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[aaaaa0]

Hmm. I figured that without some sort of time code, they&#8217;d only be able to get distance to the beacon, but I guess now I understand why they need to hit five sensors to get a full lock. Interesting, thanks. <3

The way Lighthouse works is there is a LED flash that denotes the beginning of the scan pass for the laser. Then the laser scans across the room in a known pattern taking a known amount of time.

The photosensor mounted on the headset sees the LED flash denoting the beginning of the scan, then begins a high resolution timer, waiting for the laser to hit it. Based on the time the laser hits the sensor, it can then calculate its direction relative to the watchtower, multiple sensor hits result in a position via triangulation.

The more sensors on the object, the more precise and reliable the position information. This is fine, since the sensors are dirt cheap to implement (they're just a photosensor and a timer, not a camera).

This visualization makes it easier to understand what it is doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=J54dotTt7k0

The way to think of Lighthouse is that it works kind of like an old-fashioned SNES CRT light gun (like you use in Duck Hunt), but in 3 dimensions instead of 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_gun

 

[bj00rn_]

Oculus still full speed ahead on their fragmentation train

http://www.destructoid.com/hitman-g...ures-not-coming-to-steam-version-357149.phtml

Where does it end (Not that this particular "exclusive" sounds so fantastic, but still..)

 

[VlaudTheImpaler]

So um taking acid and then playing VR is more than a little overwhelming. Not the best idea.

Sky Chief

 

[mrchampipi]

Oculus still full speed ahead on their fragmentation train

http://www.destructoid.com/hitman-g...ures-not-coming-to-steam-version-357149.phtml

Where does it end (Not that this particular "exclusive" sounds so fantastic, but still..)

And in those cases, they can't hide behind their usual "we fund the game" argument. Watch them say "it's not exclusive to the Rift as it's also available for Gear".

 

[Guardian Monkey]

So um taking acid and then playing VR is more than a little overwhelming. Not the best idea.

Sky Chief

And there it is.

 

[Kevin]

Oculus still full speed ahead on their fragmentation train

http://www.destructoid.com/hitman-g...ures-not-coming-to-steam-version-357149.phtml

Where does it end (Not that this particular "exclusive" sounds so fantastic, but still..)

This was always my fear. That Oculus/Facebook would "buy" massive support for the Rift. I fear that in a couple of years Rift will have all of the big games and Vive and other headsets will have just small indie games and tech demos. :/

 

[Dreams-Visions]

This was always my fear. That Oculus/Facebook would "buy" massive support for the Rift. I fear that in a couple of years Rift will have all of the big games and Vive and other headsets will have just small indie games and tech demos. :/

this is PC, not consoles. there is no future on PC where enthusiasts don't develop homebrew software to overcome such silly decisions. for the sake of these developers, I hope they develop for all platforms as often as they can. The SteamVR headsets *will* play these games whether they like it or not. Mine as well make some money in the process, developers.

 

[artsi]

Oculus still full speed ahead on their fragmentation train

http://www.destructoid.com/hitman-g...ures-not-coming-to-steam-version-357149.phtml

Where does it end (Not that this particular "exclusive" sounds so fantastic, but still..)

Well, my theory has always been that Oculus is in the game to dominate via marketshare, and exclusives are clearly a part of their strategy to grab the larger piece of the pie.

I guess it ends either when they feel safe with their market position against the competition, or they decide VR is not worth it after all.

Facebook doesn't run out of money, so they're certainly able to keep it up as long as they see the strategy viable in long-term.

 

[KingSnake]

Oculus still full speed ahead on their fragmentation train

http://www.destructoid.com/hitman-g...ures-not-coming-to-steam-version-357149.phtml

Where does it end (Not that this particular "exclusive" sounds so fantastic, but still..)

Not the best showcase for VR, but yeah, Oculus seems to go fully isolationist with they VR policy.

This was always my fear. That Oculus/Facebook would "buy" massive support for the Rift. I fear that in a couple of years Rift will have all of the big games and Vive and other headsets will have just small indie games and tech demos. :/

The thing is that Rift's market won't be big enough to support the big games on its own any time soon. I don't know, feels more like cut the nose to spite the face at this point.

