The implication here is the demand for Oculus is higher than for Xboxes. But Xbox has been extremely difficult to buy this past year, where an Oculus is readily available.
Still an interesting data point, but misleading on its own.
Yeah, the Xbox Series X sells out everywhere the minute supply becomes available — I've been casually trying to buy one for a while now. The Quest 2 certainly sold well, but the comparison is just a comparison of supply, not demand. Oculus sold more Quest 2s because it manufactured more Quest 2s (because the components were less in short supply this year).
It's somewhat weird that the PS5 has had so many more units though.
Maybe the demand for new gaming experiences is being satisfied by Oculus due to lower costs and better availability. Maybe it's not misleading at all if Meta starts to eat the share of dollars/hours.
Only time will tell if people will continue to use them beyond their initial novelty.
I agree with you and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Personally, I purchased an Oculus Quest 2 and a Valve Index about nine months ago because I couldn't find a Playstation or Xbox system in stock. I wasn't expecting much from either system (especially the Quest 2, since it is basically a cell phone with goggles and a couple of hand controllers) but they've both grown on me. I love the Quest's portability and the Index's screen resolution and adjustability are excellent. Meta's customer support for warranty issues has also been excellent (much, much, MUCH nicer than Sony's). I've also found a lot of games I like, such as:
I've enjoyed both VR systems to the point that I haven't bothered to check the availability of Sony's or Microsoft's offerings recently. I'm enjoying what I have.
I don't know why Sony and Microsoft never seem to be able to predict the market and create enough products to meet demand, but they always seem to struggle with this (I know there's a global chip shortage at the moment, but Sony especially has had this problem for years). Now that decent enough competitors exist, Sony and Microsoft might find their marketshare eroding due to their inability to satisfy market demands.
I wonder if it’s an another anecdotal that shows Oculus’ struggle without core gamer support and under almost a declaration of war from Carmack, that they had to resort to comparison against Xbox. Surely they’ve got no support from me, and while I’m not an important person, I can’t be extremely unique either.
I think this narrative is biased by your perspective as an enthusiast PC gamer (the PCMasterRace type of person). Oculus selling a console-like, works out of the box offering makes a lot of sense in pushing VR towards the mainstream. The existence of stuff like AirLink also points to strong demand from PC gamers as well. The only people complaining are the PCMR crowd who either dislike the focus on mainstream users (filthy casuals amirite?) or the fact that it's made by Facebook (somewhat valid, I suppose).
The market success of Quest 2 in comparison to Oculus PC-only headsets and the Index+WMR ecosystem makes it pretty clear which is the more appealing option to most people.
yeah, I'm a huge PC Master Race type, and even I'd never recommend to someone to start with PC VR right now. It's a LOT better, but it's not so much better that it's worth paying 3x retail price for a high end GPU right now.
If you can stomach forking over all that tracking data with Mark Zuckerberg's promise that he isn't going to use it to get better at hacking your lizard brain, the Quest 2 is an otherwise unambiguously great product.
My Index is fantastic, but setting it up is usually a 10+ minute process (dig out and hook up the tracking cubes, get Steam and SteamVR patched and working again, clear a space next to my gaming PC). Meanwhile, last time I had a Quest, I could just put it on and use it in my back yard at night, or clear some space anywhere in the house and use it there. Practically no setup or BS involved.
It would not be unreasonable to e.g. fire someone for making these sorts of statements. Most people exist outside of your 4chan-adjacent subculture and probably wouldn’t be very understanding of someone identifying themselves as a member of the master race.
So long as you append the "PC" part to the name, no one will associate it to the Nazi thing. "PC Master Race" is pretty casual and more importantly unserious internet term that's just become a self-deprecting name for PC gamers.
> So long as you append the "PC" part to the name, no one will associate it to the Nazi thing
Except for the more than 99% of non-gamers who don’t hang out on boards like /v/?
I’m not accusing anyone of being a Nazi, just pointing out that outside of a very specific subculture this is a very risky joke (and not a particularly funny one in any context).
You probably wouldn’t call people -fags (newfag, macfag, eurofag, etc…) either, even though “master race” carries far worse connotations than “fag”.
I’m not trying to criticize anyone, just offering a friendly reminder that letting these injokes leak outside of 4chan or reddit can have unfortunate consequences since most people won’t be as understanding as you or me.
Perhaps one direction I can spin that along is that those forums support free, open, and (albeit to a limited degree)civil discussions on highly politicized or sensitive matters, moreso than parts of the web that operate tied closely or even firmly grounded to real world identities. I only have had experiences in other *chans, though.
I have never seen that term be used in a self-deprecating way. Also, I'd want any mature community to introspect on whether it really needs to co-opt Nazi terminology.
The only way someone on HackerNews is going to get fired for being a member of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race[1] is if they work for Sony or maybe Apple
Maybe true for people working on/for startups. If you work for some bigco? Good luck explaining your “master race” jokes to HR. It’s not gonna go over well, even at FAANG.
People say it all the time at my FAANG job. Some whiny loser tried to call in HR and the cancel squad over it on slack, and it went literally nowhere, didn't even get anyone in the "cancel everyone" channel worked up
> GP compares gamers to right wing ideologues. QED
It really doesn’t, there’s no suggestion that gamers are similar to right wing ideologues.
The comment just points out the fact that a specific group of gamers has decided to borrow Nazi terminology for the name of their group, it does not imply that the gamers and nazis are similar or even somehow comparable.
It’s not a comparison, simply an observation that the “modern technology movement” has deliberately chosen to borrow Nazis terminology. I’m not comparing them to the Nazis in any way.
This is an understandable mistake, Godwin’s law is frequently abused.
The man himself has frequently criticised people for abusing his “law” in the way you’re doing now.
Well, I guess it’s up to you how you want to delineate the appropriateness of the terminology, but a less mathematical application is still appropriate.
I do not mind focus on casual users, in fact I used to shove VR in any context I could. But the moment Facebook announced their current plan, I stopped advocating VR entirely.
I don’t suggest possible VR integrations anymore, I don’t go into VR development, I don’t bring up VR compatibility when speccing a PC, I don’t mention use cases in VR for every tangential technologies, I mostly behave as VR was a 3DTV.
Who’s still talking about Quest 2 anyway? Q1 sold like hotcakes in Japan, coincidentally where I am from, and Oculus/Facebook was proud of it that they said extra stocks are assigned for Japanese market when Q2 launched - I don’t see them. And that launch happened after the announcement to shut down Oculus accounts and services.
I think Q2 will and needs to be extinguished even if it will risk jeopardizing VR as a whole, and that will be possible by PCMRing, and I am sure that is what is happening.
I tried buying a series X for 4 month with no luck. Everything which shows up online is sold out within seconds. So yes - the supply chain issues are very real.
Maybe 4k or 8k gaming won't be sustainable due to production costs, but what I'd call 'high-res' is even more viable today than it was 5 years ago. Be careful of moving goal posts. Top-end hardware has always been and will remain silly money. I agree there is a broader market now, but think it is in addition to the existing 'gamer' market and you are not going to see Ubisoft, EA or Rockstar pivot away from the obscenely profitable markets they dominate.
I see my children not giving a crap about graphics. Their favorite games being Roblox and Minecraft. And Fortnite lately because they play with school friends over discord. I think I'm from another age, of Doom and Quake, when changing computers every 4 years was mandatory. Maybe one day videogames will even be more than just a time sink, who knows.
not only did they not propose or suggest a specific solution - nor are obligated to with their observation - they also left the door open for “many platforms”, therefore allowing a vr headset to be just one platform
Still an interesting data point, but misleading on its own.