Oculus Defends Exclusives, Launch, And DRM Controversy

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It seems like every time Oculus has to clean up after a big fat screw-up they roll out that cute chick and everyone just gives them a pass. Not that I blame them, it's working on me already. I forgot why I was mad now in the first place. ;)
 
Palmer Luckey is young; he doesn't know any better. $2,000,000,000 is enough money to change most people. And now Facebook is pulling the strings.
 
MavericK said:
Sooo....buy a Vive instead, then?
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Done and done.

I wouldn't have been able to live with myself feeding into Oculus' exclusivity crap, just bad for the industry and gamers. Not to mention they still don't have a clue what they're doing with input and no firm ETA, unlike the Vive that had motion control from day one.
 
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I think what I hate most about this whole situation is both companies are making it very difficult to choose any one of them. On the one hand you've got the unit that has, overall, the better hardware option with room scale tracking allowing for a greater variety of potential game play experiences but it's almost $900 after shipping & tax and it doesn't have the software support at the moment.

On the other hand you've got the slightly more comfortable headset that is selling for under $620 with a lot more games but will never have the scope of the other headset do to control limitations and the soonest you can get one is August AND you'd be supporting a company that is already cannibalizing the industry it just helped birth.

Right now I have a bit of money burning a hole in my pocket and I can't decide which headset will give me the best experience for the money or if I should tell both companies to screw off and just grab another GTX 1080 (I sold the one I got last week) even though I still have a pretty competent GTX 970.
 
Tiberian said:
They should have returned the crowdfunded startup costs the moment Facebook snapped 'em up, that's my opinion on things.
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Funny that's exactly what CastAR did with me. I backed technical illusions and they got delayed but got some external funding so they refunded me the whole kickstarter amount I pledged and sent me a coupon code for a free CastAR system when it goes on sale in (last I checked) 2017. :)

Still Oculus fragmenting the market is just BS. I wouldn't buy their product now, not that I would have bought it ever since Facebook bought the company. I can't wait till they start requiring you to have a facebook account to use it. You know that is coming sooner or later when they decide their DRM client is no longer wanted so they'll just integrate it into your facebook profile. On some level I am actually surprised it wasn't like that from the start.
 
grifter_66 said:
I think what I hate most about this whole situation is both companies are making it very difficult to choose any one of them. On the one hand you've got the unit that has, overall, the better hardware option with room scale tracking allowing for a greater variety of potential game play experiences but it's almost $900 after shipping & tax and it doesn't have the software support at the moment.

On the other hand you've got the slightly more comfortable headset that is selling for under $620 with a lot more games but will never have the scope of the other headset do to control limitations and the soonest you can get one is August AND you'd be supporting a company that is already cannibalizing the industry it just helped birth.

Right now I have a bit of money burning a hole in my pocket and I can't decide which headset will give me the best experience for the money or if I should tell both companies to screw off and just grab another GTX 1080 (I sold the one I got last week) even though I still have a pretty competent GTX 970.
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Go with the Vive! It has FAR better tracking, "room scale" is not trivial! Also, it has better optics (less "pupil swim" issues), and if you REALLY want to play Oculus "exclusives", you can use ReVive software to get past the nasty DRM! (although you will probably want to get another 1080 as well, the performance difference is HUGE in VR!
 
Tiberian said:
They should have returned the crowdfunded startup costs the moment Facebook snapped 'em up, that's my opinion on things.
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You do know that all the KS backers got a free CV1, which for most was around twice the value of what they pledged, right? Not a refund but a damm good deal for most backers. I know I'm more than happy to have backed as I got both a DK1 and a CV1 from it. I still think a lot of people are confused on what KickStarter is, you're not investing in a company, you're pre-ordering a product and paying up front for it so they can finish it. Once you get your backer rewards from them (for Oculus, the DK1), their obligation to you is done. You don't get to have a meaningful voice in where they go after that.

CastAR differs in that they refunded everyone because they are not shipping out any more glasses. Still hope we see a product from them later on, glad they have the funding now to keep working on it.

As long as the exclusive period is only 3 months then I really think people are getting all butthurt over this for no damm good reason. They're not locking out apps you don't run through their store, so it's not building a walled garden like we have on phones or game consoles.

