
VR could seize its moment – if the big players would cooperate - polytely
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-05-07-vr-could-seize-its-moment-if-the-big-players-would-cooperate-opinion
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the_hoser
The big problem with this is that everyone agrees that standards are
important, but nobody can seem to agree on which standards to adopt.

The author tends to push pretty hard on Oculus for being a different platform
from SteamVR. Would they be okay if Valve were forced to give up their
technology stack and conform to Oculus' technology stack, storefronts and all?

No, I doubt it.

I argue the inverse to be true. It's far too early to worry about
standardization, when we don't even know what works yet. Forcing PC VR vendors
to conform to other vendors' standards will only stifle innovation.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. This might not be great for PC VR, but VR
itself is doing better. Between the Oculus Quest and PSVR, the VR industry is
growing just fine.

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polytely
Well the fact that it's possible to hack around the Oculus exclusivity, makes
me think that it's less of an innovation thing and more of a platform lock-in
thing. Off course Oculus doesn't have much choice I guess, because Valve is
already dominating the gaming market and can leverage this to get VR users on
their platform, but I wish the link between the hardware and the store
platform wasn't so tightly coupled.

I guess you could also argue that the only reason VR took of is because the
big players saw it as a chance to own the platform side of things. We'll see
what happens, I just hope that Facebook doesn't end up owning the whole thing,
because I trust Facebook as far as I can throw them.

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the_hoser
In the specific case of Oculus, yes, you're right. The SteamVR technology and
Oculus technology were largely developed in parallel, so it's not surprising
that they're interoperable with some software hacks.

That doesn't mean that others aren't working on different technology.

I think the only real threat to Facebook in the VR space is Sony. Valve really
isn't pushing their platform that hard, and the other players just don't
matter. I really hope they don't just give up on PC VR because their "if you
build it, they will come" approach isn't working out.

Like I said, VR itself isn't under threat. It's mainly PC VR that's suffering.

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polytely
VR seems to me like something to could easily disappear again if there isn't
something that keeps pushing it forward (tech doesn't automatically progress,
see: putting a man on the moon) and I really want it to succeed. I hope there
is enough will to push it into the mainstream so that the ecosystem that is
now developing still exist when I manage to save up for a HMD.

