If this separates Oculus into it's own company I'd probably buy one of the new headsets. The things Facebook is doing here definitely detracts from the product. I don't have to give Logitech my drivers license to plug in a mouse.
> I don't have to give Logitech my drivers license to plug in a mouse
Reminds me of how Nvidia's Geforce Experience application requires you to create an account with them just for the convenience of auto-updating your graphics card driver. This "experience" sure doesn't feel right to me, so I update those drivers manually.
Companies are really trying everything they can think of to get more of your information, even if it's just an email address.
This is particularly funny when you consider that Windows Update will automatically update your graphics drivers once they go through WHQL. Manually installing drivers from Nvidia's website is actually a user experience downgrade, since Windows Update won't touch graphics drivers you pull in yourself.
For the record: I ended up biting the bullet with Geforce Experience regardless, because of the other features they had on offer that were tied to the app. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I ultimately dropped Nvidia cards entirely for AMD. Switching to AMD in turn made dropping Windows easier! (arch user btw)
It's extra hilarious since Geforce Experience is an electron app you can just path out the login window yourself and be on your way :)
https://github.com/Moyster/BaiGfe
What? That's awesome. I don't really care that much about having an account but the Geforce Experience app requires me to re-login every few months and I always have trouble remembering the password. It's just a hassle all the time.
Windows update failed to get the newest Nvidia drivers that were pushed out ahead of Cyberpunk 2077. I had to manually download them to get the game to stop crashing.
I really despise that you need to login for it, especially as it used to be optional. I wanted to try remote play on a psvita[1] but did not want to so someone has made a thing to let you use geforce experience without a login[2] and i found it worked reasonably well.
Well, they are very different devices. The Quest is currently a one of a kind device when it comes to ease of use and setup.
(Which makes it doubly annoying to me the Facebbok tie in. I adored the Quest one but I sent it back for a refund due to Facebook's ridiculous decision not to allow multiple user accounts. A device which I'm not using 95% of my time cannot easily be shared with other family members?! Utter madness. /rant)
Tell that to Magic Leap. Private investors don't have 5-10 year horizons for plowing money into R&D to eventually see if it gets somewhere. This is a multi-billion dollar yearly capital commitment
Oculus couldn't survive by itself. It's possible that Microsoft, Samsung, Apple or someone else would purchase them, but I believe that with Oculus the best possible outcome is for them to role back anti-consumer (required FB login and especially all the policies that come with that) and anti-developer (actually blocking apps they believe compete with them) practices
Do we know how expensive it is to maintain and how much it earns? It probably spends more than the PSVR division at Sony or the Vive division at HTC, but the Quest is quite popular and, if reviews are anything to go by, very close to making VR "mainstream". I'm not convinced it couldn't survive off investor money for a while until it becomes profitable. Silicon Valley is no stranger to unprofitable companies living off investments for years and years after all.
Oculus is not just a display, but a computer with a GUI and an app store, so it's more like having to log in to Apple to use an iPad. Not sure you really have to log in if you don't use the Oculus app store.
The difference is that Apple, and Microsoft for that matter, don't give a shit about knowing who I am. They may want data here and there (moreso microsoft), but if you want to give them a fake email address and a fake name, you can march ahead with your device just fine.
Facebook wants to stick it's eyeball tendrils up my butt before they deign to allow me to use hardware I purchased from them.
This. The only "big tech" company that's ever asked for official identification (out of the blue, wouldn't let me login otherwise) has been Facebook. Going back to the original comment:
> I don't have to give Logitech my drivers license to plug in a mouse.
This sounds like hyperbole but it's a very real comparison.
How else are they going to make money? And I'm not sure that there's much valuable data from Oculus usage to be sold and repackaged to advertisers through facebook
