HTC Vive is $799, ships early April 2016
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bigwinnerx
Member
Be a good parent and do the right thing
I'm pushing my late 30s, my dad paid thousands for 80s tech when I was a kid, Vive and Rift prices are certainly outpacing what some folks can handle, but, I'm fine paying into it on a historical level.
Owlowiscious
Member
the vive was not in existence (to consumers) a year ago? wtf
GPU manufactures typically don't release info until around launch time. There have been some rumors that it will be revealed in May-June : http://videocardz.com/58338/nvidia-pascal-to-be-unveiled-at-computex-2016
Dreamwriter
Member
Yeah, HTC and Valve moved quickly, Vive was hinted at last Febrary, officially announced last March.
Oculus also has the benefit of nearly all the youtube/twitch VR coverage which probably helps. Now HTC/valve are getting the vive into the hands of those guys so that will start to change a little bit.
I would have expected the almost literal avalanche of massively popular vive demo impressions over the last 3-6 months to have had more effect though.
I do wonder about sales numbers. If vive is noticeably lower, then getting a decent percentage of OR owners to upgrade t touch could have oculus with more motion controller units in the market quite quickly.
Don't we have any estimates like we did with OR based on site tracking?
artsi
Member
Well Alexa has (pretty accurate) estimates of traffic to any website, but accessing it costs $149 / month
I saw someone post the htcvive.com pre-order day numbers somewhere, but can't find it.
True, but if you've been burnt before, all the more reason to take a wait and see approach.
At $800 HTC Vive kinda falls in that territory, although I do hope to get one by the end of the year, I'd like to just see how it does first. The worst outcome would be it bombs and then has no content.
Room Scale is the game changer and its probably going to take till gen 2 before Oculus gets it. Its going to make escape room games come alive!
ashecitism
Member
lol
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
BRUH!
InaudibleWhispa
Member
ashecitism
Member
Yeah, but is it a game or a demo again?
Dreams-Visions
Member
Sounds like fun to me.
Valve, please gib a real Portal. Pls.
Valve, please gib a real Portal. Pls.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Having played with a Vive for the first time on Saturday and having an amazing time with it, I'd say that the controller/hand tracking is the thing that really transforms it into an amazing experience more so than the room scale stuff. Walking around a bit was interesting, but actually seeing your hands/controllers and interacting was just stunning.
I hope Oculus Touch isn't too far away!
I hope Oculus Touch isn't too far away!
artsi
Member
I guess a bit longer demo (or "experience") at most, as it's free. But who knows.
Turin Turambar
Member
It really reads like is a demo.
Sleeping Lesson
Member
I'm at the point where I'm tired of hearing about "experiments" and "experiences." I just want a real, full game made by Valve.
loganclaws
Plane Escape Torment
This right here, I already placed my vive order but I'm not feeling it right now. We need good core games, not these 5 minutes experiences and shallow demos.
Well it's an "experiment", so I'm sure it is a demo.
You are going to hate VR. VR is literally about experiences. It's the most experiential medium I can think of.
Sleeping Lesson
Member
Yep. I totally understand the value of these short demo-style experiences, but only like a year ago. We've got a month left before these things are in our homes, it's no longer trade show demos.
Dreams-Visions
Member
As long as everything is OpenVR compatible or an OculusVR API gets a proper wrapper it won't matter.
artsi
Member
Right on. But I'm afraid there won't be any soon considering their "VR does not need a killer app" statement
If by "good core games" you mean a dozens of hours story-driven high-production-value type of game you should honestly cancel your preorder right now.
Sleeping Lesson
Member
There's a hundred miles between what you're describing and the 5-10 minute demo-style experiences we're seeing for the most part, though. I'm not expecting 20-hour VR games for a long while, but I do hope to see more than we're seeing now.
Wrestlemania
Banned
I don't really know that it's ready for full experiences yet. I'm looking forward to getting Vive/Oculus in their first consumer form to mess around with, but it really felt like the screen isn't quite there yet that I can imagine playing a game for hours at a time. There's a still lots of room for improvement.
I would like Valve to do what valve are good at and actually back this with decent filters in-store and....no wait....I mean a game designed for VR.
They've spent a ton of time and money on getting it right, and HTC are investing millions in producing the actual hardware. Just feels like Valve could do a little more with the software support.
