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Meta Drops Quest 2 Price Below $200
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/meta-drops-quest-2-price-to-200/
$199 is an absurdly good price for a still-good standalone VR headset, but is the Quest 3 Lite around the corner?
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/meta-drops-quest-2-price-to-200/
$199 is an absurdly good price for a still-good standalone VR headset, but is the Quest 3 Lite around the corner?
If it still requires a Facebook account, no way. I walked away from that site 8 years ago and never missed it once.
It's literally not, though. You don't have to have a social media profile. It's the same as having a Vive account on an HTC headset.
Why do I need an account at all for my peripheral device?
Imagine not being able to use your kbm or monitor without signing into some service to track you.
You can choose to have a Lemmy account or not. You can still use Lemmy without an account.
Quest can function without accounts, but they force you to make one.
The difference is freedom of personal choice.
You can create a dummy account and fill it with bogus data. I even share mine so it doesn't even belong to a single person.
That's a bold move, Cotton. The account would get flagged and suspended fairly quick, me thinks.
It's been almost a year and it still works fine. I even set it up as a dev account to sideload apps and make calls to the wit.ai api in a few projects.
It depends on how much you share that account, is my point. While internet randos using it would obfuscate any one persons activity, I am not sure how it would work in practice. Maybe you are already sharing it with a dozen other people? I dunno. Security bots tend to clamp that kind of thing unless Meta really gives zero fucks.
Form their other comment, I assume they mean share as in different people using the same headset on the same device
Dummy accounts work for something like Lemmy but when you're playing with big tech corpos in 2024, it doesn't matter how dummy you make it, they will know it's you.
You do understand that it's not always me though, right? I also don't use the headset for anything other than pcvr
I bought a quest 2 a few years ago. I searched for hours and hours to try and get it to work with no FB account. Best I found was that you can sideload APKs to it… with a Facebook account.
Eventually broke down and temporarily made a Facebook account to at least try it. Was pretty unimpressed with the content which was meager in comparison to PCVR. Ended up returning it and deleting Facebook account.
In my opinion the experience is not worth making a Facebook account for even if the headset was free.
If you want to get into VR on the cheap get a windows mixed reality headset off eBay. Most of them aren’t as good of a headset as the quest 2. But it will probably be comparable if you’re streaming most of your content from PC anyway. And you’ll avoid Facebook’s shit.
Be forewarned though windows mixed reality headsets don’t yet work on windows LTSC or Linux :(. (Though maybe windows 11 LTSC later this year?) So you’ll have to use the garbage version of windows to use it.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/21/24010787/microsoft-windows-mixed-reality-deprecated
WMR will be discontinued in the future. On quest you can use pass through from your pc and technically you don't need facebook account only meta account that can be disconnected from facebook.
It seems like the open source drivers for windows mixed reality devices are maturing. So maybe we won’t have to rely on Microsoft by the time they drop support.
I have a WMR device and I regret it.
So many games simply do not support it, I’d have been better off with a Valve index that seems to work with most PC titles.
I have HP reverb G2. It has seemed to work fine with everything I’ve thrown at it. Though I’m not sure about the cheaper devices. I probably wouldn’t recommend spending that much on a WMR headset at this point.
But, WMR devices can be found for $75-$150 dollars on eBay. I don’t recommend them if you’re serious about VR. But if you just want a cheap entry point, they work.
I feel like they'd get a lot more sales if they could be, I'd probably be one of them.
I would use it for like 1 game on the quest store and more portable/wireless VR on PC. Even though my Index, is superior in almost every way, an easy headset to give to a visitor would be nice.
I probably wouldn't pay $200 for one, but if a friend was getting rid of one for $50-100 I would likely snatch it up.
Because I try not to let my personal opinion dictate what I post here. Lots of people do care about this even if I don't, but I couldn't help commenting on it.
It is, but it's not just $200, it's $200 and a Meta account. I'm not making a Meta account, so I'm not buying this.
If it was usable w/o a Meta account, I'd probably get it.
