Facebook's VR Headset Not Selling, Literally Giving It Away

Meh. If they've still got some free ones to give out I'll take it.

But in all seriousness, the Quest 2 is pretty good hardware, especially for the price. The problem is that Meta tried to build an ecosystem around monetization and then bring people in, rather than building something that appeals to most people and still allows them to profit. Kinda the opposite of the Facebook model really, which became a defacto online community and kinda kept the monetization a little quieter or behind the scenes for a long time

$1500 also buys a lot of porn (or so I’ve heard) especially as free is a pretty low price.

I've spent over $1500 on VR (HTC Vive, and Valve Index, plus some accessories for both). I've never been able to talk myself into even a Quest 2 for $200 back when they went on sale shortly before they raised the price due to "supply chain issues." I enjoy VR experiences and I'm personally okay with paying enthusiast prices for hardware that improves the experience, but I want nothing to do with Meta/Facebook's ecosystem, at any price.

Uh, the Pro wasn't aimed for that, you twit.

Also their cheaper option is great for 1/3 or less of the price

I’d use VR for work if I could afford it. But not from the take all you personal dada and sell it company.

For real. Even if I did have enough money to go buy something that's that much I'd rather get literally anything else

Shut up and hate the zuck with the crowd. How dare you question the groupthink hate train.

Idk, I want those pro controllers

That's the thing. Anyone who cares about cutting edge (read: flawed, unproven) tech is unlikely to be messing about on FB. More likely they do not associate any positive feelings with anything that you might chose to attach to FB.

No shit. The platform is basically just a string of rug pulls over your lifetime.

Apple Bees

iBees

Agreed. It sucks the Steam Index and HTC offerings are so expensive still, but they are top notch and they'll do anything and everything you need them to.

But why is Michelin giving stars to restaurants. Shouldn't they stick to tires?

In my opinion, I think their goal was to control the platform. If you think about it, the amount of information that they can gather from users is wholly controlled by Google and Apple through their OS'.

Apple and Google have continuously decreased the amount of information Meta can gather through their apps, and I think with VR they made a huge bet that would be the next platform so they jumped on the ship to make sure that this time they would be controlling the platform and not another company.

I don't think they want to make money through software, I think they want to make money through data collection. The amount of data they can gather from you just through the setup, is incredible. They can literally know your height and have cameras on at all times.

I think VR can be successful, but I don't think Meta will do it. I don't think they're be the ones getting the ball rolling at least. If anything their marketing and the bad name they gave to VR set things back. I think they're too early and have a pretty bad brand image for people to trust them. I don't think the hardware or the software support is there for things to fully take off either

Also, wouldn't their goal be to sell VR headsets? How would people buy their software without a headset? I think their goal was to sell headsets. Pretty sure they sold their budget headsets at a loss just to introduce people to the platform.

VR today is what 3D TV was 10 years ago: the fad has peaked and now the sales are starting to decline.

It will still have it's niche, but any mainstream audience will be getting over it pretty soon.

Mine too. My OG Rift is still sitting in a box in my basement. I don't even feel right selling it on, since I'd just be saddling the next user with the same bullshit.

It's fine anyway, since for the purposes I use it for my Reverb is much better.

I kickstarted Oculus and I don't even know where my CV1 is now. It was always a pain to use and made me motion sick, the immersive aspect could be cool but it was actually more of a pain being that closed off from your surroundings. The sensory immersion always seemed like a crutch for games that had no emotional or story component, or even good game mechanics, which is actually more important for immersion.

It also didn't provide a relaxing gaming experience for me. I like to sit back with a snack and a cup of tea and zone out on a game for a bit. With VR I either had to prepare beforehand, or have this weird thing where I had to remember where in the game world I had to reach to find my real world snack or drink. It's also just an ordeal to take the thing on and off. A regular game just one button, go let my dog out, back in. VR it's a chore just to get situated. None of them are comfortable for long term wear either, they all leave marks on your face, your eyes get hot in this weird way, it's gross and distracting.

The main problem with the Pro is that it completely fails at the thing it was primarily marketed for: AR passthrough.

The cameras are so bad that when you use video passthrough, everything is blurry. It's completely unusable. No one will ever use it for productivity tasks in its current form. Meta should have just focused on making a high end gaming version because they failed at making it usable for anything business related.

I didn't even realize Apple had a VR headset

It is referring to that Roblox developer conference. But yeah, somewhat click baity as people might be hoping to get one for cheap.

Your username makes this comment way funnier to me. 🤣

I think Twitter has just taken up all of the oxygen lately.

It's too bad because the hardware and software so far have been on point. The moment Facebook bought Oculus, I knew it was over, at least for me.

I want one! Just not from Zuck

And now, as Mixed Reality News reports, Meta is literally resorting to giving them away for free: Attendees of this year's developer conference for the global gaming platform Roblox each got a free Meta Quest Pro

I don't really regret it, because it was a truly awesome experience while it was fresh, and I probably sunk hundreds of hours into it over the pandemic. But yeah, it does get old surprisingly quickly, and there are literally no new games for it that aren't arcade-style trash from the past few years.

Sadly, I think HL:A was the peak of VR gaming, and it's all been downhill from there.

Maybe when standalones get powerful enough that they can run "real" games, it'll kickoff again, but I don't think I've put on my headset in months at this point, and there's nothing on the horizon that's likely to make me grab it again any time soon

I definitely would not. I have opted out of Facebook’s insidious and predatory algorithm, platform for spreading misinformation, and anti-consumer micro violations in privacy which culminate into a prodigious amoral corporation that abuses human rights. And they want me to put a headset on and join their ecosystem? Fuck that.

If it’s free; you are the product.

Should've gone to the Roblox developer conference lol