Even if that was just delivering a VR version of Dota 2 that looked like the Star Wars holographic chess board, that'd be a start.
Experiences seem to be a lot of fun for everybody trying out the Vive.
I think the hand/controller tracking is what makes VR truly VR and not just a glorified 3d screen around you. That's where tricking the brain into feeling the alternate reality starts. The interaction with objects and the world through usual gestures.
From this point of view it's a pity that Rift is not launching with Touch, but with a normal gamepad.
I think the hand/controller tracking is what makes VR truly VR and not just a glorified 3d screen around you. That's where tricking the brain into feeling the alternate reality starts. The interaction with objects and the world through usual gestures.
From this point of view it's a pity that Rift is not launching with Touch, but with a normal gamepad.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Yeah. Walking around certainly adds to it, but even with a reasonable amount of room you don't really have a huge amount of space and you're very quickly reminded of the room around you by chaperone.
Well then don't cancel any pre-orders because those games exist.
Sleeping Lesson
Member
I didn't say anything about canceling a pre-order.
Chairmanchuck
Member
I think he is expecting more games like Adr1ft, Chronos or Edge of Tomorrow for the Vive.
marjo
Member
I feel the opposite. I'm much more excited about something like ModBox or TiltBrush than I would be about a AAA game.
Dreamwriter
Member
Folks wanting Valve to make a AAA game from ground up for VR, realize that a good, high quality game takes at least a couple years to make. But Vive was only announced one year ago (which probably means it was only a little before that that they had finalized how it was going to work enough to start software development). They might very well be working on one (they are hiring VR developers on their website), but it won't be ready this year.
Reading my previous post again it comes off more abrasive than I intended, let me clarify.
I really do believe and it's my honest advice that people who want multiple large-scale, long, polished game experiences with significant production values shouldn't buy a Vive early on. It's very unlikely that they'll get what they want before the end of the year at the earliest.
I really do believe and it's my honest advice that people who want multiple large-scale, long, polished game experiences with significant production values shouldn't buy a Vive early on. It's very unlikely that they'll get what they want before the end of the year at the earliest.
Sleeping Lesson
Member
Yeah I agree with this. What doesn't come across in my posts is that I am 100% on board even with just what we've seen so far. I'm just not enthused by announcements of more content that I feel like I'll play the first week and then never touch again.
artsi
Member
Palmer has been talking some Touch / room scale stuff over at Reddit in the past hour. Make of it what you will, but I thought it was interesting.
Basically he's saying that they went with the setup / design they have because they want interactions with hands close together possible, but it can do room scale with two opposing cameras (sacrificing that possibility).
Basically he's saying that they went with the setup / design they have because they want interactions with hands close together possible, but it can do room scale with two opposing cameras (sacrificing that possibility).
What I'll primarily make of that is that people who strongly believe that Oculus will officially (and in terms of software output) support a room-scale setup with Touch might be disappointed.
Also, I haven't heard any reports at all about Vive tracking issues with your hands closer together -- maybe it's just because of genius software design, but thinking about the geometry and the way the lighthouse boxes work I find it very hard to imagine a situation in which the tracking would fail.
What I find incredibly easy, on the other hand, is to imagine how tracking with 2 cameras from the front would fail hard as soon as you turn around.
Also, I haven't heard any reports at all about Vive tracking issues with your hands closer together -- maybe it's just because of genius software design, but thinking about the geometry and the way the lighthouse boxes work I find it very hard to imagine a situation in which the tracking would fail.
What I find incredibly easy, on the other hand, is to imagine how tracking with 2 cameras from the front would fail hard as soon as you turn around.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Vive tracking with the controllers close together definitely worked fine when I tried it. In fact being able to make the two touch on screen and feel them hit each other in my hands was my first "wow" moment of the demo.
Still, I think I prefer what I've seen of the Touch controllers so far. The Vive controllers are weirdly big and whichever one is going to give the best feeling of presence for my hands is going to win out for me. I think sitting and being able to interact in a more accurate and complex way is going to be a more immersive experience that having some additional movement options.
Just watching the Touch reveal video again, having that grip button is also going to be really useful for picking things up more naturally.
Still, I think I prefer what I've seen of the Touch controllers so far. The Vive controllers are weirdly big and whichever one is going to give the best feeling of presence for my hands is going to win out for me. I think sitting and being able to interact in a more accurate and complex way is going to be a more immersive experience that having some additional movement options.
