Virtual Reality

[Neon Ignition]

I think that's why it feels like the Vita again. It's far too expensive to launch without care, they're asking for bad PR to burn consumers via releasing an unsupported high RRP piece of hardware. So then you think to yourself, there must be a roadmap we're unaware of and therefore annoucements coming. But then, if they don't it begins to beg the question of why bother releasing it in the first place? Something that is relatively easy to provide basic support for too.

[wakka]

I think we will see more games for it. There will definitely be a roadmap, but my guess is that it's probably been under review and revision based on the post-launch slump in sales. They will be re-doing projections and budgets and all sorts.

And yeah it is massively like the Vita so far. Also a great piece of hardware.

[Asura]

If you ordered your Quest 3 at launch and haven't redeemed the 6-month Quest+ offer yet, you've only got a few days left to do so. I've been waiting for something to turn up that interested me enough to have to setup the calendar reminder to cancel it; Richie's Plank Experience is on there this month, and I haven't had the chance to try that yet.

Thanks for the reminder, I'm in the same boat (apart from Richie's).

[Lebowski]

I think that's why it feels like the Vita again. It's far too expensive to launch without care, they're asking for bad PR to burn consumers via releasing an unsupported high RRP piece of hardware. So then you think to yourself, there must be a roadmap we're unaware of and therefore announcements coming. But then, if they don't, it begins to beg the question of why bother releasing it in the first place? Something that is relatively easy to provide basic support for, too.

PSVR2 kind of needs a soft relaunch at this point in time, A PlayStation direct focusing on a RRP Drop a road map of games in development to show it's being supported internally, and a commitment from some big 3rd party devs too. They also need to add BC support for all PSVR1 games to plug the hole that is support from 3rd party's. If enough people start playing a game, then it suddenly becomes viable to update it with native psvr2 features. As an early adopter, I'd be pretty pissed if Sony only contribution to its headset is what came at launch and we get no further exclusives.

I don't think Sony is alone in fumbling its launches Quest 3 launching without exclusives and lots of its most popular games not having patches ready to make use of the increase in hardware power day one got it a lot of bad press. The quest 2 outselling the 3 by massive amounts over the Christmas period is fantastic but also a bit of a disaster. Clearing the shelves of older models and stock great, being your own biggest competitor and cannibalising sales of your new pieces of tech not so great.

[Asura]

I don't think Sony is alone in fumbling its launches Quest 3 launching without exclusives and lots of its most popular games not having patches ready to make use of the increase in hardware power day one got it a lot of bad press. The quest 2 outselling the 3 by massive amounts over the Christmas period is fantastic but also a bit of a disaster. Clearing the shelves of older models and stock great, being your own biggest competitor and cannibalising sales of your new pieces of tech not so great.

Honestly I thought this was a good move. The VR market isn't big enough to fracture like this; it's a similar reason to why we all want PSVR1 games to work on PSVR2.

The Q2/3 sales balance is a cloudier one. Like, take Valve/Steam. If Valve found the older Steam Deck old-stock outsold the new shiny OLED model, it wouldn't bother them so much because Valve is primarily a media company, not a hardware company. Every hardware sale presumably drives software sales, so every hardware sale is a net positive. It's suggested the Quest series sells at either a loss or the slimmest of margins, but it's unclear how much of an attach rate Quest software has (it's anecdotally suggested to not be great) which means they can't quite rely on the same forces driving revenue.

The main thing for me with the Quest 2 stock selling, is it does one thing that I think has surprised many; that and the Q3 (which sold to many people who already had a Q2) collectively have put more people in the position where they have more than one headset in their home, or more than one in their friend group. And VR multiplayer games are just amazing. There's something about playing Dungeons of Eternity with friends that it's hard to quantify. It's like how co-op multiplayer can elevate many normal videogames from decent to laugh-a-minute fun, but on steroids.

[Lebowski]

Been looking into if anyone's had success with VR. Reality Labs, Meta's virtual and augmented reality branch lost over $21 billion in the last year, and Zuckerberg is still banging on about how the metaverse is their priority, i wonder if he wishes he could go back and invest his metaverse money into AI.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66913551

[wakka]

Asura's posts about VR always make me really want a headset.

Mentioning Valve makes me recall that their long gestating (and never officially announced) Deck headset.

