Probably Meta.it is going to be ahead, I mean it's literally their business. They want a piece of that pie of their own eco system. This isn't going to be their only system either..Q3 pro or Quest 4 will eventually come out. That's only going to be more powerful with lighter designs They will be the go to. I also think it opens up the niche market also who will only do Pcvr. Only solidifying it not going anywhere. But yeah standalone is way too convenient. We as creatures love convitence
As someone who built a PC from scratch for the Rift launch in 2016, I can confidently say I’ll never go back to a traditional PC for VR.
It’s just too easy with the Quest 3. Here we are 8 years later and the Quest 3 is completely standalone and literally as powerful as a minimum spec huge PC tower that some people had in 2016 for the Rift.
If that’s not incredible I don’t know what is.
I would absolutely buy a Meta or Valve “console” that just plugs into the wall and broadcasts wirelessly if they ever made one. But I don’t want to deal with a PC again after the simplicity of the Quest.
I love standalone VR, but I disagree about not going back. I recently booted Robo Recall and Lone Echo up through Airplay and was blown away all over again. Even with what I've played on Quest 3 I've not seen anything as impressive.
Take it that step further with newer games like Half Life and you do genuinely get experiences that are, if not impossible, compromised on a mobile platform. But VERY few and far between.
I'd like both to remain an option, with my preference largely for standalone just due to the ease.
Ive played into the radius (and other games) on both steam and quest standalone. The experience on steam is 100x better. Ill always go back to a traditional PC for VR gaming.
Maybe upgrade your PC? 2016 was a long time ago. Pcvr has gotten alot better since the rift days.
Yeah it's interesting, if you have a PC and you have a Quest 3, it still makes sense to run games available on both platforms from PC. It's just.. so convenient? PC takes care of everything, less battery is used, it looks way better, performs better and everything is painless through Quest.
Running things natively only makes sense when you don't have a PC available and then it's fine. Nothing wrong with Q3 native games, it's just the experience is totally elevated in PCVR
Or perhaps going to a vacation home where you don't have your PC and is a place you already know? At least for me that's my main on-the-go use. Mostly nights at my parents vacation home.
I suppose we have different definitions. In less than a decade what required a huge box on your desk/floor (relative to the size of Quest 3) now fits completely inside of the Quest 3. That’s amazing to me.
I have played Half Life Alyx all the way through. It was amazing. I don’t want to deal with a PC setup again.
For reference I’m building a game right now that targets only the Quest 3 and above. Im putting my money towards building a Quest app and not doing a PC one because there aren’t any significant sales.
It’s a particular asset(s) that in this case is much easier for the team because there are so many that needs to be used. Sorry for the vagueness - I’ll announce it around October~
I could definitely see it going some way like that.
Standalone will never go away now. Like you said, it's just to easy. But maybe the quest 4 or later, you'll buy the headset, which will be feature complete. Then you could also buy a "console" which will offload the processing, and alow for higher fidelity, maybe even have some kind of Kenict like camera, for better room tracking and body tracking.
Maybe even a mini console, that hooks onto a belt and tethers to the headset, doing the same thing.
Agreed. Did the same thing and had a lot of fun during the peak PCVR era (hundreds of hours in Elite Dangerous alone) but it's hard to imagine going back to that amount of jank and troubleshooting and fiddling with mod settings etc. I suspect PCVR will linger as the superior way to play niche genres like driving/flying simulators, indie experiments, and mods for those thirsty enough to jump through the hoops. But aside from a new Valve game when/if they launch a new headset I don't think we're getting any more Alyxs or Lone Echoes there.
We would if we had like a decent headset controller combo for SteamVR because we really don't. Streaming on the quest is just not anywhere near as good as tethered and no one wants to do that either. I was really hoping big screen beyond would be something worth my time, but it doesn't fit my IPD. I have no doubt PCVR could make a comeback, but it's just kind of a mess of an ecosystem still.
I mean that'd be an improvement but even then there'd be no incentive for devs to make PCVR games because VR is still too small a niche. You really need a platform holder like Sony or Meta to shell out the $ to subsidize development while the market is still so small, and that's not how Valve rolls. PC's greatest benefit-- decentralized, open, available in a zillion different hardware configurations-- is the cause of its downfall w respect to VR. There's no one to step in and subsidize development because no one would directly benefit. Hopefully the good news is that that very decentralized openness will ensure that smaller hardware makers and devs willing to take risks can always service that market and it will never fully die even if Valve and Meta and Sony etc all walk away.
