I love the idea of a prototype-ish headset with work in progress stuff the industry is working on. Inside out tracking, eye tracking, finger tracking, etc. They should make it super modular and very interoperable in the software so that third parties can integrate their own stuff, like haptics, individually tracked modules, extra cameras, depth cameras, FIR cameras.
Reminds me of the earlier Oculus headsets when it was more engineer friendly.
Because as an industry we are still in the exploration phase, let's keep experimenting with everything and see what works and what doesn't.
there was a video on here a few days ago of Gabe talking about Valves VR strategy.
he kept reiterating how important it was for them to keep their ecosystem open because it helps their chances to succeed either on the software or hardware side of things.
now there may have been some lip service, but he did seem to genuinely believe that all VR developers working independently has a greater chance chance to hurt actors in the industry more than help.
Yes, and I think the tracking pucks are a prime example of this. We don't exactly know what people are going to do with them, they put it out there for people to figure it out. Track a baseball bat, track your pet, track a camera, track an RC vehicle...
Valve is in a uniquely comfortable situation: they don't have to win VR, they only need to avoid losing. They can be open to cooperation because cooperating with them implies accepting that a huge chunk of monetization is already spoken for.
yes, Valve does have an advantage- which might suggest other companies could not copy their playbook.
but, i think the point we can generalize is that in an underdeveloped space that requires a lot of innovation, any company creating a walled garden is putting themselves at an explicit disadvantage by not contributing to the landscape at large.
Reminds me of the earlier Oculus headsets when it was more engineer friendly.
Because as an industry we are still in the exploration phase, let's keep experimenting with everything and see what works and what doesn't.