reportedly, ValvE's & HTC's Vive will hover around 1500$ price point

[That Norwegian Guy]

Released 1995 for $180.

 

 

Two decades down.  What now?

 

Eeeeeeh it's not really VR, the Virtual Boy's capabilities (not to mention the other failures around the 90s and early naughties) were in no way close enough graphically to reality to be VR. The games weren't even first person.

[typographie]

when you build something, market it at a general audience and claim mass adoption, then you bloody well price it accordingly

 

And that general audience right now is early-adopting tech enthusiasts with high-end PCs and lots of disposable income. New tech almost never targets mass adoption first, that comes later. This was never going to go mainstream right out of the gate and no one could reasonably have expected it to. The price will probably go down and the installed user base will correspondingly go up over the next few years.

 

That said, a Vive at $1500 may well be dead in the water, simply because that's not going to be competitive with the Oculus Rift at that price. It's main selling point would be that the Rift is sold out into the summer.

[Dredgy]

at these price points, coupled with the fact that you need quite the beastly PC to run it, VR's mass adoption won't happen anytime soon

it will see niche use in some non-gameristic fields, medical, military .. but as a gaming aimed peripheral, it's rather D.O.A.

 

 

It'll happen sooner than you think (if it's any good). Prices will come down in a couple of years as the technology matures (as with everything). And with the Oculus priced at $600, it's within the reach of a lot of enthusiasts right off the bat. Is exactly what I predicted the price point would be, and in 2 years I'd expect to be at the $250-300 mark once optimized manufacturing processes, higher yields and increased competition come into effect.

[dimitriianghelov]

wouldn't be surprised if it's like 1000$ since they have better resolution screens compared to oculus and come with touch controllers , also don't fall in to Sony will be cheaper, unless they plan to use it only for movies since PS4 can't handle more than that

[azurezeed]

And the PlayStation vr might be sold at a loss, just like past generation consoles, if not then...

[Humbug]

wouldn't be surprised if it's like 1000$ since they have better resolution screens compared to oculus and come with touch controllers

same resolution screens. (at least in final version of Rift)

What I have heard is that the Vive does have better tracking, room scale VR and a front camera so you can look around without taking off the headset. Also it will support Mac OSX, Linux and Windows. Rift is windows only for now.

[Bojamijams]

ITT: People who don't understand the price of groundbreaking, custom made technology. 

 

Oh and whiny babies. 

[alamox]

wth is this post ? really, a nobody bloger, stating that Vive is going to be 1.5k$ and his source is " So the news coming out of Taiwan today " ...

[LAwLz]

 

I love how people expected brand new tech to be instantly affordable for everyone... oculus sort of lead peope to believe that and they shouldn't have, but let's be real. These are very high quality screens attached to some decent processing power and advanced software, they were never going to be cheap at launch. I don't hear anyone complaining when nvidia releases a 650$ graphics card or when intel releases a 1500$ 10 core xeon, why is it any different for this?

It's different because:

1) Processors and GPUs can be used for more than gaming on a handful of titles.

2) Neither Nvidia nor Intel say they will release something at one price, and then when it goes up for pre-order it is twice that much.

3) A CPU or a GPU is something you will have to buy anyway to have a working computer. Spending a bit more on something essential is an easier pill to swallow than to buy a very expensive toy that will only be used for a few specific tasks, which you could also do on a regular monitor. The regular monitor you will have to get anyway...

 

Imagine if Nvidia said they would release a graphics card that could get 120 FPS minimum in The Witcher 3 when maxed out at 4K. Imagine if they said it would be 300 dollars. Then when they announce it then say that it will actually only be able to run The Witcher 3 and like 4 other games. No other game will work with this new card. Also, the card is 700 dollars instead of 300.

Can you honestly say that you don't think anyone would be giving Nvidia crap for that? Because I have no problem believing that we would have like 50 page long threads about how terrible Nvidia is if they did that.

 

 

 

ITT: People who don't understand the price of groundbreaking, custom made technology. 

 

Oh and whiny babies. 

Things are generally made custom so that they can SAVE money, not so that it will cost more. Buying for example Note 3 screens will cost more than buying the exact screens they need for example because it also contains a bunch of things such as an integrated digitizer, which is completely unnecessary in a VR headset.

 

Oculus are either extremely poor at making deals with manufacturers (the BOM on this is probably not very high) or are adding a huge price premium.

 

You might call it whining, but when a company continues to tell their fans one thing, and then does a complete 180 and just goes "fuck you suckers" the day pre-orders goes live, then I think "whining" is justified. Oculus is a great example of how to be a terrible company. Not because their product cost a lot, but because of the way they are treating fans and spitting in their faces.

