
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe Steps Down - serg_chernata
https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/13/oculus-ceo-brendan-iribe-steps-down/
======
wolfgke
The whole DRM move for their headsets brought Oculus a bad reputation among
many VR enthusiasts:

> [https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/05/23/oculus-rift-
> upda...](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/05/23/oculus-rift-update-
> blocks-htc-vive-revive/)

> [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/oculus-workaround-
> to-p...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/oculus-workaround-to-play-on-
> htc-vive-rendered-inoperable-by-app-update/)

Though they removed it after lots of users protested:

> [https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/06/24/oculus-rift-
> vive...](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/06/24/oculus-rift-vive-no-
> headset-check/)

> [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/oculus-reverses-
> course...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/oculus-reverses-course-
> dumps-its-vr-headset-checking-drm/)

But the bad image that they got for this still persists among many.

\---

Another thing that Oculus did (probably because of pressure from Facebook,
their parent company) is inserting dubious terms into their Terms of Service:

> [http://gizmodo.com/there-are-some-super-shady-things-in-
> ocul...](http://gizmodo.com/there-are-some-super-shady-things-in-oculus-
> rifts-terms-1768678169)

~~~
blhack
This should be a lesson: acts like this are _poisonous_. Nobody I know would
even _consider_ buying an oculus at this point because it seems like the
ENTIRE VR community has turned against them.

It means that when I go online to do research on what to buy, I'm not going to
find anybody praising the oculus.

~~~
qwtel
How poisonous is it really though? Not a rhetorical question.

The people who pay attention to this type of thing are VR enthusiasts, who are
a minority compared to the larger pool Facebook is aiming for.

An interesting example would be Call of Duty: Infinity Warfare. Its trailer is
one of the most downvoted videos on YouTube. As far as I understand, hardcore
fans hated it and somehow managed to get downvoting the trailer to be some
kind of viral thing (Otherwise, how did it get to those numbers? Nothing about
the trailer per-se was that bad. There's even Jon Snow in it).

I thought that this would have no effect on the game's success, since I don't
think average consumers are particularly interested in the opinions of
hardcore gaming snobs. However, the game has since been released and--as far
as I know--bombed. Of course, that could also be due to the game being not
that good.

There's no doubt that "influencers" are important in driving sales, but I'm
skeptical whether they can play a similar role in preventing sales--especially
if average consumers see value in the underlying product.

~~~
wolfgke
> The people who pay attention to this type of thing are VR enthusiasts, who
> are a minority compared to the larger pool Facebook is aiming for.

> [...]

> There's no doubt that "influencers" are important in driving sales, but I'm
> skeptical whether they can play a similar role in preventing sales--
> especially if average consumers see value in the underlying product.

The problem is: The necessary system requirements for an Oculus Rift (CPU, GPU
(in particular), USB ports) are rather high. The average potential consumer
you mention might see value in the Oculus Rift - but will probably not be
enthusiastic enough to be willing to additionally buy a high-end PC etc. So
the large pool that you believe Facebook is aiming for will contain many more
hardcore enthusiasts and much less "average consumers" than you think.

------
theschwa
I'm rather surprised that amongst the speculation in the comments, no one is
really considering that maybe Iribe's comments are true. Maybe he really did
miss being more involved in the product and engineering part of the job.

The company has grown up very quickly, and I have to imagine at this point as
CEO, he was spending most of his time in high level business talks and not
doing what he loves and what he's best at.

~~~
flashman
Iribe is thought to be worth $2bn. He doesn't need CEO money, he needs
something that he's passionate about.

~~~
adventured
How do you get to $2 billion? All of Oculus was purchased for $2 billion.
Facebook's stock has roughly doubled since the acquisition. Iribe didn't own
50% of the company. Neither Bloomberg nor Forbes list him as a billionaire.
Given their access & skill at measuring such well-known wealth, it's
overwhelmingly likely they'd have those numbers pegged.

~~~
flashman
You're right, I mistook the Oculus number for his wealth. Nevertheless I think
he's still probably in the realms of what they call "fuck-off money".

------
marricks
They're probably sitting on this until touch successfully shipped. This
typically happens when something goes wrong though and so far Oculus seems to
have sold pretty well from what we can glean. No one expected it to sell
millions of units, yet. Perhaps there is a daily usage rate of devices they
find troubling.

