Is VR dead?

[metalnwood]

First you are talking about the wrong market. The VAST majority of Beyond owners already have a headset for the family to use. A large number of them already have light houses, for an Index, or Aero, or previous Pimax.

Bigscreen Beyond has a world wide return policy. It does have a 20% restocking fee. Frankly that seems pretty reasonable since they have custom cushions etc...

You say pipe dream, but it appears to be happening...

FWIW, they were very worried about keeping up with word of mouth sales once these were in the hands of many people. The product is taking off in a viral way.

For any inconvenience the final result is definitely worth it. It is by far the best VR experience I've ever had by a margin.

Where do i go to see where it is going viral? Is in on youtube like the pic attached where i filter for the last week and you make the top 3, but that was a week ago?

Or is it reddit bsb sub where its mostly dead and the first handful of posts cover 11 days?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Let's see how things look in 6 months. Time reveals all.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Let's see how things look in 6 months. Time reveals all.

They have very short window of opportunity to push it out, 6 months could be long enough for a better and more consumer friendly HMD to come out, which will kill it right off the bat.
And if not, it just confirms the subj of this very thread.

 

[RCHeliguy]

We will see

 

[gamma123152]

Read something the the other day that jumped out at me.

The CEO of BigscreenVR recently made a comment about pricing for some of their components getting more reasonable after they hit 100,000 headsets and he made it sound like they were well on their way towards making that happen.

Overlapping the Quest 3 launch, that's saying something! Meta will sell millions of the Quest 3, but it's looking like the Bigscreen Beyond is posting some pretty serious numbers for a company other than Meta.

1.8 Million Views in 2 weeks doesn't hurt either.
View attachment 712886

Find iPhone to do face scan, go to optometrist to check IPD, source tracking stations and controllers, figure out audio solution, enjoy long wait after placing order, find 3rd party strap to improve comfort, stuck with no return policy, cannot resell or share with relatives/friends.
Doesn't sound like consumer friendly solution to me, more like something only hard core VR nuts can accept.
Good luck competing with Quest or some other grab off the shelf and go options. 100K units sold sounds like a pipe dream for such individually tailored niche product.

Wow, IF they will really sell a 100.000 BSB's then we can conclude that the hardcore VR market is not that small at all. It's a much larger number than I would have guessed.

I agree with Andrew here that the BSB is only for an insanely small niche market of the already small hardcore VR market; I could never live with such limitations(no resell options, no usage with friends, no eye tracking, no android facescan and glare/low nits/upscaled resolution etc.) and I see myself as a VR enthousiast too.

 

[gamma123152]

They have very short window of opportunity to push it out, 6 months could be long enough for a better and more consumer friendly HMD to come out, which will kill it right off the bat.
And if not, it just confirms the subj of this very thread.

Well, innovation doesn't go that fast in the VR world, that has already been proven over time. So no, you cannot draw conclusions about the whole VR market in such a short timeframe of 6 month's. The BSB focussed on a very small niche within a niche, not every company wants to focus on such a small niche(in fact, most companies don't want to do that).

The Reverb G2/Quest 2 were both the best price/performance ratio HMD's for roughly 2,5 years, it took that long for an Quest 3 to beat it (time between Q2 and Q3 was almost 3 years). The Pimax Crystal also took many years to develop and to overcome the issues that Varjo had with the aspherical lenses.

Now we can wait a long time until new resolutions are possible, DisplayPort 1.4 will limit the consumer HMD's at the VR1/Crystal resolution(or they have to use many tricks, which will make it expensive to develop). The Nvidia 5000 series will bring DP2.0.

But it doesn't mean that VR is "dead". It's still unclear why you want VR to be dead? Why don't you want us to enjoy VR to the max.?

It's an alive niche and it will always stay like that, VR will only get better over time, let us believe in it and enjoy it. There's no reason to fight against it. But it's up to you, if you want it to be dead; keep dreaming about it. But you're probably the only person in this world that has such a dream.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

What are the most realistic around the corner rumored candidates to make BSB obsolete.
Pico 5 lineup with Pro Max is one, expected in April, anything else?

 

[gamma123152]

What are the most realistic around the corner rumored candidates to make BSB obsolete.
Pico 5 lineup with Pro Max is one, expected in April, anything else?

Maybe innovation is speeding up after all these years. We'll see.

But the Pico 5 Max Pro is IMO not direct competition for the BSB crowd: it has (rumoured) eye tracking, wireless and probably bigger panels.