[LinusTech]

Hope this isn't true. From my experience with the Vive at CES - pretty sure I could spend hours painting - I really wanted one..

[Humbug]

Hope this isn't true. From my experience with the Vive at CES - pretty sure I could spend hours painting - I really wanted one..

it's also a no-brainer for you as a star citizen player

 

HTC/Valve may even send you one if you ask them (to review).

[qwertywarrior]

Hope this isn't true. From my experience with the Vive at CES - pretty sure I could spend hours painting - I really wanted one..

[Sauron]

It's different because:

1) Processors and GPUs can be used for more than gaming on a handful of titles.

2) Neither Nvidia nor Intel say they will release something at one price, and then when it goes up for pre-order it is twice that much.

3) A CPU or a GPU is something you will have to buy anyway to have a working computer. Spending a bit more on something essential is an easier pill to swallow than to buy a very expensive toy that will only be used for a few specific tasks, which you could also do on a regular monitor. The regular monitor you will have to get anyway...

 

Imagine if Nvidia said they would release a graphics card that could get 120 FPS minimum in The Witcher 3 when maxed out at 4K. Imagine if they said it would be 300 dollars. Then when they announce it then say that it will actually only be able to run The Witcher 3 and like 4 other games. No other game will work with this new card. Also, the card is 700 dollars instead of 300.

Can you honestly say that you don't think anyone would be giving Nvidia crap for that? Because I have no problem believing that we would have like 50 page long threads about how terrible Nvidia is if they did that.

 

Utility is not the point here - it's the r&d and production cost that matter with early tech. They aren't directly responsible for the amount of games that are available on launch. Again, it was wrong for them to hint at a lower price point, but htc didn't do that.

 

As for essentiality, you don't really "need" anything more than the igpu to run most games nowadays... and still, this is early adoption. Look at it like 4k monitors and poor content support.

[zMeul]

And that general audience right now is early-adopting tech enthusiasts with high-end PCs and lots of disposable income. New tech almost never targets mass adoption first, that comes later. This was never going to go mainstream right out of the gate and no one could reasonably have expected it to. The price will probably go down and the installed user base will correspondingly go up over the next few years.

 

That said, a Vive at $1500 may well be dead in the water, simply because that's not going to be competitive with the Oculus Rift at that price. It's main selling point would be that the Rift is sold out into the summer.

the problem with that is if Rift doesn't make enough money there won't be a version 2

the problem with the Rift is that FaceBook doesn't have a software platform, nor dedicated teams to develop end-user apps for it - they rely not only on GPU manufacturers, but also on 3rd party software developers to support the Rift

the problem is that if VR doesn't sell, there's no market to sell software for it - it's a chicken and egg problem

 

VR needed to be heavily subsidized by the big players - VR might be cool, might be worthwhile, but it doesn't help if "10 people own one"

 

---

 

and there's another problem with VR in general

you need to be able to test one to know if you can handle it - motion sickness is a major factor that can influence a purchase; wearing glasses another; and other eye optical defects a person can have

[typographie]

the problem with that is if Rift doesn't make enough money there won't be a version 2

the problem with the Rift is that FaceBook doesn't have a software platform, nor dedicated teams to develop end-user apps for it - they rely not only on GPU manufacturers, but also on 3rd party software developers to support the Rift

the problem is that if VR doesn't sell, there's no market to sell software for it - it's a chicken and egg problem

 

VR needed to be heavily subsidized by the big players - VR might be cool, might be worthwhile, but it doesn't help if "10 people own one"

 

---

 

and there's another problem with VR in general

you need to be able to test one to know if you can handle it - motion sickness is a major factor that can influence a purchase; wearing glasses another; and other eye optical defects a person can have

 

We obviously can't know how much money it's making and it's way too early to tell if it's successful enough to have a version 2, but what we do know is that demand for the Rift is such that orders are already backed up into June. If it's not making enough money right now, it's simply because they manufactured too few. I don't know if that means anything (who knows, maybe they only made 12 of them), but it sure doesn't look like there's a problem yet.

 

On the software front, I agree completely. As with any gaming platform, VR is going to rise or fall on it's game library, and it's entirely unclear how well-supported this tech is going to be. But good games can drive sales, even if the price is really, really high.

[zMeul]

We obviously can't know how much money it's making and it's way too early to tell if it's successful enough to have a version 2

he, Palmer, already stated that the Rift is sold at a loss

to make money, they need ads inside the software platform - this is where FaceBook will hit the Rift owner really hard

[WiiManic]

 

he, Palmer, already stated that the Rift is sold at a loss

to make money, they need ads inside the software platform - this is where FaceBook will hit the Rift owner really hard

Uh, they've stated a bunch of times that there won't be ads inside the rift, at least not in any upcoming time frame, cept I guess for situations where it makes sense.