Then again, it could just be Facebook taking more control. Iribe is staying at
the company and from the article,

> he's vacating the CEO seat and moving within the company to lead its PC VR
> group

So perhaps the statements are sincere and he's just staying focused on the PC
division, which is all Oculus was initially.

~~~
Impossible
Superdata research projects Oculus Rift sales for 2016 to be 360K
([https://www.superdataresearch.com/vr-market-update-
october-2...](https://www.superdataresearch.com/vr-market-update-
october-2016/)) ([http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-29-vr-the-
bigg...](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-11-29-vr-the-biggest-
loser-this-holiday) for the updated numbers which downgrade PSVR to 750k).
Early CV1 goals stated by Iribe put the headset at 1 million
([http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/06/oculus-expects-to-
sell...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/06/oculus-expects-to-sell-north-
of-a-million-units-for-first-consumer-rift/)). Although this was a realistic
goal the reality is way lower than the target, and that might be part of why
Iribe has stepped down.

From informal conversations I've had in the past with both people from Valve
and PSVR it seems like PSVR and Vive numbers are closer to projections. I
think Vive stole a lot of potential high end buyers from Oculus, not launching
with Touch was a mistake for them. I also believe this market is a lot more
price sensitive than Oculus thought it would be, The Rift has currently sold
200K units more than the DK2 with a much bigger marketing push, more high
quality content and a better product, but 2x (or 3x if you include Touch)
price point. I wonder if they should have made a "Super DK2". Lower quality
headset hardware but Rift quality tracking and touch support at a lower price.

Anecdotally, many people believe VR is a niche market that is comparable to 3D
TVs and doesn't add much, but I've also met people that would buy a highend VR
headset (quality matters also) if the price was right and the setup was easy.
A "cheap" ($250-$400) easy to use all-in-one unit with inside out tracking,
tracked controllers and a good library of games, software and content could be
the tipping point for the VR market.

~~~
roksprok
I've had multiple rift owners tell me to get a vive because 'it does room
scale'. Their website still doesn't mention anything about the touch enabling
better tracking and room scale experiences! How could they screw up marketing
this bad?

To be honest I'm still not even sure if I'm wrong about it supporting room
scale, I've seen articles mention it but their website gives me doubts.

~~~
nilkn
I have both a Vive and a Rift+Touch and to be honest the Vive handles tracking
much better than Touch. I think Oculus is correct to classify room-scale as
experimental with Touch.

I think that Oculus is avoiding marketing room-scale because Touch
legitimately does not do it very well compared to the Vive:

* It almost certainly requires a third camera, which adds another $79 to the cost.

* Even with the third camera, the controllers lose tracking fairly easily if they're oriented away from the cameras (e.g., orient them towards your torso, but with nothing blocking the line of sight to the cameras).

* Even with the third camera, you end up with a smaller tracking volume than with the Vive.

* Lots of Touch owners are reporting serious tracking issues by just setting up two sensors in opposing corners. Others say it works fairly well. Your results will most likely be random.

* The Rift cable is barely long enough to work well if you're actually walking around your space rather than just standing still.

* In the same vein, Oculus does not sell or endorse any extension cables for the Rift HMD. I've seen folks try out a lot of them with mixed success.

* The sensors have to be plugged straight into your PC, which with three cameras uses up a lot of USB ports.

* Even with the third camera, you'll only get one extension cable from Oculus, so the two existing sensors will still be pretty tethered to your PC.

* Even with the extension cable, it's not easy setting up the cameras in optimal locations throughout the room.

* Oculus does not supply any mounting brackets or sell any brackets on their website for mounting against the wall.

* The Rift and Touch do not come with any linking box, nor does Oculus sell one separately.

\---

With all that said, Touch is a fantastic product and deserves the glowing
reviews it's getting. It's just not designed for room-scale. It's workable,
but not ideal.

