VR's Gaming Problem isn't HARDWARE

22 Comments

1. Check out 6 years of VR Gaming – https://youtu.be/iFmm4DaKp5w
   
   🎁 Join my discord for monthly giveaways – https://discord.com/invite/h3awbHb
   
   👍 If you enjoyed this video click the thumbs up button and subscribe!
   
   🔔 Don't forget to click the Bell for notifications on all new videos

2. YOU may not need it, but people with neck pain from most headsets such as myself are GREATLY looking forward to a smaller form factor.

3. I think your right that new software is more important.
   But I also think this headset is a step in the right direction. it is still to expensive but its getting a way better form a weight factor. I´m not a fan of those small mobile like standalone games. And 'I don´t need all that stuff like eye tracking ect. People who just wants a simple light PCVR headset seemed to been forgotten until this headset was announced.
   And what often is forgotten that many people already have a modern PC (best RTX 2000 or higher) at home because VR isn´t that new anymore. It even runs with low quality on my old 1060 ti. So most people anyway only need the headset.
   P.S. If there would be a way to use the quest pro controllers on this headset it would be pretty dope.

4. Absolutely, absolutely absolutely.
   This has been the problem for a decent while now.
   Hardware is nice, and exciting. Smaller, more powerful devices open up more options, allow for much more impressive experiences.
   What we really need and use the hardware for is the games, and they haven't truly been developing as fast or been focused on the same way the hardware has.
   That's what has to improve, that's what we need, we have cheap all in one VR devices, we have powerful lightweight next gen graphics with PC hardware support, and everything in between, but the first thing anyone asks about these headsets is "why should I buy one" "where's the killer app?" "just one game? where are the other must have vr games?", and while there are plenty of good games if you really look into it, to some extent they're right.

   We need more games to go further beyond, to have ambition, to be solid games in vr as well as games that take advantage of vr specifically as more than a novelty or better way to experience things. Your use case is how you get people in, VR needs a stronger use case, better games.

5. Not true we need more affordable headsets

   Rn and for years affordable headsets have been completely monopolised by the quest 2 which is bad for the consumer bc it means no competition

   Theres the pico4 but as you said the stand alone store frount isnt great and pico doesnt rly care about pushing the headset in the west

6. I get what you're saying but the only way to get better software is to have a larger install base so that developers can spend more on games and make a profit

7. No pancake lenses, no go.

8. The only OLED PCVR headset, the only uOLED headset and we "don't need it"?….
   Find it so bizarre how dishonest everyone is about the LCD compromise.
   I signed up within moments of hearing about it.

   "Their heart set on the metaverse", you mean owning the metaverse?

9. Yeah but hardware always comes before software.

10. I beg to differ, the problem is both software and hardware. Bigscreen Beyond is the first VR headset that came that is worth mentioning and may appeal to gamers (only because it doesn't look like a giant helmet you put on)… now the issue is the wires, if it came with a portable computing unit that you clip to your belt than it would be a gamechanger.

11. keeping price points at 1k+ will not ever work in this economy, and anyone who buys into it is just flexers who has money to blow. Not actual gamers who enjoy playing vr who are on fixed incomes and are having to decide whether to pay for gas or food. People would rather opt for buying a pc and playing games on those rather than an additional 1k+ to play "just vr games". Corporations are going to have to realize that making big money quick is a thing of the past and these expensive price points will not entice as they once did. These devices at these price points will price out the majority of people and only leave the smaller amount of wealthy to be a buyer. Investors will eventually start seeing this as well. As far as meta is concerned…well, their shoddy customer support and obvious lack of communication between departments is causing it to shoot itself in the foot. Mark is trying to push too much too fast, as he always has. Look at how facebook turned out. Mark's view is about the money and profit, while others want the old style and direction to come back. Lots of opinions I have, but too many to rant about here lol.

12. In comes Praydog (+all the other modders in the past few years) to save the day for PCVR.

13. yeah, no one buys there first VR Headset without a game there aiming for.