 

[Paganmoon]

this is PC, not consoles. there is no future on PC where enthusiasts don't develop homebrew software to overcome such silly decisions. for the sake of these developers, I hope they develop for all platforms as often as they can. The SteamVR headsets *will* play these games whether they like it or not. Mine as well make some money in the process, developers.

If Facebook/Oculus whole idea is to lock people into their headset/store/"platform", I can't see them not breaking any homebrew fix for this with their own patches a time goes though.
Also, and this is maybe something Durante can answer, won't adding homebrew middleware that "translates" calls to the Vive add latency? Won't that alone be cause for a worse experience while using Vive, if there isn't proper support for it?

How is the current Revive plugin in terms of added latency?

 

[KingSnake]

How is the current Revive plugin in terms of added latency?

It works fine for me with Lucky's Tale.

 

[artsi]

If Facebook/Oculus whole idea is to lock people into their headset/store/"platform", I can't see them not breaking any homebrew fix for this with their own patches a time goes though.
Also, and this is maybe something Durante can answer, won't adding homebrew middleware that "translates" calls to the Vive add latency? Won't that alone be cause for a worse experience while using Vive, if there isn't proper support for it?

How is the current Revive plugin in terms of added latency?

Personally I haven't noticed any more latency than native SteamVR games, but I'm still a bit paranoid using Revive as I can't know if the experience is 100% the same as I would have on the Rift.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

This was always my fear. That Oculus/Facebook would "buy" massive support for the Rift. I fear that in a couple of years Rift will have all of the big games and Vive and other headsets will have just small indie games and tech demos. :/

Dont think so. Look at what has been released on Oculus Home since the release and what has been released on Steam in terms of VR since the Vive release.

Oculus Home is a bad client. There is no way around it. And the excuse "But steam has been in the game for over 10 years" is not valid. You can see what Steam offers and then develop your own storefront according to that (and what customer want).

I mean in Oculus Home I can only pay with a CC (it seems)
No cloud saves
No chat function
No regional pricing
No achievements
No workshop
No way to add Non-Oculus games to the client
No community features

Its a mess and some of these things are really easy things to implement (cloud saves, achievements)...

 

[Onemic]

Oculus gonna Oculus

 

[wonderpug]

This was always my fear. That Oculus/Facebook would "buy" massive support for the Rift. I fear that in a couple of years Rift will have all of the big games and Vive and other headsets will have just small indie games and tech demos. :/

If that happened, HTC would probably give in and let the Vive compatible with the Oculus Store.

 

[Paganmoon]

If that happened, HTC would probably give in and let the Vive compatible with the Oculus Store.

Valve's pretty invested in the Vive though, not sure they'd happily loose business to another store front.

 

[Foggy]

Maybe this is the week I get the OR. Maybe? Pretty please?

 

[jaypah]

Anyone tried the new beta branch for No Limit Coasters 2? It's an experimental branch designed to work with 1.3 for the Rift CV1 and DK2. I'm getting a pretty good performance boost. Not sure if it's better optimized or if ATW is tricking my brain but coasters with a lot of support struts/beams that used to drop my framerate are now running a LOT smoother. Or that's the perception at least. I "rode" about 10 coasters and the experience was a lot better than it used to be. 290x with a very slight OC (horrible reference card), i7 4820k @3.7 and 8 gigs of RAM.

 

[wonderpug]

Valve's pretty invested in the Vive though, not sure they'd happily loose business to another store front.

I think it just depends on how their partnership is structured. Valve has definitely heavy on Vive advertising on Steam this last month, but they're also marketing directly to Rift owners more than I would think HTC would want. Also IIRC, when HTC was touting the Vive at that mobile phone conference, they barely mentioned Valve or Steam.

 

[KingSnake]

If that happened, HTC would probably give in and let the Vive compatible with the Oculus Store.

Unless HTC gets a share from the games sold in Oculus Store, there's no incentive for them to do that. I would see rather Oculus to be interested in add support for Open VR once they get over this great idea that exclusives are the way to go. Just look at Oculus Home vs. Steam since release. Tons of new games on Steam, a whole lot of silence on Oculus Home. In the end it will hurt developers more than anybody else.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Unless HTC gets a share from the games sold in Oculus Store, there's no incentive for them to do that. I would see rather Oculus to be interested in add support for Open VR once they get over this great idea that exclusives are the way to go. Just look at Oculus Home vs. Steam since release. Tons of new games on Steam, a whole lot of silence on Oculus Home. In the end it will hurt developers more than anybody else.