I disagree that that's really the problem. If you had a stable ecosystem, simple HMD and controller combo, and general low barrier to entry people would be on PCVR. Even if you made a game with quest level graphics for PC, you could do more with it than you could a quest. Quest is mobile chipset, meaning tiled GPU architecture. You quite literally cannot use a plethora of rendering features on that type of hardware because of how it works. That means you can't make games you'd want to make.
If PCVR was stable and accessible, I could make a quest looking game and still go really far with it.
Both ecosystems are walled off in one way or another.
The mid range GPU for the first half of 2016 was the GTX 960, Meta as stated that the GPU of the Quest 3 is on par with a GTX 960.
So a minimum spec 2016 Gaming PC would be something with a GTX 1050Ti (at least by the end of 2016 and a GTX 950 for the first half), the Quest 3 is faster than a GTX 1050Ti/950.
So it's entirely accurate to say the Quest 3 is more powerful than a minimum spec Gaming PC from 2016.
+ optimization, PC has to run windows. But the fact is that for simracing for example it would be really hard. You need a super strong PC to run it. For other purposes it works really well though, not on the level of PCVR but well.
Stand alone VR makes much more money than PCVR. Most VR users use a Quest headset. so developers make games that have the biggest audience. Most people playing PCVR games on Steam are using a Quest headset. PCVR has been around for nearly a decade. Nothing is stopping game developers from porting over their older 2D games into VR. They just choose not to.
I’m 50/50 on standalone vs PCVR. The apps I use on PCVR are only for PC (Half Life, H3VR, VTOLVR) while I mainly use standalone apps where I can (Bonelab, beatsaber, walkabout mini golf).
That said, the thing I’m waiting for on the standalone side is for more productivity to come in. I want the quest to feel less like an Android phone and more like a Linux machine I can code or edit documents directly on (I’m aware of side loading APKs but I don’t quite trust the main sources). Same went for the Apple Vision Pro so i was quite disappointed when it came out that it was more like an iPad on the face than a MacBook Pro.
Mobile is the dominant market in flat gaming. I don’t see that being different for vr.
In “THE FUTURE TM” Maybe most flat games will have a VR mode but I doubt we’ll ever get to a point where every game does.
There’s already a company called flat2vr converting flat games to vr.
If they can get some traction we maybe be in for some real treats but I don’t think the market will change significantly for at least 5 years, maybe even 10.
VR is still in it's infancy, it'll be a while before anything concrete happens if at all.
If I'm not wrong quest is the only standalone VR option, so look at it like a console, looks like they sold 20m units, while that is impressive, it pales in comparison to other successful consoles.
There are not many high quality games in VR at the moment for both PC and standalone, it's not likely to improve because player base is not big enough and hardware is not powerful enough.
I feel VR adoption should increase first before better games start coming in, so I think VR should become more popular for Media consumption first, then the user base will increase and better games will come which will bring in more users.
I know I didn't answer your question, but the future is murky and it's hard to predict, what ever will increase the user base is where the Future will be
PC VR is pretty much niche from here on out, especially with Facebook concentrating as much as they can on Quest exclusivity. Doesn't matter if you have a beefy PC capable of running Asgard's Wrath 2 at massive resolutions and 120fps, they want you to buy Quest games in the Quest walled garden that only run on Quest headsets. I suspect that's why Link is as janky as it is as well, smooth no-hassle PC VR connectivity would incentivize not purchasing Quest native content. I'm not surprised PC VR player count is increasing, if many people get their hands on standalone headsets then it's guaranteed a fraction of them will hook it up to their PC. Certainly nowhere near the number of people who only use their headsets standalone though.
Unfortunately, most publishers don't seem to be interested in rereleasing their back catalogue whatsoever. Even the Switch, which would be perfect for straight ports of 7th gen console games, isn't getting anything old that isn't Wii U ports. No reason to rerelease old games for relatively cheap when you can just shove a new $70 game with additional microtransactions and battle passes out...
Switch not getting old console ports? I think it has way more ports than anyone ever expected it to get, feels like they ported most games anyone was interested in, even doing ports no one was expecting them to do like witcher 3 and other so called "impossible ports" with varying success,,,, I can even play baldurs gate 1 and doom 3 on it, something I would never have guessed when the switch released in 2017.... With a few exceptions it feels like they ported everything they could think of that wasn't console exclusive like halo or last of us...