I have the VIVE too, I like the optics and overall comfort of the Rift headset better. Room scale and the hand trackers are what the VIVE does better for now. If you don't have either one yet though, wait for the touch controllers to come out and see what the reports (and price) are like on them. They're not shooting for full room scale but it looks really close and their controller design looks far more refined.
 
Dwango said:
It wouldn't be so bad if the company's actions weren't precisely the opposite of the founders words every time he talks about it. It's almost like he has no idea what his company is doing or is being deliberately misleading.
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Isn't the CEO/founder a college kid, essentially? What happens is the investors put in their "advisors" to help out. On top, they likely control the board. If the kid isn't an assertive egotistical a-hole, he's often convinced to do things counter to his beliefs.

Look at Jobs and Zuckerberg. They had the personal characteristics to tell the advisors to f-off.
 
JosiahBradley said:
While they defend their right to do whatever they want, I get to reserve my right to not like it and buy a Vive. Let the fragmentation begin.
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This. When your actions don''t match your words it doesn't matter how far up you sit on your high horse. They are free to do what they want and so are consumers.
 
Spidey329 said:
Isn't the CEO/founder a college kid, essentially? What happens is the investors put in their "advisors" to help out. On top, they likely control the board. If the kid isn't an assertive egotistical a-hole, he's often convinced to do things counter to his beliefs.

Look at Jobs and Zuckerberg. They had the personal characteristics to tell the advisors to f-off.
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And that's fine. Business is business, after all. But he keeps talking about how Oculus wants VR to be open and the VR games should be available to everyone but the actions of Oculus are saying something different. If you're trying to lock up exclusives and make the Rift a "platform" so that people will by your VR over a competitors VR that's fine, but don't blow smoke about how it should all be open and we should all just get along while you're doing that. It gives the impression that you or your company are full of shit and can't be trusted.
 
Dwango said:
It wouldn't be so bad if the company's actions weren't precisely the opposite of the founders words every time he talks about it. It's almost like he has no idea what his company is doing or is being deliberately misleading.
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From the lack of launch dates and horrible "estimation" of the final cost of the Rift, this company has always seemed to me as being deliberately misleading.
 
i was a big fan of oculus, up untill they sold out to facebook, because i had concerns this might change their vision, strategy and goals, and tu have a company dealing with numbers instead of ppl, and this is just what happened.
thankfuly Valve is still around, would suggest ppl to get the Vive instead of the Rift if they can afford only one, having a closed platform for VR wont help it move forward, no matter what oculus say, even if they deny it, that's exactly where they are headed, they just need to get you there gradualy, sad really.
 
TroubleMagnet said:
I still think a lot of people are confused on what KickStarter is, you're not investing in a company, you're pre-ordering a product and paying up front for it so they can finish it.
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That's dead wrong.

Kickstarter is not a store therefore it should NOT be seen as 'preordering' anything. You are giving money based on a promise. That sounds like you're investing in the company to me. Where it differs is that backers have no stake in the company whatsoever. Instead, the only return on the 'investment' is whatever nick-nack was promised. Kickstarter is basically people asking for money and making it happen by promising physical goods to people who do. It's really just beggars with OK ideas, sometimes great ideas, but most times shitty ideas.

Do you think you'd get a refund if a project goes belly up? Hah.
 
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Sonicks said:
That's dead wrong.

Kickstarter is not a store therefore it should NOT be seen as 'preordering' anything. You are giving money based on a promise. That sounds like you're investing in the company to me. Where it differs is that backers have no stake in the company whatsoever. Instead, the only return on the 'investment' is whatever nick-nack was promised. Kickstarter is basically people asking for money and making it happen by promising physical goods to people who do. It's really just beggars with OK ideas, sometimes great ideas, but most times shitty ideas.

Do you think you'd get a refund if a project goes belly up? Hah.
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My point is it's not an investment like buying stock is an investment. Sure, you're trusting them with your cash and emotionally investing in the company, but once they ship the backer rewards (or fold) they owe you nothing.

They're giving themselves a PR black eye with the exclusives, that's for sure. However ever since FB bought them some people have pretty much been looking for any excuse to hate them since they went from underdog to big dumb corporation in their eyes. Doubt they can win with those people no matter what they do. By next year there will be a ton of new headsets out, it'll be interesting to see how things shape up once that happens. Valve is really the big dog here since they have Steam. If they can support all the other random headset makers then I really don't see how they won't win the VR software store battle.