Does HTC get a share of any steam games sold? I imagine they don't. They're invested in selling the headset. Valve is too but only as a tool to get people to use their store which is why they're all for the Rift having Steam compatibility. In other words, being able to use the headset on any storefront would benefit HTC, but not Valve (unless they could tie Steamworks in to it).

 

[KingSnake]

Does HTC get a share of any steam games sold? I imagine they don't. They're invested in selling the headset. Valve is too but only as a tool to get people to use their store. In other words, being able to use the headset anywhere would benefit HTC, but not Valve (unless they could tie Steamworks in to it).

I think there must be some agreement on the software side between HTC and Valve, seeing as Valve seems very involved in developing this whole area (like now with inviting the developer of Budget Cuts to their HQ for a month, with The Lab and so on). And on the hardware side HTC benefiting from all the VR R&D from Valve. So even if they don't share from the software they get some hefty benefits from this association.

But I guess we'll see.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

I think there must be some agreement on the software side between HTC and Valve, seeing as Valve seems very involved in developing this whole area (like now with inviting the developer of Budget Cuts to their HQ for a month, with The Lab and so on). And on the hardware side HTC benefiting from all the VR R&D from Valve. So even if they don't share from the software they get some hefty benefits from this association.

But I guess we'll see.

Definitely, which is why even though there is an incentive for HTC, it's probably not going to happen from their side any time soon (if ever).

I'm curious if Oculus will eventually cave. Obviously their store front is very important to them and likely how they're making the majority of their money right now, but they're playing a long game with the hardware where they probably plan to eventually profit on that side as well. If I had to guess, they'll push for exclusivity until Oculus Home and the brand in general is entrenched and then open it up for compatibility elsewhere when selling the headset (or headsets) is profitable. Either way, I don't see this standoff ending any time soon :[

 

[Chairmanchuck]

Unless HTC gets a share from the games sold in Oculus Store, there's no incentive for them to do that. I would see rather Oculus to be interested in add support for Open VR once they get over this great idea that exclusives are the way to go. Just look at Oculus Home vs. Steam since release. Tons of new games on Steam, a whole lot of silence on Oculus Home. In the end it will hurt developers more than anybody else.

Thats actually the worst I think. They wanna compete with Steam? Then do a good storefront.
I mean there are really more VR games coming out each day on Steam than came out on Oculus Home since release.

And some GearVR devs on reddit report, that they finished their Rift Port of their games, but have been rejected:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/44i7n2/would_appreciate_feedback_to_figure_out_why/

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4ezefb/for_the_devs_that_got_a_submission_to_oculus/

My app (Storyteller: Fireside Tales audiobook player, for those wondering) wasn't rejected, but they didn't respond to my submission for like 8 months, so at this point I'm not sure it's even worth spending time updating the program (it was a demo project, not my main game) in order to get it on the store.

Hi everyone, I created The Visitor for Oculus and Vive. It has been downloaded many times, and I have received excellent feedback and input from the community. I got loads of request to bring it to GearVR and so I spent ages porting it before ultimately submitting it to Oculus Store for review. 3 weeks later, the game is rejected, and the rejection email says "Due to the high volume of submissions, we can't offer special feedback"

And using Oculus Home, it really lacks so many basic features. From what I can see I cant even search or it seems so hidden, that I cant find it.

 

[wonderpug]

I'm curious if Oculus will eventually cave. Obviously their store front is very important to them and likely how they're making the majority of their money right now, but they're playing a long game with the hardware where they probably plan to eventually profit on that side as well. If I had to guess, they'll push for exclusivity until Oculus Home and the brand in general is entrenched and then open it up for compatibility elsewhere when selling the headset (or headsets) is profitable. Either way, I don't see this standoff ending any time soon :[

With the deep Facebook pockets Oculus has, I don't see them caving any time soon. They're expecting there to be other VR headset makers besides just Oculus and HTC, and they want the Oculus Store to be what they all plug into. I think they were just really naive to think that Valve would just roll over and let a competing storefront pop up and stomp all over Steam for VR.

