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from the predicted-sales-of-6-or-7-mainframes-by-IBM dept.
Facebook will never break through with Oculus, says one of the VR company's co-founders
Five years after its $2 billion purchase of Oculus, Facebook is still pushing forward in its efforts to bring virtual reality to a mainstream audience. But one of the company's six co-founders now doubts Oculus will ever break through.
Jack McCauley told CNBC he doesn't think there's a real market for VR gaming. With Facebook positioning its Oculus devices primarily as gaming machines, McCauley doesn't believe there's much of a market for the device. "If we were gonna sell, we would've sold," McCauley said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
[...] The $199 Oculus Go has sold a little more than 2 million units since its release in May 2018, according to estimates provided by market research firm SuperData, a Nielsen company. The Oculus Quest, which was released this May, has sold nearly 1.1 million units while the Oculus Rift has sold 547,000 units since the start of 2018, according to SuperData.
[...] Since leaving in November 2015, McCauley has enjoyed a semi-retired life. He's an innovator in residence at Berkeley's Jacobs Institute of Design Innovation and he continues to build all sorts of devices, such as a gun capable of shooting down drones, at his own research and development facility.
The cheaper, standalone headsets are selling more units. Add foveated rendering and other enhancements at the lower price points (rather than $1,599 like the Vive Pro Eye), and the experience could become much better.
Related: Oculus Rift: Dead in the Water?
HTC: Death of VR Greatly Exaggerated
As Sales Slide, Virtual Reality Fans Look to a Bright, Untethered Future
Virtual Reality Feels Like a Dream Gathering Dust
VR Gets Reality Check with Significant Decline in Investment
Creepy Messages Will be Found in Facebook's Oculus Touch VR Controllers
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @08:16PM (2 children)
look, VR is having a "hardish" time because it 95 percent relies on a crappy operating system.
winblows isn't a foundation to build new break thru tech on.
m$ has its operating system and if it runs their cash-cow suit of office tools good enough then nothing will change much.
it's all about profit; not going out on a limb. fancy extensions or optimized algos require monies to be paid to programmers which,
if not implemented yields a more profitable OS that powers yachts and mansion, not the next revolution.
ofc the "kick_back" tactic and "ego balsam", which m$ is well versed in, ensures that people with vision keep building on a crap foundation.
it's sad ... but one would THINK (lol) that a new media in its infancy like VR, would chose a open source platform/foundation like linux,
where one could "weld", screw and cut at the fundamental level for performance, instead of having to wait for m$ to make a cost calculation for the monies required to implement the improvment in the blackbox-like core code of the os ...
if there's no money in it, it's not m$. also threating cancer is more profitable then curing it, right?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 15 2019, @09:23PM
Looks like the vast majority of VR is tied to the PlayStation 4 (FreeBSD) or Android (standalone headsets like Oculus Go and Quest).
Of course, people are using VR on Windows and it works just fine. So...
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday July 15 2019, @10:28PM
The vast majority of PC gamers are on Windows. One of the major contributors to VR tech, John Carmack, is the quintessential PC game developer. Consoles didn't push for VR, because they aren't pushing the envelope of technology. They're busy pandering after the masses, because Money, Money, Money. Some of us, don't like being treated like $$$$. The only way to escape a walled garden is to not play in it. Thus, you play with Nintendo, XBox, or Playstation, you're stuck. Though, at least Sony is actively pursuing the tech.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"