Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby TorTorden » Sat Jul 23, 2016 12:50 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:
TorTorden wrote:But Facebook has plenty of money so I'm sure they're not going anywhere, and hopefully they can figure out how to do things as they go.

In fact as a business HTC needs their product to work a lot more than Oculus.

Yup.

I hate facebook more than anybody, but I wouldn't let that association keep me from buying a Rift - same for DRM or locked titles (I've never pirated a game, and though not a "gamer", it seems that games have been locked to platforms for years). Facebook has more money than they know what to do with, so if they pour some into VR development, I suppose it's possible that they will really advance the tech. I'm not too concerned about these early sets, but when the tech matures, I'll only be looking at performance and cost more than anything else.

Maybe the Rift is having problems now, but I doubt Oculus is going away anytime soon. Saying they are dead seems a little ridiculous.


Yeah it's just the normal "HEY LOOK AT ME I'M BEING EDGY" click-bait titles for a generic parrot review we have honestly seen before.

The truly sad part is it works...
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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby AJH » Sat Jul 23, 2016 3:35 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:I hate facebook more than anybody, but I wouldn't let that association keep me from buying a Rift - same for DRM or locked titles (I've never pirated a game, and though not a "gamer", it seems that games have been locked to platforms for years).


Except that it has a far bigger impact than you think. The Rift installs an always on piece of software that is monitoring your computer even when you aren't using it and has a ToS that allows it to report about your activities back to Facebook so they can track what you are doing.

Additionally, there have never been peripheral exclusives in the PC space and it isn't good. They are doing better now that they have claimed (for the second time) that they won't do hardware locking to their particular headset, but they had already previously said that and when it was convenient for them, they instituted a lock to their specific display (not their market, but their specific display) even after people had already purchased content from their store because of their previous promises. Now, yes, they did eventually respond by removing the check, but only after their DRM was ripped to shreds to bypass the check and with an agreement that the DRM hack would be removed if they went back to only locking to their store.

Store exclusivity is nothing new in the PC space and is actually quite reasonable and good for the industry and consumers as it only impacts who you pay for it. It might drive up the price of a single game, but the impact on you is limited to a purchase decision.

Peripheral exclusivity has never, not once, been done before in the PC space in any way I'm aware of and certainly no major way and is EXTREMELY bad for consumers and game makers alike. It artificially limits the addressable market of the developer and creates vendor lockin for the consumer. If two years from now someone else makes a VR headset that completely destroys both the Vive and the Rift, any consumers with Rift would have been stuck continuing in Rift's hardware decisions or losing access to all the games they had purchased. The only people that benefit are Oculus specifically because of the vendor lock in. It even hurts them short term because they get fewer sales in their marketplace, but are hoping the long time locked in headsets will allow charging more or spending less on developing future headsets.

Yes, they did reverse course on this, and kudos to them for doing so, it's a good first step in repairing their image, but they also have previously said they wouldn't do what they did, so it doesn't carry a lot of weight with anyone in the enthusiast community since they've already shown they have no problem screwing over their paying customers and developers if it is in their own self interest. That's why there is shattered trust with the critical early adopter market and that is why Linus is so hard on them. The product is ok, even really good if they'd actually bothered to truly finish it before release, but their is no easy repair for the damage done to the relationship with the early adopters who really push people's exposure to the technology in the mass market. Yes, once touch gets here they'll have a partial answer to Vive's roomscale, but they also backed the wrong horse there. The industry is rapidly showing that room scale matters a lot more than seated experiences and while Rift does have a slight advantage at seated, Vive has a considerable advantage, even after Touch at doing room scale. They've made some very key mistakes in understanding the industry and completely lost the first comer advantage and are playing a severely handicapped game of catch-up now.

I wouldn't count them out yet, but they need to drastically step up their game to catch up. Simply throwing money at it isn't going to fix anything unless they decide to go multi-platform storefront and content publisher. Honestly, that's probably about the best business decision they could make right now would be to truly embrace the ecosystem, officially pick up support of Revive, open their store officially to multiple platforms and use it like Origin to be a sales point for the games they fund as the premiere VR publisher. I don't think they'll do it, but it is honestly the best path I could see for them that would increase their revenue generation and restore good will and actually increase sales of their own hardware as I think there's a good number of people that were planning on buying both that didn't because of the lost good will and an official move like this would remove any doubt about their commitment to their revised direction.

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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Sat Jul 23, 2016 5:33 pm

AJH wrote:The Rift installs an always on piece of software that is monitoring your computer even when you aren't using it and has a ToS that allows it to report about your activities back to Facebook so they can track what you are doing.

