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Comment by YeahNO | Hacker News Reader

I think it's actually good that Oculus has an easy-to-use solution for people without an expensive gaming computer. That will attract a wider range of people to VR so they can get their feet wet without spending thousands of dollars.

I use my Rift S for racing and space sims as well as some FPS games. Yeah, the HUD text is not the best, but I prefer to run HUD off for the ImmErSioN, which is fine. A Quest 2 would increase the resolution I suppose, but I enjoy the headset I have. If your standards are so, no offense, snobbishly high, why are you touting Vive and Index when you should be demanding Oculus build 8K VR headsets like Pimax or XTal? More expensive/better headsets are in the market. The market isn't buying them, so graphics fidelity doesn't seem to be the issue.

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The question isn't really about my own standards. I own an Oculus as well as the others. The question is whether a low quality device is beneficial or detrimental for the industry at this stage.

For instance, when Oculus came around, most people were put off by VR due to the quality of mobile VR headsets. Similarly, they may be put off because of the quality of oculus, assuming that that's all VR has to offer.

Therefore for a period of time I think it may be best that VR sticks to higher quality headsets and content as to promote the WOW factor of what VR can do. At the moment, the appeal is either a half an hour "horror" game experience, usually promoted by a screaming female, or beat saber. Beyond that casual users don't know much about VR. Bombarding them with VR chat videos is not beneficial either. It's a bit like when you want to prove a technology you prove it at its best not at its average.

But I suppose since the best argument against is that users / developers like me are "snobbish" then VR is really dead. At least for a while.

Like I said, don't take it the wrong way, I've been snobbish, too. I spent a lot of money over the years chasing the "best" gaming experience. I've seen VR come and go since Sega's VR Shades that never made it to market.

You've got to consider that there are many tiers of gamers out there. Not very many are going to spend the thousands needed to get a top-shelf VR experience. If the only VR headsets out there require a huge (for many) investment, VR will always be a niche product. 2% of Steam gamers have a VR headset.[1] These are, arguably, savvy, more hardcore gamers than the average person, and it's still only 2%!

60% of those VR headset owners have an Oculus, 14% have an Index, 7% have a Vive. Price wins, like it or not.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

edit: fixed link

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