I wonder what is happening with that. I feel like they would be more likely to support a niche product than Sony, with the aim of building over the long term. Unlike Sony, hardware sales aren't the lifeblood of the business - and as a result they appear more than satisfied with the Steam Deck's ~4 million units in two years since launch, which is fewer units than WiiU managed in the same timeframe (i.e. would be considered a dead loss by Nintendo or Sony).

That is a good indicator for strong long term support for a VR machine, even if it's moving less than a million units a year.

[Asura]

Been looking into if anyone's had success with VR.

I mean, I've had loads as a user. 😝

[Lebowski]

I just find it interesting how the Quest is held up as this run away success when the company who made it lost over 25 billion last year and saw the single biggest one day drop in its share price with 250 billion wiped off Meta's value. The quest is a by-product of what they were trying to create and has no hope of recouping what reality labs invested in the metaverse. I'm sure it will continue as a device for a good few years yet, but I don't think it's profitable for them, component costs alone making up the cost of the device, this is before you take RND Marketing and Tax, Then theirs the really low attach rate for software which shows this isn't a device people are sticking with long term.

[Asura]

I just find it interesting how the Quest is held up as this run away success when the company who made it lost over 25 billion last year and saw the single biggest one day drop in its share price with 250 billion wiped off Meta's value. The quest is a by-product of what they were trying to create and has no hope of recouping what reality labs invested in the metaverse. I'm sure it will continue as a device for a good few years yet, but I don't think it's profitable for them, component costs alone making up the cost of the device, this is before you take RND Marketing and Tax, Then theirs the really low attach rate for software which shows this isn't a device people are sticking with long term.

It's partially, I think, because the Quest as a device was conceived by Oculus prior to the Meta buyout. They were already interested in a future where multiple different headset types exist, and stand-alone using mobile hardware was one of them. Meta brought it to market at great expense, which wasn't good for Meta, but is great for us. Even then, outside of the corporate sphere, the Quest has had comparable sales to the latest generation of Xbox. Given, that generation of Xbox isn't a coast-to-coast sensation either.

The point, for those of us who like VR, is that the Quest has at least proven there's a market out there for VR headsets and experiences. Virtuality tried, Forte tried, VirtualIO tried... Valve/HTC tried and at least proved with the right content, we were technologically in a place where it was worthwhile. Meta have shown that you can sell literally millions of the things, even with the great issues that VR still has.

I personally feel that Meta's plan to work into multiple headset lines is the way to go. Internally they have plans for stuff more like the XREAL Air, stuff that's more like glasses. I think VR needs to go down that route. Even now, it's suggested that nearly all VR headsets can never truly succeed because many people can't wear them, particularly women (bunch of reasons, but mainly that VR headsets smoosh makeup, they're not as comfortable if you have longer hair, and women statistically are smaller than men).

[wakka]

I'm not sure I'd call it a runaway success but the reason it's highlighted is because it's far and away the most successful VR hardware.

When you're comparing Meta's investment in the, uh, 'metaverse' to Sony's investment in PSVR2 it's kind of apples to oranges in terms of profitability, since Meta is ten times the size of Sony and their core business (social media ad sales) is both totally unrelated to VR and remains very strong despite some headwinds in the past few years.

You mention the drop in share price for Meta, which was massive and dramatic, but the fact is that it has since recovered completely - in fact the stock is now at an all time high.

This would seem to indicate that even though the Quest hardware line is receiving continued support, investors are no longer spooked. Probably mostly because Zuck is not making all of Meta's major announcements and events oriented around weird videos of him in crappy Second Life style software.

That probably keeps Quest safe for a while from outright cancellation. I think we will probably see more Quest headsets in the future.

Personally I don't think the same can be said of PSVR2. Sony don't have grand ambitions for their VR beyond just selling a game system that turns a profit quickly, and they are much more reliant on videogames for core revenue than Meta are. For Meta Quest is a teeny tiny part of their overall revenue - but for Sony, videogames are now their largest single line item. They can't afford dead weight in there.

[Asura]

I'm not sure I'd call it a runaway success but the reason it's highlighted is because it's far and away the most successful VR hardware.

When you're comparing Meta's investment in the, uh, 'metaverse' to Sony's investment in PSVR2 it's kind of apples to oranges in terms of profitability, since Meta is ten times the size of Sony and their core business (social media ad sales) is both totally unrelated to VR and remains very strong despite some headwinds in the past few years.