I think that's the first time I've seen anyone explain that so clearly and concisely. I would have been willing to create/revive a minimal facebook account to access the Rift/store, but I'm pretty paranoid about corporate spying and always disable that kind of crap in Windows and have a $2.50 a month cell phone plan with the geo-tracking turned off. I don't like giving up my privacy like the younger generations don't seem to give a crap about. But if that's what Oculus demands, then they can kiss my ass. If it's just playing through a "portal", I assume it's something Steam does as well (which I also don't use much), and I'm not bothered by FD tracking my time on their servers either.

AJH wrote:Peripheral exclusivity has never, not once, been done before in the PC space in any way I'm aware of and certainly no major way and is EXTREMELY bad for consumers and game makers alike.

If by PC you mean IBM clone, even with that I'm not so sure. I can't remember exactly, but leaving out old Nintendos and Comodores, I think there have been plenty of peripherals that I've bought for my clones through the decades that wouldn't work on Macs or Amigas and etc. I recently bought a driving wheel and there were PC only versions that would not work on an Xbox or PS4 - but there were other versions for those. I've never been much of a platform gamer and I guess cross platform compatibility, in either games or hardware, just isn't that important to me, although it may be a stupid business decision and I probably wouldn't do it myself if it was easily avoidable.

AJH wrote:... but they also have previously said they wouldn't do what they did, so it doesn't carry a lot of weight with anyone in the enthusiast community since they've already shown they have no problem screwing over their paying customers and developers if it is in their own self interest. That's why there is shattered trust with the critical early adopter market ...

This probably bothers me most, but then again they didn't make and break any promises to me, so I'm not taking it so personally. So if two years from now Oculus comes out with the most kick-ass headset that beats all the competitors hands down, then I'll be taking a strong look at their TOS.

AJH wrote:Yes, once touch gets here they'll have a partial answer to Vive's roomscale, but they also backed the wrong horse there. The industry is rapidly showing that room scale matters a lot more than seated experiences and while Rift does have a slight advantage at seated, Vive has a considerable advantage, even after Touch at doing room scale.

I've heard people ask if VR is just a fad. If anything is a fad, I think roomscale may be the 3DTV of the VR marketplace. Once they get touch feed back gloves figured out, that let you see "your hands" truly interacting with 3D objects, like keyboards and flight controllers, as well as door knobs and light switches - basically the holodeck experience inside a headset - then I'll think they really have something. I'll I've seen of room scale and hand controllers is people throwing their hands around apparently shooting at things (from the hip or thug style). I mean it may be a great new experience, but I'm pretty sure the sit down simulator experience is here to stay.

Of course, I haven't even tried it yet, so I may be (am) talking out my ass. :roll:
It's time to give this another go.

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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby thebs » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:17 pm

I bought the US$599 Oculus Rift for Elite Dangerous: Horizons. I have not been disappointed.

When I finally get bored with Elite (unlikely), or a patch f's it up so I don't play it for a month (more likely), I'm going to pop the US$40 for VorpX and play some older games.

I plan on getting a second generation HTC Vive next year for more titles, and set it up in my living room with one of my mega-small Mini-ITX boxen with a GTX 1070 for the wife. Until then, this small Mini-ITX with a GTX 980 Ti is humming well.
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[Long] Controlling the distribution to the 2025+ "interactive play room"

Postby thebs » Sat Jul 23, 2016 6:50 pm

AJH wrote:The Rift installs an always on piece of software that is monitoring your computer even when you aren't using it and has a ToS that allows it to report about your activities back to Facebook so they can track what you are doing.

Just FYI ... one does not need to ever login to use the Rift software. It's that most people just do, without knowing they don't need to.

But yes, Facebook's Terms are utter non-sense. The lawsuits are already beginning, because of the original promises Oculus made, which Facebook is still bound by (don't get me started on the legalese). I hope Zuckerberg et al. gets smacked, and hard.

AJH wrote:Peripheral exclusivity has never, not once, been done before in the PC space in any way I'm aware of

Actually, that's an utterly false statement, at odds with longstanding PC reality. Heck, even Apple is an "exclusive" PC today, Intel's #1 reseller, long taking over from Dell back in the '00s, as Dell became more subsidized by Microsoft, than Intel (for a long time, Dell was the only one more subsidized by Intel).

There is a crapload of AMD v. nVidia always going on, Microsoft even encourages it while the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) has trouble "getting the kids to sit at the table" ... in various titles to even hardware things like G-sync v. FreeSync, and that's hardly the first.

BTW, this is not limited to the Windows world either. Oracle is doing this in the Linux world as well, while Red Hat, Attachmate (SuSE AG) and others agree to work together, even when they start separate initiatives.

