Why Oculus Go?

[FritzEiv]

Oculus announced a $199 untethered, standalone HMD powered by previous-gen hardware. Why? John Carmack elaborates.

Why Oculus Go? : Read more

 

[Jagwired]

Oculus Go is my dream come true. I've been holding off on VR because I don't want to run wires all around my room. I also don't want to flip my phone in and out of a VR headset whenever I want to use it. I like that the Go gives VR developers a well defined spec too. It's almost like a game console.

 

[DrakeFS]

At $200, this is tempting. Becoming a lot easier to justify it as a 3rd monitor.

 

[Sakkura]

They are setting up an awesome future. Imagine a $199 headset with more powerful hardware, along with a bigger content library with higher quality.

That will be the Go 2 headset in a year or two.

 

[cryoburner]

At $200, this is tempting. Becoming a lot easier to justify it as a 3rd monitor.

It's not really like a monitor though. Oculus Go is a standalone device, more like a phone or handheld game machine. From what I can tell, you won't be able to hook it up to a computer, and are limited to the performance of the built in mobile hardware it ships with. Plus it only does 3DoF tracking. It basically has the same VR functionality as a mid-range smartphone in a plastic shell, and runs the same mobile software.

PC connectivity would be a feature I would want to see in a device like this though. I don't see much reason why they couldn't add the option to connect a tether for PC VR without increasing the cost much. And for that matter, if they can sell a device like this for $199, it seems like it wouldn't cost much more than $100 to include standalone mobile VR functionality in higher-end PC VR headsets. We'll likely see these standalone and tethered devices merging soon enough.

 

[bit_user]

Oculus Go is my dream come true. I've been holding off on VR because I don't want to run wires all around my room. I also don't want to flip my phone in and out of a VR headset whenever I want to use it. I like that the Go gives VR developers a well defined spec too. It's almost like a game console.

Aren't you the least bit concerned about 3-DoF?

All of the advantages you cited are also true of their "Project Santa Cruz" HMD. I recommend you get that, instead.

 

[Sakkura]

Aren't you the least bit concerned about 3-DoF?

All of the advantages you cited are also true of their "Project Santa Cruz" HMD. I recommend you get that, instead.

Launch of the Santa Cruz headset has not been confirmed yet. But yeah... 6 DOF tracking, of both headset and controllers, is a big deal.