The prices for a lot of these parts are kind of fixed though, I’d be surprised if they hit that price point, unless they are willing to subsidize, and I’m nto sure that they are. I think $400 is more likely.
Palmer Lucky reiterates why he has no intention of working on MacOS compatibility.
You don’t hear stuff so blunt in the tech industry very often. Hell, in any industry. I guess when you’re a newly minted billionaire you can say whatever the crap you want.
It helps that he’s completely right. Apple makes lousy gaming computers, and they simply don’t have a machine with specs good enough for VR. Apple prioritizes design, battery life, and weight. They’re not necessarily wrong for doing so, but it does mean they’re going to get shut out of the VR revolution unless they change their priorities.
Oh I know he’s 100% right, but it’s still surprising to see in black and white.
It’s strange that Apple doesn’t make one model with a decent gaming GPU. They’ve got all the other necesary hardware, and they make sub-models with different hardware layouts. There are hundreds of games that have been ported for mac - why not just make on model with a high end GPU? It seems like a trivial effort to capture an entire niche market.
Don’t they have a history of antagonism towards gaming in general? I’ve heard stuff about this even as their iOS game apps move billions.
The problem is that a high-end gaming card in a laptop means much higher power consumption and ventilation requirements. So then you need a larger battery, space for ventilation, and the thing is going to make noise.
If Apple does that, it goes directly against their brand image and the direction in which all their products are going.
I think Apple is a little nutty with their fixation on thinness especially. Most people I know with an iPhone, when asked what they like least about it say the battery life sucks. Not a single person I’ve asked thinks that the phone is not thin enough. In fact, I kind of liked the slightly thicker and blockier iPhone 5s to the new 6s. I think most people would gladly trade an extra millimeter or two in thickness for more battery life. But Apple is hell-bent on making the phone even thinner, and they are even thinking of removing the headphone jack just to claw out another millimeter.
So that’s their problem. Their brand is basically silicon valley chic, and a laptop with a giant honking fan, a 2 hour battery life and a 10lb weight just doesn’t fit the image.
They make desktops still.
Maybe something like that razer laptop with the seperate GPU enclosure that sits on your desk?
The iMac is branded just like the portable machines - sleek, thin, and silent. There is no way you could add a powerful video card to an iMac without completely changing its design and its nature.
That leaves the Mac Pro, which is really the only computer they sell that is designed for high performance. Unfortunately, the Mac Pro is not suitable for gaming. It is a business class machine that uses Xeon processors and FireGL graphics cards which are not designed for gaming performance. The Mac Pro also starts at $3600 for the entry level version.
Now, perhaps if they need to they could bring out a new version of the Pro with completely new internals and gaming GPUs, but it will still be very expensive. I’m not sure they could get much traction in the gaming market with a $2500 machine that can’t out-perform one you could buy elsewhere for half that amount.
Aha, I thought they still had mainstream desktops.
Is there anything stopping them from just using gaming-oriented CPUs and GPUs in their mac pro line? You could keep the xeons if you had to, but it’d be easy enough to swap the expensive workstation GPUs for decent gaming GPUs.
I guess they don’t see the market niche, but given how much stuff I regularly see coming to steam with mac compatability they’re losing out.
Yeah, you’d think that they’d want to at least keep a foot in the gaming market, but on the other hand you can kind of see the logic. The price competition in the gaming world is brutal. Gamers are hard on their machines with overclocking and cooling mods and all the rest. Support costs go up. And Apple machines wouldn’t look all that great compared to the best gaming rigs, especially considering the price premium Apple demands. The Apple store would have a hard time stocking the variety of peripherals gamers want, which would end their ‘one-stop shopping’ model.
I guess I could make all sorts of business cases for staying out of the gaming market given the niche they have found for themselves, but it does seem like they’re leaving a lot of sales on the table.
That said, how much you want to bet that Apple is feverishly working on something that can handle VR? They aren’t going to want to be caught flat-footed if (when) the VR industry explodes. I’ll bet they have prototype headsets, controllers, variations of the Mac pro or the old Mac tower designs they’re playing around with, etc. Just in case. They’d be stupid not to.
So the headsets are now available for pre-order. We know the specs, we know the prices.