But ... I agree that most peripheral vendors who have tried to do exclusivity have found themselves either "giving in" to otherwise, or going out of business within a year or two. So do not make claims are not true at all ... focus on the facts.

I.e., Demonizing things to make them far worse than reality only undermines the real, valid arguments some of us in the industry are trying to make. I have the same issue with people who demonize Microsoft with untrue statements, when there are clear, real issues that should be the focus, and the untrue statements just undermine those real ones.

AJH wrote:and certainly no major way and is EXTREMELY bad for consumers and game makers alike.

Of course! Zuckerberg et al. are applying their Facebook non-sense to the PC. And they will get smacked in the US courts. Money doesn't always win, especially once a class action lawsuits start. And the US has a crapload of lawyers. ;)

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:If by PC you mean IBM clone

And that's really the thing ... there is really no such thing as an "IBM clone," and not for a long time ... really not into the 21st Century at all, not even for compatibility since '04 at the latest.
► Show Spoiler

Only Microsoft Windows required such compatibility, not other OSes ... yes, even on the 32-bit (IA-32), later 64-bit (x86-64/AMD64 and IA32e/EM64T), x86 compatible Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) known traditionally as an x86 PC.
► Show Spoiler


So it's really all about x86-specific, 16-bit (Win16/Win32s/Win32e) and, later, 32-bit Windows (Win32/x86) that still uses 16-bit boot for the last, dozen years, with NT now using a Win64/x86-64 kernel (but not shipping many, native "Long Mode" objects, long story). At most, the only lasting legacy of anything IBM ...
► Show Spoiler

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:I can't remember exactly, but leaving out old Nintendos and Comodores, I think there have been plenty of peripherals that I've bought for my clones through the decades that wouldn't work on Macs or Amigas and etc. I recently bought a driving wheel and there were PC only versions that would not work on an Xbox or PS4 - but there were other versions for those. I've never been much of a platform gamer and I guess cross platform compatibility, in either games or hardware, just isn't that important to me, although it may be a stupid business decision and I probably wouldn't do it myself if it was easily avoidable.

Yeah, he's literally making crap up. But I have an EE with a focus on computer architecture, and "grew up" around a lot of '90s to early '00s developments, including some working either right in the semiconductor industry, as well as dealing with "sourcing" when doing a lot of embedded.

E.g., Just today I was just "discussing" with someone why Rijndael was picked as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) by the US NIST ...
► Show Spoiler

The semiconductory industry is extremely predictable ... it's utterly supply-side economics (don't get me started). That's why when the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) predicts something, they are spot-on, because demand matters little. Demand only defines price, not so much adoption, with few exceptions. Tablet sales were easily predictable years before Apple even created the iPad, especially since most early designs were either sporting GNU/Linux (the original Cyrix reference design in the late '90s) or Pen Computing (the latter finally got Microsoft to settle, and then even absorb them, after Microsoft blatantly misappropriated their IP while in negotiations prior). They just didn't penetrate consumers, because the hardware is never the seller.

It's the software ... which where the app store comes in ...

And why Apple quickly realized what Cyrix et al. had done for other industries by 1999 (e.g., heavily logistics tracking, military applications, etc...), and realized the few music players that came out of that on the market weren't penetrating just needed a virtual, on-line storefront. The Tablet was always the next step, after testing with an initial, smaller device that could be more cheaply made for consumers (most "industry tablets" were many thousands at the time).

Ergo ... the simple, music player with a simple MP3 ASIC decoding logic that ARM had already created for other people, prior to Apple's entry.

If I wasn't scrambling for money in my late 20s, and running back to NASA for a public sector job after getting laid off not once (March 2001 after the late 2000 .COM downturn) but twice (after 9/11 and sales went flat at my friend's place), I honestly wish I would have put money into developing Digital Rights Management ... using an Open Source solution, offering myself as an SME for implementation. E.g., the people who came up with UltraViolet, especially seeing the MPAA go for it for movies, were brilliant and earned consumer trust, and I honestly wish the RIAA would have come up with something similar for music.

But instead, Apple got control, along with Amazon, and then Google started leveraging its on-line monopoly to make its push ... including into other areas where Facebook is at too. Hence, the bigger point ...

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:
AJH wrote:... but they also have previously said they wouldn't do what they did, so it doesn't carry a lot of weight with anyone in the enthusiast community since they've already shown they have no problem screwing over their paying customers and developers if it is in their own self interest. That's why there is shattered trust with the critical early adopter market ...

