Atmos
Well-known Member
First off this is not a rant about 'evil' FB but a rational why I think FB will come back to the PCVR arena in 2022. Just a straight up observation on my part.
In 2022 things are going to change forever. We already know two major players coming out with headsets bidding for global domination. The first is Apples £1000 VR HMD. Apple rivals Oculus in unlimited funds. It's iOS, Store and manufacturing capability is second to none. Yes I own an Iphone. Apple have their own M1 chip which is small, efficient and powerfull enough to rival any Qualcomm based HMD.
Second, Sony with their newly announced PSVR headset. We know it has a tether to take full advantage of the power of the PS5. But it could also support wireless or a second HMD from Sony could support wireless. All the technology from their cameras, TV, consoles is their.
Third is Valve. The Index is nearly 2 years old now, so if we dont see an Index 1.5 in 2021 you can bet your life we'll see a full 2.0 in 2022. Valve will support standalones sooner rather than later.
Then theirs HTC who semi announced a new HMD for 2021 but then went quiet. They're working on 5G wireles technology.
Then.................there's the likes of Samsung, LG and then all the smaller companies recently announcing HMD's over the next couple of years.
So why this thread? Well Oculus have done well with the Quest2. It's the best standalone for its price. Well for any price because FB want to gain as many users to their platform as possible if they're to stand any chance of survival when other (see above) join in with standalones of their own.
What has this got to do with PCVR then?
For years my rational has been FB could not compete long term with Valve or Steam when it came to VR. I said FB should just give up on PCVR altogether and concentrate on Standalones. Low and behold they did. Rift died. Rift-S died. Oculus PCVR excluives pretty much died. No mention of PCVR at all from OC. No new excluives. It was all about Quest and Quest2. Yahoo they got the message. Oculus are close to the point of sustainability, but not yet.
Now it's 2021. How will the VR lanscape look in 2022? Why would Oculus need PCVR at all?
Oculuses strengths have been, price lower than anyone else because they don't need to profit from hardware.
Buy or create exclusives because that's the part of the course when it comes to the gaming world.
Fast hardware iterations staying ahead of the competition. This business model has worked for Oculus over the last 5 years. While PSVR had died a slow death it was out of date before it was released. No consumer PCVR HMD has taken full advantage of PC's bleeding edge technology. Headsets that could blow us away like StarVR and Xtal are too expensive for us mere consmers. Pimax with it's 8KX is not worthy of our money. So we need a company to step it up.
Everything is about to change.
Oculus have already announced Quest 3 and 4 for 2022. So the lines in the sand have been drawn. So why does Oculus need PCVR at all?
Sony will be making huge strides with PS5 sales and launching and low cost HMD to go with it will take major sales away from the Quest3. If a consumer's faced with a choice of Quest3 or PSVR2 I would seriously side with PSVR2. It will have a bigger user base, better graphics, better games and no FB login. More countries could side with Germany and ban FB logins across the EU. China and Austraia. Valve 'could' have a rival platform setup to support any Standalone that supports OpenXR. This means Valve would have two prongs of attack while Oculus would have to open up the Quest platform to OpenXR and allow rival Stores. This would take away FBs price advantage as they would be selling cheap HMDs for nothing while Steam and other rival stores reaped the benefits.
So FB would be forced to resurrect their PCVR ambitions with more exclusives especially if Microsoft support OpenXR HMDs on the Xbox series X and drops WMR.
2022 will be the rebirth of VR. Apple, Sony, Valve, MS, HP, HTC will all have great stores, great controllers, great resolution, great everything, only FB will have the forced FB login and probably banned in more countries.
So will FB make a 2022 PCVR return??? They have to otherwise face a mass exodus to HMDs and companies that offer more choice. Or they can try and compete on equal terms. Thats not a fight we've seen yet in the VR space. 2022 is going to be an eye opener for sure.
In 2022 things are going to change forever. We already know two major players coming out with headsets bidding for global domination. The first is Apples £1000 VR HMD. Apple rivals Oculus in unlimited funds. It's iOS, Store and manufacturing capability is second to none. Yes I own an Iphone. Apple have their own M1 chip which is small, efficient and powerfull enough to rival any Qualcomm based HMD.
Second, Sony with their newly announced PSVR headset. We know it has a tether to take full advantage of the power of the PS5. But it could also support wireless or a second HMD from Sony could support wireless. All the technology from their cameras, TV, consoles is their.
Third is Valve. The Index is nearly 2 years old now, so if we dont see an Index 1.5 in 2021 you can bet your life we'll see a full 2.0 in 2022. Valve will support standalones sooner rather than later.
Then theirs HTC who semi announced a new HMD for 2021 but then went quiet. They're working on 5G wireles technology.
Then.................there's the likes of Samsung, LG and then all the smaller companies recently announcing HMD's over the next couple of years.
So why this thread? Well Oculus have done well with the Quest2. It's the best standalone for its price. Well for any price because FB want to gain as many users to their platform as possible if they're to stand any chance of survival when other (see above) join in with standalones of their own.
What has this got to do with PCVR then?
For years my rational has been FB could not compete long term with Valve or Steam when it came to VR. I said FB should just give up on PCVR altogether and concentrate on Standalones. Low and behold they did. Rift died. Rift-S died. Oculus PCVR excluives pretty much died. No mention of PCVR at all from OC. No new excluives. It was all about Quest and Quest2. Yahoo they got the message. Oculus are close to the point of sustainability, but not yet.
Now it's 2021. How will the VR lanscape look in 2022? Why would Oculus need PCVR at all?
Oculuses strengths have been, price lower than anyone else because they don't need to profit from hardware.
Buy or create exclusives because that's the part of the course when it comes to the gaming world.
Fast hardware iterations staying ahead of the competition. This business model has worked for Oculus over the last 5 years. While PSVR had died a slow death it was out of date before it was released. No consumer PCVR HMD has taken full advantage of PC's bleeding edge technology. Headsets that could blow us away like StarVR and Xtal are too expensive for us mere consmers. Pimax with it's 8KX is not worthy of our money. So we need a company to step it up.
Everything is about to change.
Oculus have already announced Quest 3 and 4 for 2022. So the lines in the sand have been drawn. So why does Oculus need PCVR at all?
Sony will be making huge strides with PS5 sales and launching and low cost HMD to go with it will take major sales away from the Quest3. If a consumer's faced with a choice of Quest3 or PSVR2 I would seriously side with PSVR2. It will have a bigger user base, better graphics, better games and no FB login. More countries could side with Germany and ban FB logins across the EU. China and Austraia. Valve 'could' have a rival platform setup to support any Standalone that supports OpenXR. This means Valve would have two prongs of attack while Oculus would have to open up the Quest platform to OpenXR and allow rival Stores. This would take away FBs price advantage as they would be selling cheap HMDs for nothing while Steam and other rival stores reaped the benefits.
So FB would be forced to resurrect their PCVR ambitions with more exclusives especially if Microsoft support OpenXR HMDs on the Xbox series X and drops WMR.
2022 will be the rebirth of VR. Apple, Sony, Valve, MS, HP, HTC will all have great stores, great controllers, great resolution, great everything, only FB will have the forced FB login and probably banned in more countries.
So will FB make a 2022 PCVR return??? They have to otherwise face a mass exodus to HMDs and companies that offer more choice. Or they can try and compete on equal terms. Thats not a fight we've seen yet in the VR space. 2022 is going to be an eye opener for sure.
ts)