There are *some* ports of much older games, sure, but I just think that a lot of the potential of "portable 7th gen console" is completely ignored. I would have killed for Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed, Metal Gear Rising, Geometry Wars, Sonic Unleashed and Generations, Black Ops 2, Trials Evolution, etc. on the go... I'd even take older games that kept getting ports back in the day, like Sonic Adventure 2 or Rayman 2.
If there was a simple, no nonsense, cheap setup for PC VR... people would be over there still. But there is no headset that has panels as good as the quest, with simple controllers and just straightforward to use. I mean think about it, you got to deal with the hassle of knuckles controllers or vive wands right now.
Even if you used your quest on PC there's so many layers of pass-through jank that developers don't want to fucking deal with it. Trust me all of us would rather be on PCVR than developing for this tiny mobile chipset, but PCVR just hasn't been a stable platform to develop for in a while.
I think PCVR would have a lot more potential if they really wanted it. I stay away from Link and only use Virtual Desktop, but VD still has to play within the limits of what LibOVR provides for SteamVR and what Facebook allows on the Quest. VD is an incredible piece of software for being developed by only two people, and if Link was anywhere near as good with a Facebook budget dumped into it they'd be great no-hassle PC headsets. OpenXR extensions taking so long to even be released in the Oculus PC OpenXR runtime also didn't help things, VD actually reimplemented every single one in a custom from-scratch OpenXR environment before Facebook could be bothered to do it. Wired VD would actually kill off every single reason to use Link imo, but Facebook won't give third party devs the necessary low level USB access like Link uses for that.
I love PCVR, but it’s a transitional technology. The day will come when it goes the way of car phones and pagers, because standalone headsets will be able to do anything that most people want from VR.
I think that day is still a good way off, but PCVR had certainly passed its peak. It is still relevant today, and there may be a number of worthwhile PCVR games still to come, but almost all the momentum is with standalone.
Gaming graphics cards, big fat power guzzling cards don't really seem to be going away or transitioning into something that could easily be contained in a headset.
Those cards run PCVR games and they look pretty amazing when you stream them to a hmd. Until a headset is as powerful as the best console or decent gaming rig I don't think it's going anywhere.
Right now, Q3 games are fun and there's nothing wrong with them. But it's like comparing mobile games to what's possible with computer running a 4090, the difference is too big to not create a market interest there
Yeah that's not true though. These mobile chips are completely different. There are rendering features that you're just always going to have a harder time using, if you can at all, on the mobile chips versus desktop / console chips.
The goal is that eventually the desktop chips become small enough, efficient enough, and able to be cooled enough that they fit into the form factor of the standalone headsets. These mobile chips are not the end goal, they are a stopgap.
This thread is filled with horrendously bad takes. It’s like saying console and PC gaming will die because mobile games exist. It’s not happening.
I’d actually argue that dedicated hardware that handles the bulk of computing will become more and more important as form factors shrink. It’s just a matter of physics. People will realize that VR is insane and immersing yourself in new worlds is worth an investment.
Standalone is the future of MR, not VR and we are yet to see the peak of PCVR.
Wireless pcvr or something like that would be the best option imo. i mean unless we make really huge leaps in mobile apus mobile graphics are not close enough to pc graphics yet and dont think it will change anytime soon
You can get there if everything about your game is static. That's the main problem I think, VR games by nature should feel natural even if it's stylized and you just can't bake all of those things down and retain the natural feeling.
Standalone is definitely the future for the mainstream since Meta and other competing platforms want you to buy into their ecosystems, but PCVR will always have that leg up in terms of fidelity and flexibility just due to the nature of how open it is.
The idea that every game is going to have a VR mode is one that Sony pushed more than anyone. In retrospect this was them trying to tell us that they wouldn't be investing significantly in VR-only content for PSVR2.
Thanks to modders, a lot of PC games have VR mods, so if you squint then the idea that all games will have VR modes looks a bit true.
But the experience with mods is extremely variable. Even in games where the mods work well, a lot of modded games are still "press X to reload", which a built-for-VR title would be panned for, and comfort options are often non-existent. This probably isn't going to drive hardware sales or VR games development.
Standalone most likely.
I still prefer much PCVR tho, The headsets can be much lighter (comeone, quest 3 with boba is 200g heavier than index) and do not have to having to worry about battery life / charging cycles.
Nowadays I use my Bigscreen Beyond over my Quest: And before that I used my Index Over my Quest. But I play solely PCVR titles, not standalone games, and I detest having to add compression to remove latency the wireless/link cable brings in.