I think the tipping point will be whenever a viable 3rd headset player arrives for PC-based VR. Unless Valve woos them, they'd have no reason not to agree to Oculus's requirements for getting on the Oculus Store, and then the Vive would be even more the odd man out for keeping out of the store. But if Valve does woo the 3rd headset maker, or if Oculus's demands are too strict and the 3rd headset decides they're fine with being excluded from the store, that'd be the death of Oculus exclusivity.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

With the deep Facebook pockets Oculus has, I don't see them caving any time soon. They're expecting there to be other VR headset makers besides just Oculus and HTC, and they want the Oculus Store to be what they all plug into. .

Right now there is no incentive to use the Oculus Home story though besides exclusive games and starting them from the VR Home.

Everything else is worse than even uPlay.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

With the deep Facebook pockets Oculus has, I don't see them caving any time soon. They're expecting there to be other VR headset makers besides just Oculus and HTC, and they want the Oculus Store to be what they all plug into. I think they were just really naive to think that Valve would just roll over and let a competing storefront pop up and stomp all over Steam for VR.

I think the tipping point will be whenever a viable 3rd headset player arrives for PC-based VR. Unless Valve woos them, they'd have no reason not to agree to Oculus's requirements for getting on the Oculus Store, and then the Vive would be even more the odd man out for keeping out of the store. But if Valve does woo the 3rd headset maker, or if Oculus's demands are too strict and the 3rd headset decides they're fine with being excluded from the store, that'd be the death of Oculus exclusivity.

I can't see any third party wanting to restrict compatibility unless they create their own storefront. At that point the only problem could be Oculus refusing to let them access their store. So yeah, a third serious contender might be what we need to bust all these walls down.

Right now there is no incentive to use the Oculus Home story though besides exclusive games and starting them from the VR Home.

Everything else is worse than even uPlay.

True but that doesn't change the fact that they want everyone to use Home.

 

[wonderpug]

Oculus Home is barebones at the moment, that's for sure, but it's also the only purpose-built VR storefront right now. I haven't used a Vive first-hand, but from what I've read it sounds like Steam VR just looks like the same old Steam we're used to, except it's now inside your headset. It's functional, but not particularly VR-ish.

Oculus Home has a lot of obvious features missing, but it looks nicer. Once Oculus adds more promised features like the ability to see fully-VR preview videos of games in the store, it'll stand out even more. (Assuming Valve doesn't beat them to the punch on features like that, which is entirely possible.)

Also, Oculus having an approval process for getting apps and games into the store may end up being a huge plus, despite how many people are yelling about it being the devil. If you buy a shittily made VR game you won't just get annoyed at bugs you encounter, you can potentially get physical ill. If Oculus does as good a job as vetting games as they're saying they will, users might grow to like how they can better trust that games in the Oculus store are going to work well.

I followed the links to the Oculus-rejected games Chairmanchuck posted above, and one of the devs said he made his game in about 2 months. Maybe it wasn't quite polished enough after such a short development and Oculus found some aspects that were below par for comfortable VR?

Lastly, I think the Oculus SDK may be another reason we'll continue to see Oculus Store exclusives, even aside from games funded by Oculus Studios. From what I've heard, the Oculus SDK is easier to use and has a lot more tools than OpenVR does. Since every developer is going to be new to VR development, the Oculus SDK may be a very appealing kit to use. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being similar to the iOS and Android split for mobile games. Many games could be Oculus exclusive at least at first, until the dev gets around to doing the work to port it for Steam.

Lastly lastly, a lot will depend on sales numbers for the Vive and Rift, but I doubt we'll get any trustworthy numbers on that until the end of the summer.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Oculus Home is barebones at the moment, that's for sure, but it's also the only purpose-built VR storefront right now. I haven't used a Vive first-hand, but from what I've read it sounds like Steam VR just looks like the same old Steam we're used to, except it's now inside your headset. It's functional, but not particularly VR-ish.

Oculus Home has a lot of obvious features missing, but it looks nicer. Once Oculus adds more promised features like the ability to see fully-VR preview videos of games in the store, it'll stand out even more. (Assuming Valve doesn't beat them to the punch on features like that, which is entirely possible.)

Also, Oculus having an approval process for getting apps and games into the store may end up being a huge plus, despite how many people are yelling about it being the devil. If you buy a shittily made VR game you won't just get annoyed at bugs you encounter, you can potentially get physical ill. If Oculus does as good a job as vetting games as they're saying they will, users might grow to like how they can better trust that games in the Oculus store are going to work well.