This probably bothers me most, but then again they didn't make and break any promises to me, so I'm not taking it so personally. So if two years from now Oculus comes out with the most kick-ass headset that beats all the competitors hands down, then I'll be taking a strong look at their TOS.

Again, American lawyers are already making this an issue in the US. I expect Zuckerberg, no matter how rich, will feel that eventually.

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:
AJH wrote:Yes, once touch gets here they'll have a partial answer to Vive's roomscale, but they also backed the wrong horse there. The industry is rapidly showing that room scale matters a lot more than seated experiences and while Rift does have a slight advantage at seated, Vive has a considerable advantage, even after Touch at doing room scale.

I've heard people ask if VR is just a fad. If anything is a fad, I think roomscale may be the 3DTV of the VR marketplace. Once they get touch feed back gloves figured out, that let you see "your hands" truly interacting with 3D objects, like keyboards and flight controllers, as well as door knobs and light switches - basically the holodeck experience inside a headset - then I'll think they really have something. I'll I've seen of room scale and hand controllers is people throwing their hands around apparently shooting at things (from the hip or thug style). I mean it may be a great new experience, but I'm pretty sure the sit down simulator experience is here to stay.
Of course, I haven't even tried it yet, so I may be (am) talking out my ass. :roll:

VR is the final shift that 3Dtv was never able to make. 3Dtv just added depth. VR "changes the living room."

It will be slow, change many times, but it's coming. The days of the TV -- as a distribution solution for entertainment and media -- are already very limited. Heck, even "Big Media" here in the US has been under constant attack. From the Big 4 networks to ESPN, they are feeling it.

After the Baby Boomer generation is gone from the US, who currently has the most purchasing power, even in their retiring ages, small Gen-X will be at the mercy of the newer Gen-X/Millennial trends, who are even bigger than the Boomers. That's when you're finally going to see the traditional US media -- which is a massive industry (monetarily-wise), which drives everything world-wide (even if the US is not the center of the universe, the most money in traditional media is US-heavy) -- flop and consolidate fully, while the US Congress will try to find some way to tax on-line services to make up for the shortfall in advertising and related, traditional services.

Just look at the top 5 Internet companies in the US. They suck up 80% of all advertising on the Internet. The app store is about control. And that's why Facebook is using Oculus to try to push exclusives. It's really about control.

Apple was first to realize this, even though they were way, way late to the music player and, then, Tablet. People think otherwise, just like they think Microsoft was first with the Office Suite, Internet Browser and Themed Music Player for the PC (all developed on and released for UNIX or Linux, first). No, they were last (fifth or sixth), bought products and used their distribution channels to push it to consumers better. The app store is the new distribution channel, and why Microsoft is becoming a cloud company, as their OEM and retail distribution locks have been long broken.

And why Facebook is desperately trying to make the Rift "the device," as it feels VR is the forthcoming entertainment change for the "new living room" of 2025+. It isn't going be a "viewing" room. It's going to be an "interactive play room."
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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby Darr Valen » Sat Jul 23, 2016 7:36 pm

TorTorden wrote:
Roger Wilco Jr wrote:
TorTorden wrote:But Facebook has plenty of money so I'm sure they're not going anywhere, and hopefully they can figure out how to do things as they go.

In fact as a business HTC needs their product to work a lot more than Oculus.

Yup.

I hate facebook more than anybody, but I wouldn't let that association keep me from buying a Rift - same for DRM or locked titles (I've never pirated a game, and though not a "gamer", it seems that games have been locked to platforms for years). Facebook has more money than they know what to do with, so if they pour some into VR development, I suppose it's possible that they will really advance the tech. I'm not too concerned about these early sets, but when the tech matures, I'll only be looking at performance and cost more than anything else.

Maybe the Rift is having problems now, but I doubt Oculus is going away anytime soon. Saying they are dead seems a little ridiculous.


Yeah it's just the normal "HEY LOOK AT ME I'M BEING EDGY" click-bait titles for a generic parrot review we have honestly seen before.

The truly sad part is it works...



The title is an example of Betteridge's law of headlines, where a question asked in the title of an article is answered no.

Is Hillary Clinton a lizard monster? No. Is Nintendo trying to steal your children's soul using the new Pokemon Go Soul Shard? No. Am I the only one that really enjoyed <insert trendy shit that is shit>? Yes. Well, no on that last one.. There are exceptions to the rule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridg ... _headlines

I'm a fan of requiring this sort fo title use to be tagged (Shitpost) so I am even less tempted to ever click on these. I mean, in general. Imagine reading a newspaper and seeing (Shitpost) beside this sort of junk journalism.