The good news for us is so far it seems you can port stuff between the Rift and VIVE fairly easily even with lame DRM attempts.
 
Dwango said:
And that's fine. Business is business, after all. But he keeps talking about how Oculus wants VR to be open and the VR games should be available to everyone but the actions of Oculus are saying something different. If you're trying to lock up exclusives and make the Rift a "platform" so that people will by your VR over a competitors VR that's fine, but don't blow smoke about how it should all be open and we should all just get along while you're doing that. It gives the impression that you or your company are full of shit and can't be trusted.
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You know what, having been on the developer side of things, exclusives often mean the difference between a product coming out or not at all. Basically, the developer can't afford to build a version for VR when you know it's not going to sell enough to spend the manhours working on the VR version rather than a more marketable game. Instead either Oculus (Or Microsoft or Amazon take your pick) offers to foot the bill for your staffing in exchange for a couple months of exclusivity. They paid to make the game run on their hardware, and aren't preventing you from selling a derivative of that work on another platform (where Microsoft/Amazon etc doesn't get a cut). This is a good thing. The alternative is nobody takes the risk. True exclusives are when Oculus pays for the whole game end to end. They paid for it, just like if they built it in house, and they're using it as a loss leader to sell their platform. Face it, they won't sell enough units (if they charged for it) of Lucky's Tale to ever break even. It's a loss leader, you don't give that to your competitor. People need to understand, there's the company vision (embrace VR, we want everyone to do VR and we won't actively block competitors through lawsuits) and then there's being fiscally irresponsible. If Valve decided to split development of Lucky's Tale with Oculus, this is a whole other matter and would have been the best result but it didn't and people need to stop pretending that software development is funded by dreams, magical unicorns and good intentions. In the end, studios don't want to layoff their workers and they have to do what's right for their employees and their families.
 
collegeboy69us said:
let's be honest she's not THAT cute...
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They can do a much better job deflecting criticism: Our new Oculus spokesperson is Kimmy Lucky (Camera zooms to a 6 year old with freckles and pony tails).

"When will the touch controllers be released?"

"My daddy says they'll be here any time now! I want to talk about ponies. Who's your favorite pony? (Wide semi-toothless Grin)"

... cute ...

Headline "Uber-cute Kimmy Palmer answers all your questions about Oculus Rift and Ponies"
 
Miikun said:
You know what, having been on the developer side of things, exclusives often mean the difference between a product coming out or not at all. Basically, the developer can't afford to build a version for VR when you know it's not going to sell enough to spend the manhours working on the VR version rather than a more marketable game. Instead either Oculus (Or Microsoft or Amazon take your pick) offers to foot the bill for your staffing in exchange for a couple months of exclusivity. They paid to make the game run on their hardware, and aren't preventing you from selling a derivative of that work on another platform (where Microsoft/Amazon etc doesn't get a cut). This is a good thing. The alternative is nobody takes the risk. True exclusives are when Oculus pays for the whole game end to end. They paid for it, just like if they built it in house, and they're using it as a loss leader to sell their platform. Face it, they won't sell enough units (if they charged for it) of Lucky's Tale to ever break even. It's a loss leader, you don't give that to your competitor. People need to understand, there's the company vision (embrace VR, we want everyone to do VR and we won't actively block competitors through lawsuits) and then there's being fiscally irresponsible. If Valve decided to split development of Lucky's Tale with Oculus, this is a whole other matter and would have been the best result but it didn't and people need to stop pretending that software development is funded by dreams, magical unicorns and good intentions. In the end, studios don't want to layoff their workers and they have to do what's right for their employees and their families.
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i have no issue with time limited exclusives, but oculus is going full blown closed eco system, they might not be direct about it now, but believe me everything points that they will lead you gradualy to it, having a platform within a platform is stupid but can somehow be managed, but not when you make it exclusive, especilay at the current prices of these displays, because let's face it they are just displays, and you are still buying a PC game, alot of ppl will be pissed because they cannot play the game they want because they have to spend an extra 800$ to play a freaking game, thats retarded, and the first to be blamed by pissed off pc gamers would be VR, man just polish your hardware, drop down the price, let Devs dive into it, have a decent library of games, then when the headset cost is under 300$, make your stupid closed eco system, ppl will at least be able to justify paying for a new headset to play couple games, even if the game combined cost of the game comes to a 100$.
palmer's 180 degree turn on his word, is a bad preview of what's to come.
 
