for the Rift 2, That price is just ludicrous.
WYP
News Guru
Don't you mean the Rift S? They already announced that.
https://www.overclock3d.net/news/gpu_displays/oculus_reveals_their_new_rift_s_vr_headset/1
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
Nope, The S is just a stop gap, The Rift 2 is coming out but it's a ways off.
Bingo !
WYP
News Guru
To be fair they are very fancy controllers, sensing finger grip and the like. The SteamVR style tracking can't be cheap either.
There is a reason why the original Vive isn't price competitive with the Rift, and why the Rift S has gone for inside-out tracking. I can see the Rift S getting much cheaper over time, but not the same for the full-on SteamVR headsets.
Today the OG Oculus Rift costs £349.99 and the HTC Vive costs £499.99. I can definitely see the Rift S going cheaper than the original Rift after a while. I'm betting that the margins are higher on that headset and that Oculus wouldn't make it cheaper than the original Rift to prevent existing owners from getting too annoyed (since the new headset has some higher specs).
I know their Knuckles controllers have been a long time coming and are pretty fancy, and to be honest I love my Steam Controller and don't doubt they can do a good job with hardware, but why would any software in an already niche market target a £250+ piece of hardware just to simplify a few input gestures? I just can't see this catching on in anything resembling its current form, it seems to just reinforce the negative aspects of the VR world with expensive segmentation, but I haven't used any gaming-orientated headsets so maybe I'm missing something.
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
If you ever get the chance, Try Elite Dangerous in VR, It's mind blowing, My jaw dropped due to the immense scale of things, Space stations looking like mountainous monoliths and the ships looking absolutely huge.
Flying through an asteroid field while bounty hunting in a 1 man fighter launched from your main ship is still my number 1 favourite VR experience, The feeling of scale and even speed is amazing.
AlienALX
Well-known member
They actually expect people to pay almost a thousand pounds, AND have a top end GPU?
Two grand. Are they crazy?
I'm thinking "Oh cool, gotta be about £500 tops I might even get one". Seeing that price? ffs. They are just pricing near on every one out *AGAIN*. How can they expect this to take off? I mean, how many kids can you see going "Ma, can you loans me two bags of sand for this VR helmet thing?".
The reason VR has not taken off and had a good adoption rate is price. So what do Valve do? increase that top end price by 30%.
They're honestly having a bubble. All they needed to do was look at Nvidia's stock prices and sales figures recently and they would have gotten a good idea as to how well the price was going to go down.
Do they really expect people to pay two grand to play HL3? I mean, I thought $50 back in 2004? or 2005? or whenever HL2 came out was strong money ffs.
Two grand. Are they crazy?
I'm thinking "Oh cool, gotta be about £500 tops I might even get one". Seeing that price? ffs. They are just pricing near on every one out *AGAIN*. How can they expect this to take off? I mean, how many kids can you see going "Ma, can you loans me two bags of sand for this VR helmet thing?".
The reason VR has not taken off and had a good adoption rate is price. So what do Valve do? increase that top end price by 30%.
They're honestly having a bubble. All they needed to do was look at Nvidia's stock prices and sales figures recently and they would have gotten a good idea as to how well the price was going to go down.
Do they really expect people to pay two grand to play HL3? I mean, I thought $50 back in 2004? or 2005? or whenever HL2 came out was strong money ffs.
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
The Rift CV1 came out just over 3 years ago and quickly went down to £399, Now considering the resolution, FoV and refresh rate bump of the Index I was maybe expecting around £600 all in at THE most, But this price is absurd considering the specs really aren't lightyears ahead of the 3 year old Rift.
VR will be around for a long time as it is here to stay now but it will only be accessible to the people with a lot of disposable income which I thought Valve would've tried to address.
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WYP
News Guru
You say that, but look at the HTC Vive. It is based on tech that is more similar to the Valve Index and it went down from around £700 and now costs £499.
I wouldn't expect Rift-like price decreases, because in many ways pure SteamVR is more complex and harder to economise. More accurate, sure, but way more complex. I don't expect the price to decrease anytime soon.
I get striving for accuracy with professional focussed headsets that have permanent purpose built setups, but we all know that mainstream success relies just as much on accessibility & simplicity as power, it's why consoles are more popular than PCs amongst other things. I'd have thought Valve's reasons for creating these headsets were to push software investment, but at the moment this just seems to lend itself to software segregation. Essentially they seem to be doubling down on the idea that VR will always be a niche, which I thought the success of products like PSVR(By far the best selling VR headset out there) had put to bed. I've used professional headsets in gaming-like software and it really is an amazing experience but the 15 minute setup process in a room already purpose built for it would make in unviable as something I'd actually use for personal entertainment(These were paid academic experiments).
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AlienALX
Well-known member
Indeed. For mass adoption rate you need the price to be low.
VR is moving about as fast as it's being adopted, IE - very slowly. I still don't have a high end VR set and won't all of the time this persists.
If I waited a few weeks I could afford this, but no way am I paying a grand to play one game. That's insane. I've wasted £500 a few times on like, two games I wanted improving, but that was the proverbial nose bleed seat price for me.
VR is moving about as fast as it's being adopted, IE - very slowly. I still don't have a high end VR set and won't all of the time this persists.
If I waited a few weeks I could afford this, but no way am I paying a grand to play one game. That's insane. I've wasted £500 a few times on like, two games I wanted improving, but that was the proverbial nose bleed seat price for me.