There's a thought. Wonder if, could Sony have seen ~5 years down the road, if they would've still closed PSHome!

[wakka]

Not sure about that one - I don't think any company in the world looks at Horizons and thinks, man, I wish we had that

It is interesting how similar to PSHome it is. Although of course that was similar to the much earlier Second Life.

[Lebowski]

It's partially, I think, because the Quest as a device was conceived by Oculus prior to the Meta buyout. They were already interested in a future where multiple different headset types exist, and stand-alone using mobile hardware was one of them. Meta brought it to market at great expense, which wasn't good for Meta, but is great for us. Even then, outside of the corporate sphere, the Quest has had comparable sales to the latest generation of Xbox. Given, that generation of Xbox isn't a coast-to-coast sensation either.

The point, for those of us who like VR, is that the Quest has at least proven there's a market out there for VR headsets and experiences. Virtuality tried, Forte tried, VirtualIO tried... Valve/HTC tried and at least proved with the right content, we were technologically in a place where it was worthwhile. Meta have shown that you can sell literally millions of the things, even with the great issues that VR still has.

I personally feel that Meta's plan to work into multiple headset lines is the way to go. Internally they have plans for stuff more like the XREAL Air, stuff that's more like glasses. I think VR needs to go down that route. Even now, it's suggested that nearly all VR headsets can never truly succeed because many people can't wear them, particularly women (bunch of reasons, but mainly that VR headsets smoosh makeup, they're not as comfortable if you have longer hair, and women statistically are smaller than men).

On top of that, theirs the issue that VR makes a lot of people sick until they get used to it (vr legs) and you don't really know how sensitive you are to it until you're fully invested. Their still no perfect solution for Lens either, Fresnel has screen door issues and god rays and a small focus area, Pancake has Mura, Blooming, and Chromatic Issues and due to the brightness needed it's not optimal to use OLED displays.

It's partially, I think, because the Quest as a device was conceived by Oculus prior to the Meta buyout. They were already interested in a future where multiple different headset types exist, and stand-alone using mobile hardware was one of them. Meta brought it to market at great expense, which wasn't good for Meta, but is great for us. Even then, outside of the corporate sphere, the Quest has had comparable sales to the latest generation of Xbox. Given, that generation of Xbox isn't a coast-to-coast sensation either.

The point, for those of us who like VR, is that the Quest has at least proven there's a market out there for VR headsets and experiences. Virtuality tried, Forte tried, VirtualIO tried... Valve/HTC tried and at least proved with the right content, we were technologically in a place where it was worthwhile. Meta have shown that you can sell literally millions of the things, even with the great issues that VR still has.

I personally feel that Meta's plan to work into multiple headset lines is the way to go. Internally they have plans for stuff more like the XREAL Air, stuff that's more like glasses. I think VR needs to go down that route. Even now, it's suggested that nearly all VR headsets can never truly succeed because many people can't wear them, particularly women (bunch of reasons, but mainly that VR headsets smoosh makeup, they're not as comfortable if you have longer hair, and women statistically are smaller than men).

Its share price bounced back yes but if it had to massively cut back on its VR and metaverse plans to get things back on track and this meant very large and deep job cuts at Reality Labs and that eye watering 25 billion pound operating loss reality labs posted.

[wakka]

Yep agree. The conclusion, for me, is that to advance VR we need a monolithic corporation who have an ocean of cash coming in from a non-VR business and a desire and willingness to pour a percentage of those profits into VR development. We have that in Meta. And potentially Apple, if they persist with Vision Pro (which I think they probably will). They're in the same boat as Meta. Their core iPhone business is relentlessly profitable, so they can afford an unprofitable VR arm with a view to gaining a future advantage.

Its share price bounced back yes but if it had to massively cut back on its VR and metaverse plans to get things back on track and this meant very large and deep job cuts at Reality Labs and that eye watering 25 billion pound operating loss reality labs posted.

Yep, true. But it was a good correction. They went way too hard, too fast on metaverse-related investment with the goal of achieving some kind of Ready Player One fantasy, and it was quickly proven that we are decades out from anything like what was proposed in their initial hype videos. They didn't knock Quest on the head, it's still trucking - and Meta not betting the farm on metaverse in the near term is probably going to give the product line better longevity overall.