(I'm meaning like in racing games on billboards etc, to me that isn't exactly a bad thing)

 

To make their money they own the entire distribution platform for the first party and most other games. Sure you can buy and play games outside it as well as other software, but all the stuff they fund will be in it, so they get a cut there. Basically the same as Steam, cept its Oculus getting a cut not Valve.

[LAwLz]

Utility is not the point here - it's the r&d and production cost that matter with early tech. They aren't directly responsible for the amount of games that are available on launch. Again, it was wrong for them to hint at a lower price point, but htc didn't do that.

Not going to deny that they spent a lot on R&D. That just means that they added a hefty price premium on the Rift to make up the investment though.

 

 

As for essentiality, you don't really "need" anything more than the igpu to run most games nowadays... and still, this is early adoption. Look at it like 4k monitors and poor content support.

You are really grasping at straws here. No person building their own PC will settle for an iGPU when they intend to play games on it. But I am not really sure why you are bringing that up at all because it does not really counter anything I said. It still makes a lot more sense to say "I can pay 400 more and get a much better GPU, which will help me with a ton of programs" than it is to say "I will pay 600 dollars for something that will only work in a handful of games, and nothing else". Comparing the Rift to a high end GPU is idiotic.

 

The comparison with 4K monitors is also idiotic because:

1) There is no shortage of 4K content. If you are specifically referring to movies then sure they are very few, but the higher resolution is very useful for things that are not movies. For example video editing, image editing, web browsing (if the site scales well), games and many more things.

2) You can still use a 4K monitor for things that aren't 4K. Unlike VR glasses which are just a paperweight when you don't use native content, a 4K display is perfectly capable of displaying 1080p content.

3) The "lack of 4K content" is because the displays are so expensive. The price is holding the mass adoption back tremendously, and the same will happen with VR.

 

 

 

Uh, they've stated a bunch of times that there won't be ads inside the rift, at least not in any upcoming time frame, cept I guess for situations where it makes sense.

(I'm meaning like in racing games on billboards etc, to me that isn't exactly a bad thing)

They also stated a bunch of times that it would be 200-400 dollars, and look how that went.

The company is also owned by Mark "they trust me, dumb fucks" Zuckerberg.

 

The owner of the company have called people who trust him dumb fucks, and the founder lies so much you might as well diagnose him with mythomania. Taking their word for something is foolish.

[Sauron]

Not going to deny that they spent a lot on R&D. That just means that they added a hefty price premium on the Rift to make up the investment though.

 

maybe, and maybe not. There's certainly more money worth of hardware than there is in an iphone, and it's not more expensive.

[TetraSky]

At that price point, it better have an entire PC strapped to it.

[Sky Daddy]

Expect the Vive to be $900+

 

At least with the Vive they might be able to avoid some shipping cost problems that the RIft is having with some countries, making it price competitive there lol

[LAwLz]

maybe, and maybe not. There's certainly more money worth of hardware than there is in an iphone, and it's not more expensive.

I really doubt there is more money worth of hardware in the Rift than in the iPhone. You'd be surprised by how few and fairly simple parts there was in the DK2. The CV1 is most likely very similar (in terms of components, not polish).

A screen, accelerometer/gyroscope combo unit, magnetometer, some IR lights, an IR camera/sensor, a tiny Cortex M3 CPU, some lenses and plastic for the case. That's basically it. You will find the same stuff in your average phone as well.

[Sauron]

I really doubt there is more money worth of hardware in the Rift than in the iPhone. You'd be surprised by how few and fairly simple parts there was in the DK2. The CV1 is most likely very similar (in terms of components, not polish).

 

and yet cv1 is completely different from dk2. Besides the dk2 was not intented to provide a profit - those who bought it most likely paid little more than what it cost to manufacture. I can see 2 1200p 90hz screens + refined casing + internal processing + sensors being more expensive than a 750p 60hz touch screen (of roughly the same size), a small aluminium chassis and an soc. Not to mention the need for completely new software, which is what John Carmack came for.

[TopDollar]

What VR really needs is a hardware manufacturer with the balls to sell at a loss and risk it all to boost the market, but unfortunately it looks like that's not happening any time soon... And it's a damn shame.

If this $1500 price estimate for the Vive is correct, that gives indication that Oculus is selling the rift at a loss.

 

I think VR is here to stay, but more of a niche market than anything mainstream. The technology is new, so everyone is trying their hand at it. Eventually the hype will die down, and a couple major players will continue the development. Similar to other niche markets such as sim racing or flight sims. I would think that augmented reality systems have more of a chance to become mainstream.

[ShadowCaptain]

and I thought $600 was quite a lot