I followed the links to the Oculus-rejected games Chairmanchuck posted above, and one of the devs said he made his game in about 2 months. Maybe it wasn't quite polished enough after such a short development and Oculus found some aspects that were below par for comfortable VR?

Lastly, I think the Oculus SDK may be another reason we'll continue to see Oculus Store exclusives, even aside from games funded by Oculus Studios. From what I've heard, the Oculus SDK is easier to use and has a lot more tools than OpenVR does. Since every developer is going to be new to VR development, the Oculus SDK may be a very appealing kit to use. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being similar to the iOS and Android split for mobile games. Many games could be Oculus exclusive at least at first, until the dev gets around to doing the work to port it for Steam.

Lastly lastly, a lot will depend on sales numbers for the Vive and Rift, but I doubt we'll get any trustworthy numbers on that until the end of the summer.

Isn't that why steam allows refunds though? I mean how many testers go through a game? Oculus having exclusives In the long run won't work. What other company plays a through each app besides consoles. Hell we know iOS and android doesn't. Oculus policy as it stands won't be sustainable.

 

[Tain]

What other company plays a through each app besides consoles.

Origin seems to be holding up? Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

 

[KatamariOnTheRocks]

Someone in the comments thread of that NewRetroArcade reddit post asked about motion controls being used for light gun game emulation. The dev was reticent about this and said they didn't want to reveal any surprises. That would be incredible if they pulled it off. There's also the bowling alley, skee-ball, hoops... so many possibilities!

Yesssssss

One of the first things I wanted to mess with when I receive my Vive was seeing if it would be possible to do that with MAME.

So um taking acid and then playing VR is more than a little overwhelming. Not the best idea.

I'm curious to see how Cannabis works in regards to nausea reduction.

Obviously it won't fix a game that isn't suited for VR, but I think when paired with good VR experiences it could greatly enhance the sense of presence.

 

[wonderpug]

Isn't that why steam allows refunds though? I mean how many testers go through a game?

I think there's a big difference between getting really annoyed at a buggy flat-screen game and almost vomiting and feeling like you need to lay down for a while after a buggy VR game. This is all assuming Oculus does actually succeed in making their seal of approval mean something, of course.

Now if the Rift only worked in the Oculus Store, that'd be a different story. Right now with a Rift you can have your cake and eat it too, getting the benefits of the Oculus walled garden while still being able to step outside to Steam or the offerings of the wild internets.

Oculus having exclusives In the long run won't work. What other company plays a through each app besides consoles. Hell we know iOS and android doesn't. Oculus policy as it stands won't be sustainable.

Why do you say it won't work or that it won't be sustainable? I think it's still up in the air depending on Rift vs. Vive sales numbers this next year, and depending on what surprises Oculus has up its sleeves for the Touch launch.

As a future Rift owner, I see the Oculus Store as the preferable place for me to buy my VR content, with two significant caveats: Steam sales, and the Steam return policy.

Take Windlands for example. I really want to try it, but from internet impressions it sounds like a game you either think is amazing, or a game you think is horribly nauseating. I don't want to drop $20 to find out whether or not I'm the latter, so it's really appealing to be able to buy it with a big Steam sale discount or with the return policy safety net.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Exactly but that (wind lands) wouldn't be on oculus site as it wouldn't pass qa. All I am saying is that steam gives the consumer more options and does limit them. As you pointed out in the future with a lot of games can they keep up.?

 

[Sky Chief]

I'm curious to see how Cannabis works in regards to nausea reduction.

Obviously it won't fix a game that isn't suited for VR, but I think when paired with good VR experiences it could greatly enhance the sense of presence.

Typically it works well for me to reduce VR sickness. Also it definitely can increase presence. I smoked some Dream Girl (Blue Dream x Girl Scout Cookies) and that compared to all other strains I have tried gave me an insane sense of presence in The Lab demos in particular.

However, I tried smoking when I was tripping on acid and feeling terrible VR sickness and it made me feel a lot worse. My friends and I had played for several hours while tripping (we took very little, maybe 1/8 of a hit each) and were having a great time and no ill effects and then I tried Budget Cuts and I think for some reason it didn't load properly and had a low frame rate or something because after like two minutes I felt awful and smoking made it a lot worse.