As 3D movies make me motion sick or the reverse of motion sick aka simulation sick I assume that VR platforms will do the same and make them useless to me.
 
Vader1975 said:
As 3D movies make me motion sick or the reverse of motion sick aka simulation sick I assume that VR platforms will do the same and make them useless to me.
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3D stereo has nothing to do with VR, i dont know where you live, but if you are in the USA or europe, you should be able to find a VR demo stand at major retailers, or tech events, you should really test it out, it's quite amazing really.
 
I moved on. I did love the DK2, but at the same time, I am pretty much done with Facebook as a corporation.

I had planned on a Vive after I moved, but have rethought that. I am going to wait just a bit longer. I want to see the next generation of devices.
 
tetris42 said:
Try waiting a month, the HDK 2 is coming out for $400 and has the same panel specs as the Vive and Rift.

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bleh really hard to consider a VR headset under the Vive standard, feels like VR is not VR without a proper controller and proper tracking, roomscales is a plus for me also, the starbreeze headset seem cool too, with it's 210degree fov, but still needs a controller and reasonable pricing, if they decide to go commercial with it, although it seem more arcade type of headset, than home owned one.
 
alamox said:
i have no issue with time limited exclusives, but oculus is going full blown closed eco system, they might not be direct about it now, but believe me everything points that they will lead you gradualy to it, having a platform within a platform is stupid but can somehow be managed, but not when you make it exclusive, especilay at the current prices of these displays, because let's face it they are just displays, and you are still buying a PC game, alot of ppl will be pissed because they cannot play the game they want because they have to spend an extra 800$ to play a freaking game, thats retarded, and the first to be blamed by pissed off pc gamers would be VR, man just polish your hardware, drop down the price, let Devs dive into it, have a decent library of games, then when the headset cost is under 300$, make your stupid closed eco system, ppl will at least be able to justify paying for a new headset to play couple games, even if the game combined cost of the game comes to a 100$.
palmer's 180 degree turn on his word, is a bad preview of what's to come.
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Well it's first gen gear so the price should be a non-factor, either people can afford to play or not. It's just like Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD, or 8514A vs VESA, etc. It takes awhile for things to flush out then prices drop etc once the winning standard is decided and everyone gloms onto the remaining standard. I don't quite agree it's just a display, it's a completely different interface with new workflows based upon a display and some other pieces. The various SDKs are an attempt to define these workflows for developers and they always start different then after awhile they'll either standardize/converge or disappear and the team that ends up with the most wins on the final standard has a leg up on the competition. Nothing new here, business as usual. What these companies are doing is promising not to let it become a patents war, taking out patents and opening them to the competitors specifically to prevent a patent troll from killing the technology before it's mature. I think Palmer had a naive idea of how that worked in the beginning, got schooled, and now we are where we are. Oculus/HTC/Razer aren't suing each other like Apple vs Samsung, Google vs Oracle over similar APIs/look&feel/other bullshit that prevents the customer from getting all the features in a single product. And next year, i can be pretty sure that any VR game i fire up on Steam works with any headset, and i'll pick up the one that is the most polished, knowing that HTC won't sue Oculus if they add a camera or adopt lighthouse style tracking, and Oculus won't screw with HTC for using a shader to warp the image, or OSVR from adding positional tracking / sourcing the same low latency accelerometers. This is similar to the stance with Mercedes opening up safety testing patents so other companies didn't have to license every single innovation, and now you can get pretty much any feature on any car, they all sue the same gas and they all have crumple zones. That's good enough for me, the rest is pedantic. As a developer, I see exclusives as a company paying me to make something that isn't otherwise financially viable, it's a win-win and that's Oculus doing a favor for their customers. Otherwise it's like asking Nintendo to write Mario games for the Xbox as a launch bundle, or for Apple to make iTunes sync with the Zune. Or imagine that Sony, finding out that Xbox One used the same hardware decided that they'd help Microsoft play PS4 Gran Turismo games on the XB1. Yes in a perfect socialist utopia, not in the real world. (I sold my kickstarter CV1, and am waiting to try a Vive + PSVR before I decide whether or not to skip Gen1 on the PC. I do have some reservations about the Rift, but based on the hardware, not because Palmer was a bit idealistic, then grew up).
 