Just watching the Touch reveal video again, having that grip button is also going to be really useful for picking things up more naturally.
Graphics Horse
Member
I am curious what kind of design they use for constellation, can they identify each individual dot without confusion?
artsi
Member
I think what Palmer means with hands close interaction is something like, well...
There was this video / demo where you pull a grenade pin with the Vive controller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ6Si7Ph7Vs
As we can see it's more like pulling the pin with a pair of pliers (while holding the grenade with another pair), when Touch with it's design and grabbing mechanism would allow it to happen more with your own hands.
I hope we can see more Touch stuff at GDC, including the complex hand manipulations Palmer is talking about (whatever they are in the end).
There was this video / demo where you pull a grenade pin with the Vive controller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ6Si7Ph7Vs
As we can see it's more like pulling the pin with a pair of pliers (while holding the grenade with another pair), when Touch with it's design and grabbing mechanism would allow it to happen more with your own hands.
I hope we can see more Touch stuff at GDC, including the complex hand manipulations Palmer is talking about (whatever they are in the end).
Wrestlemania
Banned
Yeah, this is definitely how it feels. Not so noticeable in something where you're holding a weapon, but as soon as you're using them to control a pair of hand, like in Job Simulator, it does feel pretty crude.
artsi
Member
Yep, it might not be that much about tracking but more about the controller design in this case. The big wands just collide more easily physically.
I tried to come up with more examples but another Reddit user had some good ones that I'll borrow.
I watched several live streams with people trying Vive for the first time and there was never a moment in which there was an issue having the Vive controllers close together or even touching. I think most of the people actually tried touching them together anyhow.
Edit: oh and artsi I hope you acknowledge that you are somehow repeatedly doing what you complained about in the Oculus thread.
Edit: oh and artsi I hope you acknowledge that you are somehow repeatedly doing what you complained about in the Oculus thread.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Like I said, you can actually touch them or have them close together and the tracking will work fine. It's not something you'd really think to complain about while using it the first time because it's not really that big a deal and none of the experiences require you do anything with your hands close together, but of the two solutions Touch appears to be the one that goes further for making it about hand presence and more natural interaction.
I think the point is that the vive controllers don't allow your hands to get close to each other due to their design. So no, you shouldn't get major issues with occlusion but neither will you have fine grained hand interaction either (which is probably fine)
I would guess that for larger motions, oculus touch should be fine with an opposing corner, 2 camera setup (as Kreijlooc illustrated previously). But such a setup would not be ideal for close in, hand to hand interaction which oculus have been demoing with the toy box etc. That kind of interaction is more robust with a two camera, front facing arrangement.
So oculus need to choose.
1) lighthouse arrangement (opposing corners, two cameras) and aim to be close to vive functionality, and accept weaker occlusion resistance when the users hands are closer together
2) two forward facing cameras for more intimate hand control but lose the 360 tracking.
3) combo of 1&2. Opposing corner setup, with an additional camera along the front facing axis for fine hand tracking. Total of three cameras and lots of cables.
With the reception vive has had, this is a difficult call for oculus. If they aren't careful vive will steal their thunder very quickly once it hits the market. Personally I can see them adapting the touch controllers and cameras and going for an opposite corner model just to try and get to parity.
I think when you factor in some of the oculus acquisitions, they may be looking at a future direction of natural hand tracking so they may want to push the fine grained tracking.
Wrestlemania
Banned
I think they'll go for two and have the best solution that fits the most typical usage scenario people will have.
I think that's definitely true for non cockpit based games, but games like Dirt Rally, Pcars, Eve Valkyrie etc are every bit as immersive when using the appropriate wheel/joystick. I've been playing all 3 non stop this week with a Fanatec clubsport wheel setup and Saitek x52 for Valkyrie, with dual butt kickers on my chair and Simvibe handling vibrations, and I can assure you that it's vastly more immersive than just a 3d screen around you. Motion controls would quite honestly be inferior for cockpit based games. Dirt Rally with a quality wheel and seat vibrations is the most immersive video gaming I've ever experienced at home by a long shot. I definitely still want my motion controllers, but there are plenty of games that will give you an incredibly immersive feeling without them.
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