 

[KingSnake]

Oculus Home is barebones at the moment, that's for sure, but it's also the only purpose-built VR storefront right now. I haven't used a Vive first-hand, but from what I've read it sounds like Steam VR just looks like the same old Steam we're used to, except it's now inside your headset. It's functional, but not particularly VR-ish.

Oculus Home has a lot of obvious features missing, but it looks nicer. Once Oculus adds more promised features like the ability to see fully-VR preview videos of games in the store, it'll stand out even more. (Assuming Valve doesn't beat them to the punch on features like that, which is entirely possible.).

I had to have a look on youtube to see how beautiful is Oculus Home in order to compensates the lack of all those features. Maybe I didn't find the right videos so try to explain what's so great about it?

In other news there are also some Vive apps for whoever is bored of the good old Steam and you can access all your VR games from there.

 

[Tain]

Someone in the comments thread of that NewRetroArcade reddit post asked about motion controls being used for light gun game emulation. The dev was reticent about this and said they didn't want to reveal any surprises. That would be incredible if they pulled it off. There's also the bowling alley, skee-ball, hoops... so many possibilities!

Interesting. While it would be neat as hell to see light gun games in NewRetroArcade, NewRetroArcade doesn't currently run at the right speed and isn't anywhere near feature-packed enough to be a real general-use emulator.

Call it nitpicking, but I think the emulation of light gun games in VR is a pretty big deal. Light gun games stand to benefit more than typical console and arcade games. They, like pinball, have an extremely tangible reason to be played in a simulated VR space. VR motion controllers are the only modern devices that could possibly do justice to the experience of CRT light guns.

I think the best bet for this is for Virtual Desktop to support mouse "aiming" with the motion controllers. This would allow people to use Real Deal MAME, with all the functionality and accuracy that comes with it.

 

[marjo]

Oculus still full speed ahead on their fragmentation train

http://www.destructoid.com/hitman-g...ures-not-coming-to-steam-version-357149.phtml

Where does it end (Not that this particular "exclusive" sounds so fantastic, but still..)

This is the kind of shit that makes me glad I cancelled my rift pre-order and went with the Vive.

 

[jim2011]

This is the kind of shit that makes me glad I cancelled my rift pre-order and went with the Vive.

On the contrary, this is the kind that makes me glad I went with rift over vive. For me, I'd rather have content than "vote with my wallet" against practices like this.

 

[wonderpug]

I had to have a look on youtube to see how beautiful is Oculus Home in order to compensates the lack of all those features. Maybe I didn't find the right videos so try to explain what's so great about it?

In other news there are also some Vive apps for whoever is bored of the good old Steam and you can access all your VR games from there.

Disclaimer: I haven't tried either headset first-hand, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm getting something wrong about either.

From what I've seen, the overall interface in Oculus Home has better sized text and pictures for VR use, and it sounds easier to navigate. I'm bummed they didn't get the VR preview feature done in time for release, but it sounds really nifty to be able to see a flat picture of a game in a store and have the option to dive into it to see it in a VR space.

The other main thing that sounds really neat to me is how well Oculus Home integrates with the headset. If I wanted to go from chatting on forums on my traditional monitor to VR, I can just pick up my Rift and put it on. Oculus Home instantly launches and is ready to go.

It just sounds like a very polished integration of headset + store + launcher (aside from all the glaringly obvious missing features that Oculus needs to get around to rolling out.)

But given how much work Valve has done on the Big Picture mode on Steam, I think it's just a matter of time before they come out with their own more purpose-built VR launcher.

 

[Sky Chief]

I haven't received my Rift yet but I think SteamVR is great. It's really easy and intuitive to use with the controllers. There's a dedicated button to bring it and the through view camera up. When I'm demoing to friends that aren't gamers there seems to be a much smaller learning curve than even with consoles. I have no complaints.

 

[wonderpug]

It's behind the Forbes ad-blocker wall, but here's an article just posted by Oculus Head of Studios Jason Rubin:

In Defense of Exclusives

 

[Onemic]

It's behind the Forbes ad-blocker wall, but here's an article just posted by Oculus Head of Studios Jason Rubin:

In Defense of Exclusives

Well of course an Oculus employee would defend exclusives.

 

[wonderpug]

Well of course an Oculus employee would defend exclusives.

Well yes, but since this guy is the head guy in charge of funding titles and turning them exclusive, it's kind of interesting to see how he chooses to defend his position.