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alamox said:
bleh really hard to consider a VR headset under the Vive standard, feels like VR is not VR without a proper controller and proper tracking, roomscales is a plus for me also, the starbreeze headset seem cool too, with it's 210degree fov, but still needs a controller and reasonable pricing, if they decide to go commercial with it, although it seem more arcade type of headset, than home owned one.
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I'm looking forward to the next generation of VR with gloves and slimmer headsets. They're on the right track.
A game pad doens't give me the same experience. With gloves, I want to feel the steering wheel, hold the gun, or throw a football.
 
WorldExclusive said:
I'm looking forward to the next generation of VR with gloves and slimmer headsets. They're on the right track.
A game pad doens't give me the same experience. With gloves, I want to feel the steering wheel, hold the gun, or throw a football.
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A must have for 2nd gen VR is some kind of low latency hdmi transmitter to properly untether from the desk. Wearing a laptop on my back doesn't exactly cut it, and I kept worrying about rolling over my cable with my chair, or the cable catching on my armrest when seated. Add a flip up visor and you could pause your game to help your kids, go to the bathroom, have a snack, or answer the door and jump right back in with minimal fuss.
 
they also defended selling out, and buying themselves expensive ferraris
 
illli said:
they also defended selling out, and buying themselves expensive ferraris
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Nothing to defend there. While we might wish it were not so, Easy street is Easy street. Be honest with yourself, you would have taken the money too. I sure would have.
 
Armenius said:
Palmer Luckey is young; he doesn't know any better. $2,000,000,000 is enough money to change most people. And now Facebook is pulling the strings.
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Yeah, I don't know if that kind of money would change my outlook, but I could certainly put on a facade for that kind of cash.
 
You're all extremely off topic. The girl IS cute.

ngsimr.jpg
 
Even when they release the touch controllers, you now have fragmentation within your own already niche platform for devs to worry about, between a VR userbase that has the HMD only, and the ones that have HMD + controllers.
 
Ultima99 said:
You're all extremely off topic. The girl IS cute.

ngsimr.jpg
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hah well the picard picture helps (Grew up with TNG) like most things in life, it's all relative. Considering most of the tech world is a sausage fest even a half cute woman can be smoking hot in the right situation. We've all played that game where we are out and about somewhere and you play the mental game of looking around and counting the number of girls you'd bang.

A cute girl might be downright meh if you stick her in the same room as bunch of Hooters Girls.

In my older age (34) these days it's less about how hot she is, and how much she has her shit together mentally and overall in life. Even a smoking hot woman means nothing to me if she's batshit crazy, swamped in debt, and has 3 kids by 3 dads. The woman pictures in the article would be way hotter if she knew how to code, like star trek and rick and morty.
 
They're not defending they're deflecting. A lot of that had been going on for them lately. Guess you can't expect a company to play fair after they've been acquired by the likes of facebook.
 
No doubt, Oculus sold their souls to the devil. Still gotta give them credit for bring VR back to life.
I played with Dk1 & DK2 versions of the Oculus. I was blown away (even though it made me sick every time I used it). I was planning buying one based on Luckey's original price point (I think it was $300??). When the real prices came out, it became a "must get wife consent purchase" - I need a new washer, dryer, house repairs, etc that out rank a VR headset.
I'll probably get a VR headset when the second, or third generation are out. If history repeats itself, the technology will be better and possibly cheaper. There will also be a better selection of content for it.
 
This interview was just garbage. Didn't really answer anything and just used canned responses. As much as I don't support Oculus' business practices lately. I own both the Vive and Rift and the Rift by far has the most use of the two. Vive was used extensively for the first two weeks or so I had it but is so light on quality content that it doesn't get much use other then to show people when they come over. That combined with the fact I can slip the Rift on and off like a baseball cap makes it much more practical for everyday usage when I might have to quickly be in and out of VR. The other huge plus for the Rift is the screen clarity. Don't know what magic they did compared to the Vive , seeing as they are both the same res but the SDE and sweet spot is so much better then the Vive.

As great as the Vive is, I will most likely be selling once Touch is out. Unless there is some compelling Vive exclusive content.
 
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