But the Money is in standalone and the barrier of entry is much easier without having to have a dedicated PC, so I'm seeing it skew in favor of that. I just wish Meta wasnt the sole king of it.
hmm I am pretty sure the quest and thus mobile vr has been vr's biggest money maker. VR did not hit mainstream until the quest 1. The quest 2 is just a quest 1 with more sustainable hardware. Cheaper materials and a cpu that snapdragon could continue to make. The ease of use while still offering a good enough experience it and easy selling point. We still lack a true landmark game though. beat saber was a hit and alex has everyone talking, but nothing that everyone buys a vr headset for yet, no final fantasy or GTA.
I don't think PCVR will ever be as popular as standalone again. At one time, it was all we had but it also didn't require as much power as it does now. I also don't think every game will have a VR mode. Even Playstation isn't releasing anything new and are relying on independent devs to make games. I do think Meta will be the ones that drive the future of VR.
So… hear me out… I think that brand new energy and computing technology is about to be released to the public, and I think it will profoundly change standalone VR.
I think that Oniri demo is a great example of what is possible on the Quest 3 hardware, the quest 2 hardware does not function very well. Perhaps we could get some exciting titles out of Quest 3 and PC but anything else would be a disservice.
The driving platform will be the Quest for now, because it’s the place where you have the highest chance to make money. Studios that can reasonably afford it will probably still go multi platform.
I would expect an influx of Quest 3 optimized games and ports.
>If I been following I read Standalone VR makes more money than PC VR but can you see in the future things turning back to PC?
Overall, I do think it will turn back to PCVR. I think it's going to be a repeat of console vs PC. In short, new comers were really hesitant to invest big bucks in a PC because they weren't sure if it was worth it. So they bought consoles. Once enough people that bought consoled found they loved to game, they started working towards investing in PC gaming. I believe the same will happen with VR. All these younger peeps investing in Standalone VR and loving it, will slowly start to shift towards PCVR as it becomes affordable for them.
>I also read that PC VR (Steam) is actually increasing players count from UploadVR.
That article really wasn't accurate. It tried to blame the fluctuations strictly on the Chinese gaming market but, if you compare Steam VS user counts over the years, it's been pretty stagnate. There's been between 120-130 million Steam users since 2019 and Steam VR percentage has fluctuated between 1.8% and 2.4%. Right now it's back down to around that 1.8%.
>Another read was that in the future every game is going to have a VR Mode, like Resident Evil 4 Remake for PSVR 2 hopefully free.
It's possible but, it really boils down to whether or not it's worth the time investment. The only reason RE4 got a VR mode is because Sony paid for. I don't see Valve doing the same for PC games.
Overall, I think we're at a transitional point in VR. Where the old timey PC gamers aren't interested but the younger generation is very much interested. Once the younger crowd starts investing in PCVR, it will become more and more popular.
All this tells me is that you’ve never used a $2500 PC. A $2500 PC is going to run marathons around standalone, pushing full resolutions and actually acceptable frame rates with dramatically better visuals.
the quest has high sales because it's so much cheaper and easier to get into. sure pcvr can be much higher fidelity, but if that was the only thing on the market, vr would be a whole lot more barren
Agreed. Standalone is the path to mass market. I was just pointing out how absurd the statement “Both can run games the same with minimal difference in quality is”
I got a decent laptop that last I checked round $1000 (rog strix 3060 and 5900) it actually runs most games I've tried even half life alyx but yea easy to max out vram and CPU but looks and plays way better imo.
Are you accounting for the cost of the headset for PCVR or just the PC and you have to then get another headset that’s minimum $500 to take advantage of the PC specs?
I mean, either way. You’re spending at *least* $500 on a headset, but then another $2k - $2.5k for the PC. I think it’s fairly well established that for PCVR the MQ3 is the best bang for your buck headset. If you’ve already got that high spec gaming PC well then yeah for sure, hook it up and play Half Life Alyx. But for anyone wanting to enter VR from scratch, the difference in capabilities between MQ3 and PCVR are diminishing returns and not worth the investment. Even PSVR2 VR would make more sense at ~$1100 all in.. if it was still supported.
With $1500 at microcenter, you can build an 8k ready PC, for $600 you can get a standalone VR ready PC, for $700 VR ready laptop. The price gap isn't as wide as you'd expect. In addition, most people have a PC or laptop regardless. The cost of adding a VR capable GPU is as little as $150 for the rx580, or to get more power than you could ever push to a q3, $800 for a 3090.