 

[KingSnake]

Disclaimer: I haven't tried either headset first-hand, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm getting something wrong about either.

From what I've seen, the overall interface in Oculus Home has better sized text and pictures for VR use, and it sounds easier to navigate. I'm bummed they didn't get the VR preview feature done in time for release, but it sounds really nifty to be able to see a flat picture of a game in a store and have the option to dive into it to see it in a VR space.

The other main thing that sounds really neat to me is how well Oculus Home integrates with the headset. If I wanted to go from chatting on forums on my traditional monitor to VR, I can just pick up my Rift and put it on. Oculus Home instantly launches and is ready to go.

It just sounds like a very polished integration of headset + store + launcher (aside from all the glaringly obvious missing features that Oculus needs to get around to rolling out.)

But given how much work Valve has done on the Big Picture mode on Steam, I think it's just a matter of time before they come out with their own more purpose-built VR launcher.

Except for automatically starting Steam VR interface is perfectly adapted to VR. You should try it. You can switch to the desktop mode or turn on the camera to see around you without needing to get your headset off.

But help me understand, you haven't tried any of them on your own yet?

 

[wonderpug]

Except for automatically starting Steam VR interface is perfectly adapted to VR. You should try it. You can switch to the desktop mode or turn on the camera to see around you without needing to get your headset off.

But help me understand, you haven't tried any of them on your own yet?

Nope, but I've flip flopped several times on which headset preorder to keep, so I've been following impressions of both as much as I can. I'll also be spending plenty of time in Steam VR, especially once Touch comes out, so I'm more than happy to be wrong about its interface being lacking.

 

[Wrestlemania]

Except for automatically starting Steam VR interface is perfectly adapted to VR. You should try it. You can switch to the desktop mode or turn on the camera to see around you without needing to get your headset off.

But help me understand, you haven't tried any of them on your own yet?

I wouldn't say it's "perfectly" adapted. Resetting your seated position is a pain and text size is a bit small in a lot of places since it's just giving you the big picture view rather than something originally designed for VR. Works okay though.

 

[Tain]

If storefront exclusivity that can be broken with these thin API compatibility layers is what it takes to get Oculus to fund developers of larger-scale games like Cronos, Eve, etc, then I'm fine with it. If only the barriers between consoles and PCs were so easy to circumvent, lol.

edit: and SteamVR's dashboard surprised me with how well it worked. Better than Big Picture, I'd say. It's not quite as polished as the Oculus storefront (from what I've tried on my DK2), but it obviously does much more, so that's plenty excusable.

 

[mrchampipi]

Disclaimer: I haven't tried either headset first-hand, so I'm happy to be corrected if I'm getting something wrong about either.

From what I've seen, the overall interface in Oculus Home has better sized text and pictures for VR use, and it sounds easier to navigate. I'm bummed they didn't get the VR preview feature done in time for release, but it sounds really nifty to be able to see a flat picture of a game in a store and have the option to dive into it to see it in a VR space.

The other main thing that sounds really neat to me is how well Oculus Home integrates with the headset. If I wanted to go from chatting on forums on my traditional monitor to VR, I can just pick up my Rift and put it on. Oculus Home instantly launches and is ready to go.

It just sounds like a very polished integration of headset + store + launcher (aside from all the glaringly obvious missing features that Oculus needs to get around to rolling out.)

But given how much work Valve has done on the Big Picture mode on Steam, I think it's just a matter of time before they come out with their own more purpose-built VR launcher.

I've only experienced the Oculus store on my DK2, but believe me: so far, there is nothing special about it. It's not that pretty, clunky and rather empty. It'll certainly be nice after several updates and touch hit the market, but as for now it's really meh compare to steam VR on the Vive IMO.

 

[StudioTan]

Exactly but that (wind lands) wouldn't be on oculus site as it wouldn't pass qa. All I am saying is that steam gives the consumer more options and does limit them. As you pointed out in the future with a lot of games can they keep up.?

Windlands is sold on the Oculus store.

 

[Monger]

It's behind the Forbes ad-blocker wall, but here's an article just posted by Oculus Head of Studios Jason Rubin:

In Defense of Exclusives

And here I thought they wanted to support the Vive, but HTC and Valve were in the way.

In a perfect world, all VR companies would be doing the same thing, and we’d all have content that is good and exclusive