This combined will make the HMD much bigger/heavier probably, so it has a different target audience.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Even if it's Quest 3 size, 3840x3840, individual eye IPD adjustment, eye tracking, DP, USB or wireless connection, inside out tracking.
Who in the right mind would want that miniscule gutted contraption instead?

And if rumors are accurate, it's not really a long wait.

According to the roadmap, the Pico 5 will be released on April 21 2024, with an early preview coming a couple of months earlier in February 2024.

It's expected to cost 3,499 Chinese Yuan, which puts it roughly in line with the Quest 3 when converted to dollars at around $499.

The roadmap says that two additional headsets will be revealed on April 21, too, but they won't be available to purchase until later in the year.

The Pico 5 Pro is said to cost 4299 Yuan (~$599) and will be available in October 2024. The Pico 5 Pro Max has some seriously impressive specifications and will cost 7,999 Yuan (~$1,100) and go on sale in December 2024.

 

[RCHeliguy]

I haven't seen anything coming that grabs my attention in a meaningful way.

So are you saying that because I like the Beyond, the first order order of business is to find some way to bury it? Do I have a permanent residence in your head?

 

[gamma123152]

Even if it's Quest 3 size, 3840x3840, individual eye IPD adjustment, eye tracking, DP, USB or wireless connection, inside out tracking.
Who in the right mind would want that miniscule gutted contraption instead?

True. I agree with that IF the lenses and panels are good. We now know nothing about the Pico 5's: distortion, stereo overlap, FoV, warping, CA, color shifts, black levels, contrast/colors, glare, mura, lens sweetspot, clarity of the poly material; you name it.

It's all unproven and all these subjects are important for an good VR experience.

I currently don't see the benefit of the BSB over the Pimax Crystal. The Crystal is imo a way better HMD for sim racers(much much higher non upscaled resolution(1920 vs 2880), 3 times more nits, no glare, eye tracking, ipd adjustment, 2 types of tracking, no fixed ipd); now that all the launch issues have been solved and the price difference is not that big.

But the BSB crowd seems to want form factor over almost everything. So it's a different niche within a niche. I don't see any company to compete with that specific niche anytime soon.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I haven't seen anything coming that grabs my attention in a meaningful way.

So are you saying that because I like the Beyond, the first order order of business is to find some way to bury it? Do I have a permanent residence in your head?

Just sober unbiased side observer analysis of the market situation.
I have no stocks vested into BSB, Pimax, or Pico to favor one over another.
As for the permanent residence in someone's head, you better check which room Pimax takes in yours.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Sober, unbiased LMAO!

 

[gamma123152]

Just sober unbiased side observer analysis of the market situation.
I have no stocks vested into BSB, Pimax, or Pico to favor one over another.
As for the permanent residence in someone's head, you should check what room Pimax takes in yours.

We all know that you have zero stocks in VR companies but we also know that you have all your life savings reserved for the Epic Games IPO

 

[RCHeliguy]

No human being is unbiased. Anyone who thinks they are unbiased is not very self aware.

You can try to have an emotionally detached analysis of a subject, but in the end you see the world through your interpretation of the world that is heavily clouded by personal experiences.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

No human being is unbiased. Anyone who thinks they are unbiased is not very self aware.

I didn't say that I am unbiased person, but as a neutral party I can see current VR market landscape through the different prism than somebody heavily financially and emotionally invested into a particular brand.

 

[RCHeliguy]

A neutral party? Based on the 5 years of interactions we've had, my impression is that you like to be combative for the fun of it. You argue a point just to see if you can provoke someone. I've yet to see calm rational analysis from you.

But feel free to prove me wrong.

I have seen a tiger change his stripes under a new alias and it's appreciated.

 

[gamma123152]

A neutral party? Based on the 5 years of interactions we've had, my impression is that you like to be combative for the fun of it. You argue a point just to see if you can provoke someone. I've yet to see calm rational analysis from you.

That's an excellent description of the guy. He's the biggest troll of RaceDepartment. He's just here to provoke, poke and irritate people for his own pleasure. Sometimes he's informative just so that he can remain here to be unnoticed/under the radar of the admin's; but he's a wolf in sheeps cloths. I've been following him here for years, but he's just against VR users in general. Nobody knows why, but he likes to provoke every discussion around it, that's the single reason that he even started this thread so he probably thinks that we are all his bait.

 

[RCHeliguy]

nm. Later replies seemed to throw those numbers as completely unreliable.

 

[wajdi]

Please guys let’s keep it clean and without personal insults.