~~~
christoph
Totally agree. I had a Rift set up in the office (seated) with Touch (very
impressed) and brought it home at the weekend to try roomscale (with a third
camera) and was utterly frustrated by the glitchy tracking. With the Vive (in
the same room) I've never experienced a single glitch in nearly 60hrs of play.
I hated running all the cables back to the PC as well. It's worth mentioning
as well that the sensor USB ports all have to be USB3 as well. That means it
takes up 4xUSB3 ports for roomscale!

~~~
somedangedname
Also many motherboard USB controllers are incompatible with both Rift and the
Vive:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3zrtgs/psa_your_usb...](https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3zrtgs/psa_your_usb_30_ports_may_not_be_compatible_with/)

AFAIK neither company mentions this in their supported PC specs, though the
Rift compatability tool will warn you if you have incompatable USB ports.

I would really have liked to have known this going into my Vive purchase -
I've owned it for 2 weeks and have been able to use the device twice in that
time.

~~~
brazzledazzle
Would a PCIe USB card work? I'd be pretty upset if I had to buy a new
motherboard.

~~~
somedangedname
Yep, that's the plan. The recommended family of cards isn't sold in Australia
so I'll have to import one.

The other issue is my older motherboard/CPU combo which may or may not be able
to support the extra PCIE use.

Overall, fun times.

------
MorePowerToYou
I wanted to like VR. I made a few apps, shipped a game, tried the Rift, Vive,
and PSVR. My initial enthusiasm spread to friends and family. Peers purchased
GearVRs and ordered cardboard. Fast forward a few years and every single one
of those headsets is gathering dust. Once enthusiastic friends won't take my
VR hardware for free.

I guess my primary gripe is that it's just not comfortable relative to any
other form of entertainment. It's worse than reading on a phone or tablet.
It's worse than playing games on a phone, console, or PC. It's worse than
watching movies in the theatre. Sure, those are high bars and VR is still
kinda young. But all the hype is quickly being exposed as bullshit. VR isn't
catching on. Catching on looks like the iPhone in 2008-2009 or the web in the
late nineties.

~~~
Impossible
I think this is expected, and I don't believe many people in the space thought
the current round of VR would be a computing paradigm change that causes a
huge growth like iPhone or the web.

The analogy I like to use is current VR is like an early PDA (Palm Pilot, PPC
or Newton), which means we're 5-10 years out from a mature device that could
be called a VR iPhone. Its possible that somewhere along the way everyone
gives up on VR and AR, which can enable many of the same experiences anyway,
but its also possible that VR is still missing a lot of what makes a
compelling mass market consumer device and there will be an iPhone style
product that everyone emulates in the future.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I agree with this. A mature VR device absolutely needs the following
properties:

\- All in one, mobile \- Positional tracking \- Full hand tracking (ie Leap
Motion) \- A robust, fleshed out UI paradigm

Apple never would've release the Rift because they would've sorted out the UI
first. Shit there's probably a team at Apple doing exactly that right now.

------
dharmon
Just a wild guess, but it's possible that since Zuckerberg has a keen interest
in VR that he's basically taking all of the fun vision / strategy parts of
being the Oculus CEO and leaving Iribe with the slog.

~~~
mikeryan
I think you may be correct but got there the wrong way. From the lateral
movement I think Iribe wanted to stay product focused instead of business
focused and moved laterally within Facebook to do that. Whether it was from
Zuckerberg or just the normal evolution curve of a startup CEO from
productization to monetization can be debated - but the move to stay within
Facebook seems to indicate it wasn't Zuckerberg's fingers (or handcuffs).

------
skizm
Random brain dump of questions since I haven't had a chance to actually try a
VR headset yet:

\- Outside of car games, space sims, or any other game where the main
character is mostly sitting down, does VR work well?

\- Apart from games what other applications are there at the moment?

-Anyone try replacing their monitor with a VR headset? How'd that go?

\- Anyone try combining a VR headset plus a kinect? Seems like a natural
combination.

~~~
theschwa
I'm a bit of a VR enthusiast, and I'm not a gamer, so I think I can answer
some of these. >\- Outside of car games, space sims, or any other game where
the main character is mostly sitting down, does VR work well?

Very well. The thing I hate most, as a non-gamer, is having to learn all of
the confusing controls. I really like that VR games take away most of the
complication and allow you to do what feels natural. Probably for the same
reasons a lot of people like the Wii. I've been having a lot of fun in games
like Vanishing Realms:a first person dungeon crawling RPG
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/322770/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/322770/)
, The Unspoken: where you have magic battles in a New York like setting
[http://www.insomniacgames.com/games/the-
unspoken/](http://www.insomniacgames.com/games/the-unspoken/) , and a bunch of
the puzzle type games.

>\- Apart from games what other applications are there at the moment?