Is the Oculus dead? No. There are ostensibly 2 options for enthusiasts on PCs wanting VR. Both HMDs sold out stock in hours. Anything that has that sort of sales is not dead.. Anything Facebook has injected billions into won't die, not when it's still a pretty nice product for a gen 1 offering, and most issues are lack of future options included now.

Then again, buying gen 1 tech and expecting a fully fleshed-out consumer product is being willfully ignorant of how the world works. You're a beta tester that paid to do so.
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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby Roger Wilco Jr » Sat Jul 23, 2016 8:31 pm

Darr Valen wrote:I'm a fan of requiring this sort fo title use to be tagged (Shitpost) so I am even less tempted to ever click on these. I mean, in general. Imagine reading a newspaper and seeing (Shitpost) beside this sort of junk journalism.

Lol, it would be more efficient to label the masthead "shitpost", and tag the relatively few ethical stories otherwise. I haven't bothered reading a newspaper in 10-15 years, at which point they were all slant and commentary.
It's time to give this another go.

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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby Darr Valen » Sat Jul 23, 2016 8:45 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:
Darr Valen wrote:I'm a fan of requiring this sort fo title use to be tagged (Shitpost) so I am even less tempted to ever click on these. I mean, in general. Imagine reading a newspaper and seeing (Shitpost) beside this sort of junk journalism.

Lol, it would be more efficient to label the masthead "shitpost", and tag the relatively few ethical stories otherwise. I haven't bothered reading a newspaper in 10-15 years, at which point they were all slant and commentary.



Good point. I feel like the local news should have a banner saying "shitpost" for 90% of the news. It's always pure junk. Maybe it's being a millennial, but I don't see how people can possibly trust the news on tv or in most print.
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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby thebs » Sat Jul 23, 2016 9:33 pm

TorTorden wrote:But Facebook has plenty of money so I'm sure they're not going anywhere, and hopefully they can figure out how to do things as they go.

Facebook has never delivered a sustained, consumer good before the Rift. Google had the same problem with Android first appeared, although they're still no Apple either. I fully expect consumer sustainment issues with the Rift long-term, beyond the initial sales and logistics.

Case-in-point: Even Linux can be sh--, if you don't sustain it (*cough*Android*cough*). Part of the reason Google finally gave into working with Red Hat, and even hired away their CTO. Don't get me started on "Enterprise" Google Appliances. ;)

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:I hate facebook more than anybody, but I wouldn't let that association keep me from buying a Rift - same for DRM
There is good DRM, and there is bad DRM. Valve has made Steam into a good DRM, to the point they even sided with consumers over Electronic Arts. Long story on that one ... **

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:or locked titles (I've never pirated a game, and though not a "gamer", it seems that games have been locked to platforms for years).
And that's because of threat from the owners of their distribution channel.

Microsoft is infamous for this, and why Steam didn't exist for Linux for almost a good decade ... until Electronic Arts told Microsoft to break Valve.**

**The backstory ...
► Show Spoiler

And that's where we now are. Valve has only strengthened their position, over Microsoft's now Windows 10 app store, with major gaming houses, newfound indie efforts, and shown that "reasonable DRM" with the consumer interest is what they are going to push ... let alone offer their own OS and OEMs willing to sell reasonably priced PC set-tops for the less tech savvy.

Facebook is making a huge mistake with their EULA terms, and need to work with Valve, not fight them like Microsoft tried to, at Electronic Arts' urging.
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Re: Is the Oculus dead? Harsh words by LinusTech

Postby AJH » Sat Jul 23, 2016 11:39 pm

Roger Wilco Jr wrote:I think there have been plenty of peripherals that I've bought for my clones through the decades that wouldn't work on Macs or Amigas and etc.


The difference is that those weren't locked exclusives, there just wasn't enough support to implement them on other hardware. There was nothing actively preventing someone from writing a driver for them and making it work. In fact, this has been done countless times for the Linux OS. There is a major difference between "we haven't implemented support for this hardware on this platform" and "if you want to use this piece of software, you have to buy our hardware and we'll actively block you". Now, you do bring up a valid point that Apple has done precisely this, but it does take quite a bit of flack from elements of the community for that and isn't something in the PC space outside of Apples ecosystem.

It's also a major error to call an HMD a platform. It isn't. It's a peripheral. Revive demonstrates just how easily games for one HMD can be played on another and OpenVR (which Vive runs on normally) natively supports the Rift HMDs. If it was truly a platform where it would be difficult to make it work across multiple devices, it would be one thing, but one the constraint is entirely artificial, that's not good for you as it prevents you from having the option to choose the best hardware in the future.
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