
Oculus co-founder is leaving Facebook after cancellation of ‘Rift 2’ headset - sharkweek
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/22/oculus-co-founder-is-leaving-facebook-after-cancellation-of-rift-2-headset/
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amiga-workbench
This is worrying, HTC aren't exactly doing brilliantly and I'd like to see
some more proper headsets, not these gimped smartphones glued to your face.

~~~
jakebasile
Yeah, it looks like aside from HTC, VR is a race to the bottom. I guess
there's just more money in crappy low-rent headsets vs high quality expensive
ones.

~~~
zeusk
Because for the general populace adoption of VR hinges on affordability.

~~~
criddell
I haven't tried Magic Leap yet, but Oculus, Vive and Playstation VR all
deliver a weak experience. The headsets are uncomfortable, they make a lot of
people sick, and they are anti-social (ie you look goofy using it and they are
isolating). The headset could be $50 with an included game and I still
wouldn't buy it.

I don't think VR will really take off until it gets to the sunglasses form-
factor phase.

~~~
koiz
When I read comments like this I just don't believe it, I haven't seen anyone
get sick since the CV1/Vive came out.

The DK2 totally had those issues and the PSVR is a sub standard experience but
hey each to his own I guess.

~~~
berberous
I had a Vive. In a game running well, where the only movement was my own (i.e.
walking around my room), I did not get motion sick.

However, when anything glitched (frame drops, tracking errors, etc.), I'd get
sick. Even worse, any game with artificial motion (such as walking with the
trackpad), would make me SUPER sick very fast. Teleporting was generally OK,
but still not great.

I say this as someone that thinks VR will be a huge success, but it's
definitely still early.

Unlike OP, I think gen 2 alone is going to make huge strides in making VR
closer to mainstream.

~~~
mrguyorama
I think some people are just so susceptible to motion sickness that they will
never be able to enjoy it. Contrary to your experience, minutes after setting
up my Vive for the first time I was comfortable floating around with true 6
DOF for my simulated character, with near zero quease.

I don't think there is any sort of "advances" that can prevent some people
from being uncomfortable with "virtual" motion. It is unnatural and that's not
going to change.

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RoyTyrell
I would guess, based on the article, that PC headset sales aren't anywhere
near what the division needs to stay alive. The cheaper mobile headsets are
more affordable and easier to use, even if the technology isn't as advanced as
what the PC headset would offer.

If Carmack leaves, then you know Occulus is fucked.

~~~
koiz
The funny thing is Carmack only works on the mobile headsets and has been for
awhile. He knows that's the future.

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ss248
Not really actually. Originally he started doing all that mobile stuff mostly
because of Zenimax's lawsuit.

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erikpukinskis
Do you have a source on that? It seems like a much better fit for his talents
than the PC stuff. He's doing low level super critical performance
optimization, and technical product direction.

Performance doesn't matter nearly as much on the PC side, because there's so
much more headroom in the hardware, and the technical product direction can
just flow out of what game companies need.

The mobile side is a true technical challenge where a person like Carmack can
literally make the difference between go and no-go.

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cagenut
Between this, the 2080's performance being 'eh', the vive pro having a very
mixed reaction (mostly price), and the pimax sets running face-first into gpu
limitiations, PC VR is in a bit of a slump. The best thing to buy today is
almost exactly what it was a year and a half ago.

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theandrewbailey
I don't think hardware is to blame. There are no killer apps that make people
justify strapping a box to their face.

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AnIdiotOnTheNet
The facebox isn't really the problem, it's the price and the equipment. You
need a highish-end PC in addition to the VR rig itself, towers for sensors/ir
lights, etc. I think the Quest will probably be a game changer here, being a
stand alone self-contained unit at a reasonable price point.

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stonith
I guess you could include it in 'price and equipment' but for me I simply
don't have space in my apartment to do any of the interesting things with VR
(eg I really enjoyed SuperHot VR), and it doesn't seem much of an improvement
if I'm just sitting in my chair with it. Floor space is extremely expensive in
almost every big Western city at the moment.

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bitL
I guess the lesson to learn here is "never sell your company if you want to
have any controlling influence over it". So we have WhatsApp, Instagram,
Oculus quickly in a row. Hundreds of killed-off companies acquired by FAANG,
visions lost, money made.

~~~
Apocryphon
I know it's a useful acronym, but not quite accurate. Netflix doesn't do many
[0] acquisitions [1] and isn't on the same scale as the other companies other
than as a desirable tech company to work at.

[0] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/07/netflix-inc-
just-m...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/07/netflix-inc-just-made-
its-first-ever-acquisition.aspx)

[1] [https://www.thestreet.com/investing/netflix-acquisition-
abq-...](https://www.thestreet.com/investing/netflix-acquisition-abq-
studios-14746375)

A list like Facebook, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo! is
probably more accurate, even if the last has itself been acquired.