Anyone picking one up? Which one?
HTC Vive/Steam VR
1080x1200 per eye - 2 separate 90hz OLED screens
110 degree FOV
1.22 lbs
$800
Available in April
Superior 3D tracking allows for room scale experiences thanks to two laser units that need to be setup on opposite sides of the room. Chaperon system allows you to map out room obstructions like furniture and walls. Pass through front facing camera allows you see other real world objects in game - like your dog so you won’t step on him.
Includes two motion controllers.
Oculus Rift
1080x1200 per eye - 2 separate 90hz OLED screens
110 degree FOV
1.03 lbs
$600
Available in March
The oculus uses two front facing cameras for tracking, providing really good tracking, but nothing like Valve’s internal positional system.
Will support but does not include motion controllers - coming out later this year.
Sony Playstation VR
960x1080 per eye - single (1080p) 120hz full RGB screen
100 degree FOV
1.34 lbs
($400 + $60 camera)=$460
Available in October
PSVR uses a single tracking camera, which will produce the least robust tracking of the headsets, but likely good enough for seated or standing experiences.
Supports but does not include motion controllers (move controllers).
So personally, I’ll be bowing out of VR until next year.* It’s just too much money for me right now, and the set I’m most interested in requires room I don’t have. So after we move later this year (hopefully), and after managing all the expenses that come with moving I’ll consider picking up the Vive then, probably along with a new GPU.
PSVR would require me to pick up a PlayStation 4 in addition to the headset, so it’s not any cheaper for me over a Vive - more importantly, if I’m going VR I want the best experience, and that’s not going to happen with locked hardware that is outperformed by even my current 3 yo hardware 3 to 1.
Oculus is also tempting, but everything I can do in the Oculus I can do in the Vive, and roomscale is still a Vive exclusive thing. so I’m pretty set on the Vive, but probably not until next year some time.
-
- I’m already compiling a list of Dopers who are getting VR so that I can unexpectedly show up at their house with some pizza, and then use my charm so at to get some time with the headsets. This thread is not at all being used for that purpose… I swear, however if you could please include your name and address on your replies, just for Uncle Cecil’s records, that would be great
- I’m already compiling a list of Dopers who are getting VR so that I can unexpectedly show up at their house with some pizza, and then use my charm so at to get some time with the headsets. This thread is not at all being used for that purpose… I swear, however if you could please include your name and address on your replies, just for Uncle Cecil’s records, that would be great
I have a PS4, but unless the PSVR gets overwhelmingly, stupidly positive reviews there’s no way in hell I’m dropping five bills on the thing. And since I don’t have a gaming rig that can even touch the necessary specs for the better headsets, well, early adoption is entirely out of the question right now. I can’t justify spending $1300+ to get out the door on a product that’s going to be a dinosaur in just a few years.
One of the big issues I see facing VR at the moment is the average person has absolutely no idea where to get a VR headset from. None of the major retailers here sell them and no-one I know knows anyone who has one, outside of some of the university technology labs.
The cardboard 3D glasses you can slide a smartphone into are a different kettle of fish, however…
Samsung’s Gear VR is becoming mainstream. It works with a bunch of high-end Samsung phones which are quite popular, costs $100 and comes free for a limited time with the latest Galaxy S7.
Personally I have only tried Google Cardboard but I am quite excited by the potential of the technology.
Just got the email that our Rift is shipping…soon. They give themselves a generous estimate of “sometime in the next three weeks”. I’m still hoping that it’ll be sooner rather than later considering how fast we jumped on it, but it is a mystery.
We’re still 72 hours from the release of the world’s first consumer-level VR headset, so of course stores aren’t stocking them right now. But once they’re widely available you’ll be able to get them at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Walmart, anywhere.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/clp/oculus-rift-vr-offer/pcmcat748301736879.c
http://www.gamestop.com/vr
http://www.walmart.com/ip/48174505
http://www.target.com/p/samsung-gear-vr/-/A-50761979
I think VR’s big problem will be that very few people outside of the core “VR Evangelist” demographic will want one. What happens if all these headsets just start sitting on store shelves?
I live in Australia. No-one here is stocking them at the moment that I’m aware of. I’ve been asking around and just getting blank stares.