I am really curious to see how this shakes out in the long run. I now own both an Oculus and a Vive, and will likely keep both util Touch comes along. Then I will choose a winner and sell the loser.
There are so many competing pros and cons with each. Vive having Steam is a huge point in its favor, though. Oculus Home is lacking many features. Why are there not video previews of games in the shop?!
Swinging back the other way, the Vive definitely comes across as a rough-around-the-edges product. Yesterday was the first time it completely spazzed out on me. Whenever I tried reaching into the low back corner of my playspace, the world would tilt and slide, sometimes rapidly. It gave me some minor nausea. I now suspect that this was due to a lamp located right under one of my lighthouses, since this was the first time I tried playing at night. Even though Oculus isn't advertised as room scale right now, it never gave such an issue over several hours of play.
The Oculus is also definitely lighter/smaller/more comfortable overall. Built-in headphones is a bigger deal than it seems.
Lastly, the pass-through camera on my Vive is completely non-functional. It's not enabled by default, and when you do enable it, the Vive refuses to work. The in-game phone notifications also need to be manually enabled every time you start SteamVR, which I often forget to do. I thought both of these things would be big pluses for Vive, but they aren't delivering yet.
My Oculus got sent out yesterday for replacement due to one of the spring-loaded straps being busted out of the box. Will log some more Vive time while it's my only option, with more comparisons to follow.
The summary of my experience at PAX in the VR Lounge was along those lines. The Vive demo was much more immersive and impressive to the players, but the Vives themselves were fiddly, crashy, and generally problematic. The Rift experience wasn't as interesting, but god damn did they "just work" with zero fiddling or problems.
It will all come down to how well the Oculus performs at room scale. If that experience has the same level of polish, then they'll leave HTC in the dust. If room scale was an afterthought for Oculus, then it'll be more of an open horse race.
It will all come down to how well the Oculus performs at room scale. If that experience has the same level of polish, then they'll leave HTC in the dust. If room scale was an afterthought for Oculus, then it'll be more of an open horse race.
There may well be a divergence. The game design of a "full room" game versus a "sit/stand in mostly one place" game is night and day. They're more different than almost any analog I can think of in videogame design to date.
If anything, it's like making a Wii game for regular controls vs one that heavily uses motion controls. To really use one well, you have to eschew the other.
You are 100% correct with regard to the divergent game styles. In the near term (next few years), I don't see the two products splitting off in vastly different directions, though. They both seem to be committed to providing both experiences, even if there will be competing pros and cons. And the developers in this little niche are very much inclined to have their games on all available platforms.
This will all seem like silly conversation in a few years when everything converges onto an improved Gear VR.
House of the Dying Sun is a fantastic game. I'm going to stream/youtube some gameplay. However, this is the first time I've been using SteamVR and man...it's dog shit.
House of the Dying Sun is a fantastic game. I'm going to stream/youtube some gameplay. However, this is the first time I've been using SteamVR and man...it's dog shit.
I saw you mention that on Twitter. Crashing issues?
My experience SteamVR (using a Vive) has been extremely smooth, sans one bat-shit insane step in setup, that caused me to have some world-spinning issues (not fun).
When you finish tracing the outline of your room with a Vive wand, it shows you the completed map of your play space. Very subtly, there is an arrow showing which part is the front. By default, mine pointed to the back of the room, away from the lighthouses. This caused trouble picking up enough sensors when moving around, particularly crouching in a corner.
I only noticed the room arrow when doing setup for like the 5th time (debugging my issues one night). The option to switch room facing is inexplicably buried in a n "advanced settings" menu.
I can reliably get SteamVR to crash just by launching the game in "VR Mode" but not having SteamVR running. It causes a hard crash of Steam and the SteamVR app, which it does indeed launch, hangs and requires me to kill manually.
I also had issues yesterday where if I moved my head to the sides the LED panels would disable and flicker for no apparent reason.
Oh this did happen to me once, when trying to get AltSpace VR running. Tried launching it without starting up SteamVR prior, and I had the process lock up on me. Took me a little while to figure out.
I've never tried a Steam game that had VR mode, only dedicated VR games, which all handle the launching of SteamVR on their own just fine.
My Oculus has been sold off. Ultimately I couldn't justify owning both it and the Vive, at least not know. There's only so much time in the day to play games, and Overwatch has been sucking up a lot of that. Warts and all, I'll roll with the Vive for a year or so and then revisit. It might be another 6+ months before Touch controllers land, so no sense in waiting when I can turn a profit and rebuy if needed. I'm happy to pick up another Oculus after that time if switching seems worthwhile, and I did manage to make $100 profit for the experience of essentially borrowing a Rift for a few weeks, plus getting the two free pack-in games.
I played Island 359 last week (on the Vive) and can attest to its quality. This game is really solid, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves through Early Access.
Comments
There are so many competing pros and cons with each. Vive having Steam is a huge point in its favor, though. Oculus Home is lacking many features. Why are there not video previews of games in the shop?!
The Oculus is also definitely lighter/smaller/more comfortable overall. Built-in headphones is a bigger deal than it seems.
Lastly, the pass-through camera on my Vive is completely non-functional. It's not enabled by default, and when you do enable it, the Vive refuses to work. The in-game phone notifications also need to be manually enabled every time you start SteamVR, which I often forget to do. I thought both of these things would be big pluses for Vive, but they aren't delivering yet.
My Oculus got sent out yesterday for replacement due to one of the spring-loaded straps being busted out of the box. Will log some more Vive time while it's my only option, with more comparisons to follow.
Now that makes me wonder about the functionality of the other competing headsets. The next few months are going to be very interesting.
If anything, it's like making a Wii game for regular controls vs one that heavily uses motion controls. To really use one well, you have to eschew the other.
This will all seem like silly conversation in a few years when everything converges onto an improved Gear VR.
Cockpit
Sit/Stand using your hands
Walk around
Has anyone demonstrated VR multiplayer in a shared space?
When you finish tracing the outline of your room with a Vive wand, it shows you the completed map of your play space. Very subtly, there is an arrow showing which part is the front. By default, mine pointed to the back of the room, away from the lighthouses. This caused trouble picking up enough sensors when moving around, particularly crouching in a corner.
I only noticed the room arrow when doing setup for like the 5th time (debugging my issues one night). The option to switch room facing is inexplicably buried in a n "advanced settings" menu.
I also had issues yesterday where if I moved my head to the sides the LED panels would disable and flicker for no apparent reason.
Never have these issues in Oculus Home ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've never tried a Steam game that had VR mode, only dedicated VR games, which all handle the launching of SteamVR on their own just fine.
*snicker*
Oh you have a link.
I am going to call a lot of sour grapes when that comes out.