Term pedantry aside, your point is sound. Tech's incredible journey marches
on.

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httpz
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are all West Coast tech
companies that are in the top 10 largest public companies in the world by
market cap. Media should really replace Netflix with Microsoft and come up
with a new acronym.

~~~
Skunkleton
How about MAAAF.

~~~
microtherion
Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Intel, and Amazon = MAFIA ?

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dgritsko
Cancellation of the "Rift 2" seems like a pretty big deal, is this confirmed
anywhere else?

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cheeko1234
Clarification from the author on twitter[0]: this edition of Rift 2 may have
been cancelled but that does not mean Facebook is no longer making PC VR
headsets.

[0][https://twitter.com/lucasmtny/status/1054436110661754880?s=1...](https://twitter.com/lucasmtny/status/1054436110661754880?s=19)

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cheeko1234
Facebook denies techcrunch report regarding Rift 2:

[https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/oculus-co-founder-
bren...](https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/oculus-co-founder-brendan-
iribe-is-leaving-facebook-1202988298/)

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WillPostForFood
_“Yes, we are planning a future version of Rift.”_

That's not really a denial that Rift 2 was cancelled.

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acconrad
It sounds like this trend is exactly what Facebook wants. They buy some
software (and its people) and mold it to their specifications whether or not
it costs that team its most senior management/visionaries.

The more interesting thing will be to see what happens when all of these ex-
CEOs have left and how Facebook has managed to maintain all of these
acquisitions without the key leaders of each division.

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lalos
It's more of Thiel influence of 'build a cult' on Zuckerberg and also his
inability to listen from other respectable figures for their opinions. I got
that vibe from the article of the Whatsapp founders. Seems that Zuckerberg has
his mind set on an idea and will shut down any other opinion. Troubling for
investors, it's never good to have a monoculture or one-sided opinions and it
doesn't look good to have smart people (and proven successful) jump ship at
this rate.

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billylindeman
who says its not good? worked for apple for many years.

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wetpaws
Cults work until they don't.

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mbroncano
I can name a few that are a couple of thousand years old and still kicking

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koiz
I find this report funny because the quest is the real rift 2.

I don't buy this rumor one bit, if we saw carmack, mitchell or abrash leave
then maybe I'd be worried but what does Iribe really have to his name? When I
think back I see a botched launch of the original rift... that no doubt had a
part in his "stepping down" as CEO towards the end of 2016...

In other words nothing to see...

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evo_9
I would say the something to see here is that Facebook is betting on stand-
alone VR and not PC based VR going forward.

I think this is a good bet as the main reason most of my friends have not
gotten into VR is the necessity for a high-end gaming PC and the associated
costs of VR in general.

The Quest, while not cheap, is priced around the new norm for gaming machine
which is much more palatable than the current VR cost/PC approach.

~~~
kabacha
I'd say is pretty bad bet as stationary beasts are often not powerful enough
for decent experience so stand-alone device is just a 100 steps back.

I wouldn't be surprised if stand-alone VR user retain is in single digits.
Some people watch movies but that's pretty much where real use case ends.

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anjc
Why are people saying "it makes more sense to make it affordable first"? When
has an advanced new tech ever proliferated from the bottom-up? New tech is
always unaffordable, and becomes affordable as it matures. Advancements
trickle down. I fear that this move towards cheap low-barrier VR will make it
unattractive for users.

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VikingCoder
...because some people think that 6DOF HMD + Touch is the first real
generation of VR, and now it's time to make THAT affordable. The other
improvements to VR, at the high end, are less interesting to them. Sure,
they're nice, but they essentially think 6DOF HMD + Touch is the Minimum
Viable Product for VR. At least for the 80% Gaming / 20% Video market, as they
said at Oculus Connect. That's what Oculus Quest is.

If Oculus Quest feels "almost as good" as an Oculus Rift in many games, I
don't know why you think that'll be "unattractive for users".

Hell, I think Beat Saber alone is worth the price of admission on an Oculus
Quest.

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wmf
I remember when 6DOF HMD + Touch + GTX 970 was the bare minimum... and then
all these new headsets stated coming out with far weaker GPUs. I wonder if
anything has changed or if they have just decided to sacrifice quality for
adoption.

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lhl
GPU requirements were dropped because the software has gotten a lot better.
Here's a presentation from OC5 that highlights some of the more recent
improvements (ASW 2.0 is particularly impressive):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbLe7b2pUq0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbLe7b2pUq0)

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IshKebab
This seems like a smart move from Facebook. They clearly stand to make more
money from standalone VR headsets with good-enough graphics and low prices
(i.e. the Quest) than from super high end wired headsets that require a $2k
PC.

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sanderjd
Sure, but if that was their strategy, they could have just developed something
good enough internally or acquired someone going after that market. It's
disappointing that they bought a company (arguably the most prominent) with
the opposite strategy, and then didn't commit to it.

This would make more sense if they were acquiring competitors to consolidate
their position, but they didn't have a position, this is how they entered the
market.

It may suggest that they have gathered enough evidence to be pretty certain
that the high-end VR market just isn't workable. But it doesn't seem to me
like they have given it enough time or energy to know this yet.

