Valve Reveals Specifications For Their Index VR Headset, Controllers & Base Stations

[coder]

I don't think any manufacturer is trying to make VR into a cheap and mainstream thing. Even if the headset was cheap, you still need a powerful rig to be able to play a game, especially considering that framerate drops could lead to nausea.

So, I take it you're not familiar with MS' VR headsets? The HMDs can be had for around $300, and minimum PC specs don't even require a quad-core or a dGPU.

I think VR is still seen by the mainstream as somewhat geeky, and a lot of people are probably put off by the idea of wearing a HMD for any length of time.

[humbug]

Looks great. They are trying to make the best VR headset they can possibly make, so it is premium.
They will be technology leaders, while others like Oculus can focus on trying to bring it to the mass market.

[mike456]

Oh well if it would be wireless and without the need to set up Controllers it could be more expensive than for ex. the Samsung Odyssey.-
Like this it will be behind the oculus quest

[arabek]

There is one mainstream headset with adoption levels that allow developers to consider it a viable mainstream platform. It's just not available on PCs.

[JPFSanders]

There is one mainstream headset with adoption levels that allow developers to consider it a viable mainstream platform. It's just not available on PCs.

Which is?

[ssokolow]

It occurs to me that Valve used to be a game developer. Half Life 3 VR?

The writers for the Half-Life series no longer work for Valve.

[moilami]

Chicken & Egg.

No one makes great VR games because there aren't a lot of people buying VR gear due to high priced hardware with a lack of content.

No one buys VR gear because there aren't any good games being made & the hardware is frickin expensive.

And you also need a worth-a-shit GPU. Those aren't cheap either. It says GTX 970/RX 480+, but I'm just gonna assume that something better than my RX 580 will be needed if I want to use better-than-low-to-medium graphics settings; ditto with a Nvidia GTX 1060.

Yeah, well, it is the job of companies to make business and explore new markets. Consumers wont put 1k to a toy which will be outdated in a few years and practically useless before even being outdated, and of which novelty wear out quickly.

[Slithery]

Do they look/work any better than they used to?

Last time I tried VR was 28 years ago

[AndyChow]

the VR infrastructure there is now on Linux but just not a lot of interesting content.

I think this is a much bigger problem that usually stated. What would be good VR content? I can think of rail-shooters, but that's about it. You can't walk or move around in VR, except with teleport or rail-type movement. Unless you have a dedicated room and weird carpet or sliding shoes (the Omni thing).

The interface, there's no other way to put it, sucks.

It's not even clear to me that immersion is required in a game. That's why a lot of new game come out with "retro" graphics. They accept that their sandbox is limited, and construct within those limitations. But with VR, you want to be immersed, but you can't use your arms, your legs, and have to remember that you aren't really there, or you'll fall down, run into a wall, etc.

I think this is a much deeper problem than hardware costs or lack of adoption. I think fundamentally VR will never be able to create interesting content. Not until we have a neural link of something like that.

[coder]

Do they look/work any better than they used to?

Last time I tried VR was 28 years ago

Virtual Boy?


I mean, yeah. You should try modern VR. I think the main issue with it is not enough content/use cases to keep using it, after the novelty wears off.