General Gaming Oculus Quest - Stanalone VR with tracked controllers for $400

[TwinIon]

Oculus has just announced the Oculus Quest for $400 with controllers included. It'll ship in Spring 2019 with 50+ games available at launch (most of which are currently available on the Rift.)

 

LIke the Oculus Go, it's a stand alone VR headset, but the inside out tracking should give it a much more Rift like experience (at least in terms of interaction).

 

It'll start at 64GB and has a display resolution of 1600x1440 per eye (same as the Vive Pro), and includes built in audio. I don't see any other specs, but I think it's safe to assume that it's using a newer, high end snapdragon.

 

We'll see if this is capable enough, but I think this is the clear direction of VR. Getting rid of the tether is important, but cannot come at the cost of motion tracking, or you get a watered down, disposable experience like the Go or Phone VR. I'm a little skeptical of how good the performance and the tracking on this thing will be, but if it's good enough, this has the potential to be a big deal. Overall, I think this is a more interesting product than whatever the next Rift ends up being.

 

Expect some hands on impressions from Oculus Connect 5 soon.

[Mr.Vic20]

Love the price, the form factor, and the direction. That said, no matter what they say it will still basically be running on a cellphone, even if a high end cellphone. The other obvious issue will be battery life. Let's hope they decide to have it link to a hip pack for the battery! 

[TwinIon]

Just now, Mr.Vic20 said:

Love the price, the form factor, and the direction. That said, no matter what they say it will still basically be running on a cellphone, even if a high end cellphone. The other obvious issue will be battery life. Let's hope they decide to have it link to a hip pack for the battery! 

I hope that they make sure that it will work with a battery plugged in, but that said I expect the battery life to be fine. VR sessions tend to be rather short, so if it gets something like 3 hours, that should be enough. 

 

In my experience most VR games aren't that graphically intensive, but I do hope that it's capable of playing even a downgraded version of games like Stormland. The first games they have announced (Robo Recall, The Climb, and Moss), are all pretty good looking, so I'm hopeful.

[Mr.Vic20]

Yeah, a battery life of 3 hours would be great as far as I'm concerned, the weight of that battery might impact the head comfort of the HMD though. If they treat the platform like a a console they should get a lot of gain on optimizing around the hardware they have. The issue, in my mind, is whether or not that means people are having to repurchase their existing titles or if the platform will even support existing titles? I am unable to watch the event right now, so maybe this has been addressed? I was hoping/imagining that you'd log into your oculus account, see your existing library and then any titles that are too demanding for this kit would have a special profile that runs them at best settings for this new hardware. That would be optimal for current  consumers in their eco system. 

[TwinIon]

17 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Yeah, a battery life of 3 hours would be great as far as I'm concerned, the weight of that battery might impact the head comfort of the HMD though. If they treat the platform like a a console they should get a lot of gain on optimizing around the hardware they have. The issue, in my mind, is whether or not that means people are having to repurchase their existing titles or if the platform will even support existing titles? I am unable to watch the event right now, so maybe this has been addressed? I was hoping/imagining that you'd log into your oculus account, see your existing library and then any titles that are too demanding for this kit would have a special profile that runs them at best settings for this new hardware. That would be optimal for current  consumers in their eco system. 

The only thing that they've said so far is that existing content will be forwards compatible.

 

My understanding is that Gear VR purchases transfer over to the Oculus Go, because they're part of the mobile Oculus store, which is distinct from the desktop Oculus store. So Rift purchases don't transfer to Go even if they're the same game. At this point it's not clear if the Quest will use the same store as the Go or the Rift. I expect we'll know before Connect 5 is over.

[Spork3245]

54 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Love the price, the form factor, and the direction. That said, no matter what they say it will still basically be running on a cellphone, even if a high end cellphone. The other obvious issue will be battery life. Let's hope they decide to have it link to a hip pack for the battery! 

 

I dunno... it might be running on a Nintendo Switch.

 

[chakoo]

Only disappointment is the launch date (so far out). I can’t wait till I can try one.

[TwinIon]

So it seems that the Quest is definitely NOT using the same storefront as the Rift, and likely not with the Go either. It seems Oculus is positioning this as a distinct entry in their lineup and will have its own marketplace. As a result, owning a game on Rift will not transfer to the Quest, though developers will have the option to give Rift owners access to games on the Quest:

Quote

Oculus cofounder Nate Mitchell told us that players who had purchased a Rift game might be able to get the Quest port free of charge, but that decision would be up to the individual developers. 

 

Also it has been confirmed that the Quest runs on last years Snapdragon 835, the chip that powered the Galaxy S8. It's possible that they did some work on the GPU, but they were mostly mum on specs. Some of the announced games, like Robo Recall, Moss, and The Climb, are graphically intense, so I imagine that once people get to try those out we'll have an idea of just how capable the Quest really is.

[Mr.Vic20]

Yeah, that's unfortunate but hardly surprising. This might be tough on the devs though. Talk about a segmented market of products! Still, the stand along product might well be the direction VR should head. I'm unhappy with the lost of computational power, but the convenience and price point are both compelling arguments. VR needs a sleek but at the same time "Everyman" product and I think this might be it.