~~~
IshKebab
I don't think Oculus had the opposite strategy though. Standalone 6 DoF
tracking with on board processing simply wasn't an option for them in the
past.

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jryan49
As sad as this makes me being a person that has a powerful gaming PC and would
want the best VR experience, maybe for now it's more important to make VR more
mainstream, and profitable so it does not die out all together.

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acjohnson55
Are we back in VR winter? It feels like it hasn't caught on aside from a
segment of gamers.

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istorical
Nope, porn (and you would expect TV/movies to follow in their footsteps) will
ensure it doesn't disappear and continues to grow, although it's possible it
grows slowly.

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freehunter
Porn, sure. That's a place where being immersed in the scene is unique and
possible desirable. Movies, though... I'm not convinced. 3D movies already
suffer from having to force the viewer's attention to the appropriate part of
the scene by changing the focus so undesirable locations are blurred out. How
do you represent an action scene where the viewer could potentially be looking
180 degrees from where the action is taking place?

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Flenser
Half Life managed to do it. I imagine if you played a VR version of Half Life
the story/"cut scene" parts would work even better than with a mouse and
keyboard.

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pmoriarty
Is John Carmack still there?

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quakeguy
As of now, yes.

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rpdillon
He's been really clear for multiple years now that he signed up to put a
billion people in VR. I don't think high-end PC-powered, room-scale rigs have
any real part in that mission. Are you suggesting he would leave?

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joaomacp
As a VR skeptic, I think his expertise is being wasted in that space.

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icelancer
Perhaps, but Carmack works on things he likes and is best driven by seemingly-
impossible technical tasks. It's pretty unlikely he'd be anywhere near as
productive in any other space if he truly loves VR.

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utopcell
Not sure how important this is. Is there a doubt in anyone's mind that FB got
Oculus for John Carmack ?

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metalliqaz
I don't believe that at all.

If Facebook wants a rockstar dev, they can offer that one person a lot less
money than it would cost to buy a company.

Facebook bought Oculus because they wanted to expand into the VR space. I
imagine it had nothing to do with games, but rather the possibility of a
future application platform.

In my mind, VR is not the future, but rather AR will be. In that case,
Facebook wants to be the provider of ads and metadata that is laid over other
people's faces and brick-and-mortar storefronts while people walk around
wearing thin AR glasses.

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man2525
Feels more like Oracle than FAANG with some of these moves.

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zarriak
I think the biggest hindrance to VR is that Apple doesn't have the equivalent
to Cardboard/Daydream. I don't know how many of you have introduced people to
VR but every person I have shown VR to has enjoyed it. There is a lot of
variance in the enjoyment but 1/5 really enjoys it. I think once smartphone VR
gets bigger, especially when Apple does something it will funnel many more
people to more expensive VR headsets.

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karmakaze
Couldn't they have compromised by having an external input on one of the
models, like the 27" pre-retina iMac used to b come a monitor? I suppose
that's could still be perceived as a problem of fracturing the target
platform. But really that's unavoidable in any leading edge technology.

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fipple
Having used both types of headsets I can say that there is probably no
entertainment market for tethered headsets.

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justfor1comment
Can't believe there is a rift among Facebook upper management.

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buboard
I 'm glad people are finally quitting the VR hype. The amount of money thrown
in the hopes that people would strap a horrible vomit-inducer in their skull
is astonishing. What's worse, it has distracted people from incremental
progress in what is "classical" metaverse and kept it behind by a few years.
Example in point is Second life's pivot to VR called Sansar and its open-
source twin called HighFidelity. Both are going nowhere, and the only thing
that kept people from seeing their obvious flaws was the mountain of money
they got thrown. Highfidelity now _pays its users_ with cryptocurrency in
order to be able to stress-test their servers. The project has received 75M to
burn, and is unable to retain any users after 4-5 years of trying. Its users
are complaining about the lack of a decent desktop experience, yet they are
stubbornly refusing to listen. On the other end, opensimulator, a poor
secondlife-clone is struggling to fix its bugs with $0 funding, yet it still
keeps thousands of users interested. Someone should just knock some sense into
all this hype.

I guess the guys leaving oculus are smart enough to know that the party is
over ... for now.

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koiz
Ya know there are other people making content in VR beyond total rip offs...

No one is "quitting" VR, people sure as hell are doubting it though.

"in the hopes that people would strap a horrible vomit-inducer in their skull
is astonishing."

This shit reminds me of the pc days... "why would I want to play this game, it
doesn't even look real"