If this is accurate, you need one of the following:
So, six of one and half a dozen of the other.
That's the right price range, for VR to properly catch on.
Shame it still owns you rather than vice-versa.
Wait, I don't get it. Your comment implies you are locked in to the Meta ecosystem, so wouldn't this be a fantastic option for you?
I'm not interested because it requires a Meta account, which I'm unwilling to create.
Oops, my bad. I meant "it" or "if I wouldn't be locked into the Meta ecosystem by buying it". English is hard.
Ah, that makes way more sense. I'm in the same boat, I'd totally buy this if I didn't need an account at any Meta service to use it (I'd even pay a bit more for it). But since it does, I just pretend the product doesn't exist.
And as a native English speaker, I totally agree, English is hard.
For me the issue with VR headsets isn't the price, but the lack of a relevant killer app.
If I were super-into flight sims, I could totally see going VR -- makes more sense then the many-monitors setups that fans have done for decades -- but most game genres just don't, IMHO, gain that much. And there hasn't been a new genre that really blows me away that leverages VR.
I can believe that it might be professionally-useful for architects.
I have a Q3 and I'm also feeling that right now. Most of the games for VR aren't even really games. They're "experiences;" Interactive movies where the only interaction is that you can move around the scene. The other biggest type are practically mobile games. Alyx was great. But it's been long enough that it needs something to surpass it or at least learn from it.
Alyx was great. But it’s been long enough that it needs something to surpass it or at least learn from it.
Hmm. Yeah, that's a thought too. To put some numbers on that, if I go to Steam and do a search for VR-only games and rank by User Rating, I get:
Half-Life: Alyx, 2020 release
VTOL VR, 2017
COMPOUND, 2022
UNDERDOGS, 2024
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, 2016
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, 2015
Half-Life 2: VR Mod, 2022
The Room VR: A Dark Matter, 2020
Walkabout Mini Golf VR, 2021
fpsVR, 2018
The Last Clockwinder, 2022
Blade and Sorcery, 2018
Vertigo 2, 2023
I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar, 2021
Vermillion - VR Painting, 2021
Beat Saber, 2019
The Lab, 2016
The Thrill of the Fight - VR Boxing, 2019
OVR Advanced Settings, 2020
I Expect You To Die, 2017
So of the best-of-the-best out there as of this writing, we have in releases-per-year:
2024: 1 (understandable, year is only about three months in)
2023: 1
2022: 3
2021: 3
2020: 3
2019: 2
2018: 2
2017: 2
2016: 2
2015: 1
I mean, that's just not really an exponential explosion.
Some of those aren't even games in any sense of the word. fpsVR and OVR are both just utilities for overlaying things while playing games (and there are free options).
It's also the most expensive way to play a game, so I do understand the lack of demand compared to the normal gaming space, but there seems to be plenty of people in VR to sustain a good market. So where is it?
Check out Arizona Sunshine. It’s a post apocalypse zombie shooter that I really enjoyed. They just released the sequel a couple months back too, so if you enjoy the first you’ll have another to follow up with. It was the first, and honestly only, VR game that I really enjoyed that wasn’t beat saber or a sim.
My friend let me try out his Quest 2 and I feel like it spoiled my first impression of VR... That is, I was not impressed. Picture quality was abysmal, I definitely expected something more immersive than blurry binoculars experience, and Facebook integration was annoying as fuck.
Some of them I found on YouTube, there's also a pretty cool music visualization "game" on steam.
What’s the name of this game?
Also are there any good music visualisation programs out there?
I use Spotify but there doesn’t seem to be anything really good for visualisation. I know there is a third party website that I can log in through but it never really worked for me
So a lot of the times I just use their remote connect to connect to my computer, that way I can load up videos and everything easier than what the quest.
So it's actually through steamvr, but here's the link.
I mean, it varies a lot with differing videos. But if you just smoke more weed than you don't notice.
I am shocked they couldn't get everyone to wear a headset all the time for personal, work, and any other time for that price. I'm sure for 200 it'll work.