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Facebook has cut the price of the Oculus Rift for the second time this year. It debuted at $800, was cut to $600 in March, and is now $400. Is there real trouble in the virtual reality market, or is it just a normal price correction now that early adopters have been served?
It means that the Rift now costs less than the package offered by its cheapest rival, Sony, whose PlayStation VR currently totals $460 including headset and controllers.
Even so, it's not clear that it will be enough to lure people into buying a Rift. A year ago, our own Rachel Metz predicted that the Rift would struggle against Sony's offering because the former requires a powerful (and expensive) gaming computer to run, while the latter needs just a $350 PlayStation 4 game console.
Jason Rubin, vice president for content at Oculus, tells Reuters that the reduction isn't a sign of weak product sales, but rather a decision to give the headset more mass market appeal now that more games are available. Don't believe it: this is the latest in a string of bad news for the firm, which has also shut down its nascent film studio, shuttered in-store demo stations of its hardware, and stumped up $250 million as part of a painful intellectual property lawsuit in the last six months.
Here's a February story about the Oculus demo stations at Best Buy stores being shut down.
Previously: Facebook/Oculus Ordered to pay $500 Million to ZeniMax
Google Partnering With HTC and Lenovo for Standalone VR Headsets
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 11 2017, @11:47AM (3 children)
I googled some camelcamelcamel graph images (its a service that tracks amazon.com prices) and at the high end its normal for a graphics card to drop 50% smoothly in the first year and then flatten out until discontinuation. In comparison for low end graphics cards they tend to only drop maybe 25% in the first three months and then permanently flatten.
On topic, assuming you think of the 3-d gadget/fad like a high end graphics card selling to people used to the high end graphics card market, there really isn't a story. BAU completely predictable.
Or on topic if you thought the product was the peoples-3d Volksgoggles or whatever, well, the market pricing strategy disagrees, its a high end product. Someday there might be a general public 3-d but it isn't this, at least based on pricing strategy applied.
Or on topic, you can claim anything you want and say its just coincidence this products pricing curve more or less matches a high end graphics card.
Surprisingly I can't easily find a price graph of beanie babies. I was going to try and link to fuckedcompany.com to compare to their curves but Pud shut it down a decade ago, shows how often I research this, LOL. Its hard to talk about 3-d without mentioning condos in Florida, beanie babies, tulip mania, bubbles in general, which is I suppose pretty instructive.
I find it fascinating how 3d has failed in the marketplace. As a guy growing up when Microprose "naturally" supported half a dozen graphics card drivers at boot time it seems predictable that X-plane and Minecraft would have native 3-d support now. But there's nothing but 3rd party addons AFAIK and no one in the user culture or groups mentions them so I assume no one is using them. If I were to actually use 3-d goggles it would solely be for modded minecraft on a PC or fooling around in X-Plane flight sim. Somehow dwarf fortress would either be amazing or amazingly bad, I'm not sure which.
Also I was surprised to hear Best Buy is still open. I pretty much stopped going there when I stopped buying physical media and about 1/3 of the store was legacy optical disks. I guess there will always be a place for people to pay $75 for a $5 HDMI cable, and now that Radio Shack is out of that business, Best Buy has it made permanently?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday July 11 2017, @12:27PM (1 child)
Here's some explanations for why Best Buy has survived:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/520821/best-buy-battles-back-online/ [technologyreview.com]
http://www.startribune.com/to-boost-digital-sales-best-buy-turns-to-its-stores/212549391/ [startribune.com]
https://www.cnet.com/news/best-buy-puts-stock-in-stores-in-battle-with-amazon/ [cnet.com]
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/behindthestorefront/2014/05/22/best-buy-has-an-edge-over-amazon-as-stores-serve-as-shipping-hubs/ [marketwatch.com]
Using your existing stores and distribution centers in order to get 2-day shipping to most online customers is a strategy also being used by Walmart. It was more of a pressing issue for Best Buy years ago than Walmart because lots of people get electronics online, not so much groceries - although that is shifting. Personally, I only use Best Buy when there is a deal for them on Slickdeals.net, but I could see other people putting them on equal footing with Amazon and Newegg. Amazon still has the edge but if your site is as easy to use as Newegg, then you don't really need a user account.
So why don't Best Buy locations shutter the doors and turn off the A/C? I guess they do well with products that people want to see in person before they purchases, such as TVs or appliances. Laptops maybe, not sure about smartphones since people might go to the carrier's store instead.
VR: Don't forget there are $0-15 tier Cardboard setups (NYT subscribers got it for free), $15-$30 Chinese garbage headsets for phones, and quality $70-$100 phone headsets like Google Daydream or Samsung Gear. All come way under the $400-800 + gaming PC prices of the premium headsets, and the intersection of people with a 5-inch+ smartphone and a few dollars to spend is pretty large. They can also be bundled with the phone for free, like Gear VR was.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 11 2017, @12:42PM
Cardboard is like windows 3.1, everything I already need to do is optimized for the older technology (msdos then, plain android now) and the stuff they're trying to interest me in, either isn't interesting, or its a hard sell to push both something new AND a new UI technology simultaneously. So my cardboard sits on a shelf after a couple hours use. It doesn't do the stuff I'm already interested in, and I'm not interested in the limited stuff it can do.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday July 11 2017, @02:08PM
Minecraft has native 3D support. I have played it on an Occulus Rift. The interface is a bit lacking though - the game was clearly not designed with it in mind. It's not got a great implementation.
However, be aware I don't think 3D is super compelling in any case. I've never needed 3D to feel immersed personally. I once played so many MUD hours in a row, that when I slept, I dreamt without concrete visuals at all, and didn't realize it until I tried to relate the dream to someone else.