Not enough in my opinion, but I've spent the last week using Oculus Medium to
make 3D models, and using Quill to make VR paintings. This is actually the
area I'm most interested in, and I know that some companies are working behind
closed doors at the moment to make more creative tools as well as business and
social type tools.

-Anyone try replacing their monitor with a VR headset? How'd that go?

I do this frequently for consuming movies, but the resolution isn't at a point
where I'd recommend it for long periods of time if you're doing text editing.
I still occasionally browse and listen to music with the screen set to a
gigantic size, but it hasn't replaced my monitors.

\- Anyone try combining a VR headset plus a kinect? Seems like a natural
combination.

Several companies and individuals are. This guy has been involved in the VR
scene for many years and has some interesting experiments using several
kinects to do mixed reality work [http://doc-ok.org/?p=965](http://doc-
ok.org/?p=965)

~~~
Animats
_Anyone try combining a VR headset plus a Kinect? Seems like a natural
combination._

Microsoft's HoloLens has a Kinect in it. They use it for gesture recognition
and mapping the room. The amount of stuff Microsoft crammed into that headgear
is insane. Four cameras, a Kinect, a GPU, a specialized GPU for the AR, an
IMU, a Windows 10 PC, a projection display, speakers, and a battery. It works
pretty well, too, although the projection area is too small.

------
lowglow
Just from an outsider's perspective: The entire Oculus acquisition has been
one fumble after another, I dare call it a debacle. They traded their
community trust online to participate and get the resources of a bigger
company (probably due to competitive pressure). The bigger company was
facebook, which doesn't evoke a large amount of community trust, so there was
considerable splintering in the community rallying behind what was seen as the
future champ of VR.

This was the same early adopter community that wanted to spend the money, buy
the rigs, develop for the platform, and further VR in general.

Now when I see old school innovators join up, it just feels like they've sold
out by association.

I don't know what's going to save its image? Maybe a killer app?

~~~
badlucklottery
>I don't know what's going to save its image? Maybe a killer app?

For me they'd save a lot of face if they just opened up their APIs/store to
other headsets. They tried to pin down the PC VR HMD market and failed due to
Valve/HTC. But they're still trying to become the Steam of VR despite Steam
doing the same and having the distinct advantage of already being the Steam of
everything else. But there's definitely room for other storefronts out there
like GOG and EA's Origin so I don't begrudge them wanting to take that 30% for
themselves but let me use whatever HMD I want.

~~~
dahdum
My major gripe with them too, they aren't competing on technology but rather
marketing and exclusivity arrangements. So glad they aren't the only ones
driving the space forward, otherwise it's IE6 all over again.

------
camus2
VR is a bubble. It is a gimmick and will never be popular and profitable (in
the video game industry, there are other applications where VR is useful, like
surgery,architecture...) . I'm never sick in cars, yet VR makes me sick, it
gives me headache and makes me want to puke. If it does that to me, I can't
imagine how painful VR is for others.

------
stevebmark
Distancing yourself from Palmer Luckey is probably a good move. Distancing
yourself from Oculus is probably a good move too.

~~~
andruby
What happened to Palmer Luckey? I haven't been keeping up with the Oculus news
for a while.

~~~
nacs
A story is linked within the article that explains what happened:

[https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/26/why-is-the-oculus-
founde...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/26/why-is-the-oculus-founder-
trying-to-bring-hateful-memes-offline/)

~~~
andruby
Ok, he made a misstep. Is he still active at Oculus? What's his role nowadays?

~~~
cookiecaper
A misstep? That article is an embarrassing hit piece like the many others that
have been written about anyone who is willing to even slightly countenance the
concept that anything tangentially Trump-related can be legitimate, just like
the hits on Thiel. The Silicon Valley shame machine is an utter and complete
disgrace.

------
debt
Yup oculus is a failure. Smart man not to have his name tainted by a soon to
implode venture; good move Iribe.

------
return0
Now is the best time to leave VR, before the entire fleet sinks.

~~~
eugeniub
This comment doesn't make any sense. Have you tried VR?

~~~
wentoodeep
YES, too much hype surroinding VR. Augmented Reality is the future, watch
IronMan.

------
amaks
It looks like they (Zuckerberg?) realized that high end device model by Oculus
is not competitive compared with the mobile VR solutions like Daydream.