    For me it was the promise from star citizen to get vr. well … Looks like i have my second or even third Headset untill that…

    and for my best friend it is half life Alex.

    we need the triple A Games and Experiences to draw the casual gamer in. no one buys a Headset to only play minigames…

14. stand alone (mobile) VR is the reason VR keeps agonizing. VR needs high res and high fidelity to be immersive, and it is all about immersion. These things require the most powerful hardware. People are staying away from VR because of low quality and discomfort. You need smaller headsets, and state of the art graphics. Every time you watch a VR game review, it looks like a video from the 90s. In the rare cases the game looks "half" decent, it's probably 4 years old, because now days it's all about mobile quality. PSVR2 gives some hope not caring about mobile limitations. BigScreen Beyond sounds even better to me. The only thing they are missing is the support of big companies like Meta, that are still dragging VR in the mud of mobile hardware.

15. Totally with you and that's why I bought the psvr 2. I didn't buy it because I needed an upgrade from my quest to or valve index, I bought it for the games I'll get the play. I just hope that we keep seeing good games coming out for it down the line.

16. I agree and having said that look at the games coming for PSVR2 and they will surely be the winner on this next generation.

17. It is unfortunate that a few of the upcoming AAA quest titles have been taking so long almost entirely because of the limited hardware though. Big companies don't want their games to look like crap, in comparison to the flat-screen variant.

18. Thank you for saying that it's like TV came out but there wasn't any channels you watch

19. Hardware is everything on VR. While I do agree on that better software is needed – but we're NO WHERE CLOSE to being hardware "good enough" compare to a console or PC level hardware limits. AV1 support for example is needed for better support on the wireless front let alone more access to games later in the the future for streaming reasons. Hardware can't run new AAA software either and its one of the major reasons why we don't have big title games either. RAM, GPU, and CPU is all hard limits on devs and its really holding us back. This is why a lot of us want eye tracking so we can start getting every ounce of perfornance for software from our hardware. Meta themselves can't get half the softwar they want on the headset either because of the hard limit on the RAM. So no, software alone isnt going to improve VR – we need hardware to match. We need refresh that help reduce the over all cost while bring in new features. The long wait of a console is only hurting vs if we was going for consitent upgrade method. While some wont like that, its the method that has work the best for a long time. Tick Tok has proven to work. For example, lenses and weight all could've been a refresh of Quest 2 if it was set to a 2 year release cycle. While next year coming out with a better SOC and other features. There is also the whole idea – any news is good news. The idea is to keep refreshing into people minds that VR is improving. The long 3 year live cycle just tells people that its stagnate and doesnt have room to grow and thats can't be further from the truth. Let alone more improvements means we can push for more / better software knowing a real TIME line in witch your software will work the best for the hardware. Right now, devs and normal people REALLY dont know when they will release, nor what they will release with, and what specs to aim for really. This also goes back to they need to be more transpartent and why LEAKS are super important to know about when a company wants to be quite about everything. Boz isnt helping either and it shows by the hard cap on the VR headsets and closing of software.

    The other side of things – VR is just HARD – they have to add support for soo many things. Its crazy. Meta and the others don't help in this front either. If Meta and the others want to grow the communities – it needs to invest into TOOLs that help support VR and make getting all those little extras we see in current games get added into every game. ITs one of the many reasons why people pick up and use game engines like Unreal because it takes a lot of the work out on making games. VR needs the same if we wish to see more and more titles get better and better.

20. You praise standalone headsets but then complain about small casual games. Don't you see the Quest has caused the very situation you complain about?

21. kiwi is the best

22. Matteo, how do we change the economics to incentivize developers to create the games we do desire? I think they want the satisfaction of knowing they've satisfied a large number of users and they want money. They don't want to gamble away their time and other resources. So, how do we get more users?

    This wasn't an issue back in the early days of gaming when there was far less competition and noise. Pancake gaming has a large fanbase and so developing for VR has an opportunity cost that developers simply won't pay right now. Sony is willing (and maybe meta hopefully?) to subsidize hardware/software development presumably 1) as a labor of love and 2) with the hope that they can brute force the popularization of VR and eventually turn a profit. It's viewed as too big of a gamble by most other companies I'm sure

Comments are closed.