3D Gaming Goggle Options
- Thread starter shadragon
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i used to have a laptop with a 3d screen that used glasses. Its absolutely not even close to the immersion you get with the Rift. For me, 3d glasses had layers of 3d. A far layer, a med layer and a near layer. I never felt like things were close to me though. In the Rift, when things are close to you, it feels like they are right up against your nose. I can actually judge distance with the Rift on. Its quite amazing to say the least.
Now would i say go buy one right now, absolutely not. Unless you are developing VR content and need one right now WAIT for the consumer version. Why would the facebook acquisition bother you? The reason we have access to a low cost DK2 is because of facebook and the only reason the consumer version will be sub $500 is because of the money from facebook to R&D.
Now would i say go buy one right now, absolutely not. Unless you are developing VR content and need one right now WAIT for the consumer version. Why would the facebook acquisition bother you? The reason we have access to a low cost DK2 is because of facebook and the only reason the consumer version will be sub $500 is because of the money from facebook to R&D.
Fair question and I'll try to answer it calmly. OR started on Kickstarter and thousands of people backed a company project to get it off the ground. OR asked for $250,000 and got $2.5 million.
OR took the invested money, developed the tech (after more than two years they still don't have a consumer edition out) then sold the concern to FB for 2 Billion in a closed and private deal.
The backers (as part of the Kickstarter ethos) didn't get a stake in the company they funded. After the kickstarter campaign successfully closed with the aforementioned ten times the stated goal collected, OR received additional funding from two investment companies; Matrix Partners and Spark Partners who each paid $19 million. They did receive a share in the business and today each $19 millon investment is worth ~$380 million.
For every $25 kickstarters invested, they made $25,000 for the company owners. The kickstart backers got nothing in return save the rewards for their initial investment.
I won't comment on Facebook management. There are enough books and movies out there that demonstrate the high quality of their moral character. Instead, let's talk about Facebook the company. It is not a technology company. Yes, it has servers and switches, but it buys those from actual tech companies. Facebook has no product save funny cat pictures and smiley faces, in essence. All it can do is write checks to OR. Eventually corporate accountants will get involved and we know how they like to reward creativity. With no technology expertise they are going to nickel and dime it to death to recoup their 2 billion investment.
There have been numerous examples of the deeds of corporate accountants running businesses into the ground:
http://jalopnik.com/how-accountants-nearly-murdered-jeeps-most-successful-1481926371
http://www.accountingweb.com/blogs/aboress/accountant-mentality-killed-gm
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2002/Apr/TheRiseAndFallOfEnron.htm
Look up "death spiral". It's an accounting term that Facebook will apply to OR at some point. I am sure of it.
Then there is the privacy issue. With Facebook, I can close my browser and their influence is gone. OR installs software on my machine permanently and I simply do not trust OR/FB to not ravage my personal files and information. Even cursory info like when I play ED on OR makes me cringe. Facebook had one of the worse track records involving privacy even before PRISM and the US government surveillance of anything electronic came into the light.
I was sorry I missed the kickstarter campaign. As a gamer I thought OR had a bright future and it was a great idea. However, I wouldn't give them tuppence today.
Not trying to be rude or anything but just because anyone backs an idea on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, any of the crowdfunding it in no way means you have a stake in the company. You are investing in their idea in exchange for a perk of some kind and that's that. More of these startups fail rather than succeed by a long shot so please stop the facebook investment hate it is tiring and I agree with Pyro's statement that if it results in better R&D and a cheaper release price then good for us. You state that you did not back this project the first time around well a lot of the people on here would probably have been asked to back them again as sooner or later the ROI runs out. Bottom line Facebook 2 billion results = Faster. cheaper, better release. JMHO
This. Being butthurt over the acquisition by facebook does nothing but hurt yourself.
In reality, they are still investing heavily in the tech, and if anything they now have access to a wider array of engineers. Facebook buying the company was the best thing to happen to the rift, because they HAVE to sell a functional product that the consumers actually want, and meets expectations, in order to make their investment back.
If the OR software installed anything remotely malicious, you can bet that the thousands of qualified developers who are picking the devkit apart with a magnifying glass would have already informed the world. Conspiracy theories aren't doing you any good. If they did anything like that, you would know about it, and there would be outrage.
You have two options.
This.
Or the release kit.
Because frankly, everything else available is nowhere near this quality.
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3d glasses are no comparison to Oculus Rift. You may have some perception of depth with them but you are still looking at a screen of limited size in front of you that doesn't react at all to any of your movements. That's it.
With Oculus you are sitting inside the scene. You can look all around you. The perspective changes when you move your head. You can look all around you and lean forward to see more out of the side window. You really get the feeling of sitting inside a cockpit. A totally different thing.
You are of course entitled to your dislike of Facebook. I don't like them much either. But let's keep things in perspective.
It doesn't matter at all if Facebook is a tech company or not. Oculus is one and they still are with Facebook money. That's why Facebook bought them. I could list a dozen tech companies that have been owned by some "non-tech" capital investment companies for years and still produce great high-tech products. I don't see the problem here.
You are missing out on a great product that has no real alternative for the time being. But well, you have to set your own priorities.
With Oculus you are sitting inside the scene. You can look all around you. The perspective changes when you move your head. You can look all around you and lean forward to see more out of the side window. You really get the feeling of sitting inside a cockpit. A totally different thing.
You are of course entitled to your dislike of Facebook. I don't like them much either. But let's keep things in perspective.
It doesn't matter at all if Facebook is a tech company or not. Oculus is one and they still are with Facebook money. That's why Facebook bought them. I could list a dozen tech companies that have been owned by some "non-tech" capital investment companies for years and still produce great high-tech products. I don't see the problem here.
You are missing out on a great product that has no real alternative for the time being. But well, you have to set your own priorities.