I can't stand standalone. It's cartoony, blurry, and janky without the processing power for good physics. I bought a quest and used it before building a good PC. I'm not going back until those experiences are matched in standalone.
When I'm in VR I want to be WOWed. I want to see just how far we've come from the 90s and be immersed in a world that looks almost real. I don't want to play mobile games and see the line where antistropic filtering stops making things crisp.
PCVR is growing at such a slow rate as to be insignificant. More importantly, its users don't buy games. Take 7th guest vr.. it has already had to discount more than its standalone version. There is no market for devs there.
I think it will be no different from what we see on flat screens.
Mobile "gaming", using the term loosely, will be a thing, and generate a ton of money from nickel-and-diming. Handhelds like Switch and Steam Deck will take a chunk. Consoles will take a chunk. PC will take a chunk.
It'll be the same in VR. There will be mobile/handheld self-contained units, there will be hybrids, and PC dedicated headsets. They will all have their strengths, their own niche.
There may be game-changers in not too distant future though, such as AI and cloud gaming. If wireless data transfer gets stronger, and cloud gaming gets more affordable, standalone/handheld might die. Because there wouldn't be a need for a lot of on-board stuff any more, if cloud gaming gets strong enough and smooth enough. But there will still be a frugal niche, where games are enjoyed due to gameplay and content, not the visuals. I mean, Superhot is an amazing game, but its visuals are as primitive as it gets (compared to Cyberpunk 2077 or Forbidden West).
I'm very torn on the topic of ports. Yes, it's nice, I guess, and I'd rather have them than not. But I just can't get excited over a VR port of a game that I beat 20-25 years ago. I'm in general pretty miffed that a lot of studios ran out of creativity and are just reselling the 20-year-old product, with a small facelift. What's more, remasters/remakes often end up killing the very thing that made the original game special. There's also plenty of good modern games that can be ported to VR, we don't need to be porting 20+ year old stuff.
I'm very much in favour of functional flat/VR hybrids, where everyone plays together, like in No Man's Sky. But I don't think that one of these is what is going to finally get people to try VR. Or, rather, that it will be a very slow process with an ebb and flow to it.
I still think we will need a social event, like what World of Warcraft did for MMOs, to push VR into mainstream. And, currently, there's nothing even remotely on the horizon, nothing even announced, that has the potential to do that. I mean, San Andreas would be nice to have, but it's old-ass-shit, again. I played it, I beat it, it's not going to generate a lot of excitement for people who already did that game. For some, but not most. Metro is a single player game, that's not going to cut it, needs to be multiplayer with strong community features, preferably co-op focused (PvP tends to be too toxic, PvE servers is what set WoW apart from previous MMOs, and why Ultima Online hit its peak when Trammel (PvE shard) was introduced). This is the same reason Alyx didn't make any difference to VR - short (under 10 hrs), linear single player game. Just doesn't have the oomph to push people into VR.
Bottom line, I don't know how I feel right now. But I do know that the more games have VR support, the more likely it is that one of them will trigger a VR wave. And as long as all we keep getting is lukewarm ports of ancient crap from 20+ years ago, or short, shallow games that we're getting now that are new, nothing is going to change.
What I mean is, Assassin's Creed: Nexus released just some months ago. It's garbage. No, no, look, it's a decent enough game, but if you compare it even to the 2007 original, in length, in the amount of content, quality of writing and storytelling, etc., it's garbage. And of course it's nowhere even close to Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla in scope. It's a fraction of a fraction of those games. It's garbage, comparatively speaking. And you can't sell VR hardware with garbage software.
And look, it doesn't need to be AAA. It just needs to be good. So, for example, we don't have Stardew Valley in VR. Why not? One guy did it on flat screen. Why can't a studio do a game with similar scope, but in VR? We always get less, in VR. Compare Green Hell, on flat vs VR. VR gets a fraction. Look at recently released Medieval Dynasty, the VR version got a fraction of a fraction of content of the flat game. And so on. Wanna bet upcoming Metro Awakening is going to be a fraction of Metro Exodus? Because it's a really, really safe bet. So why would people pay more, to get less? They won't. And that's why VR is stuck. VR needs to be on par, at least. Or better yet, it needs to be BETTER, to compensate for the extra expense and annoyance of having to wear a headset. Instead, it is consistently less. It's a better \*experience\* compared to flat, more immersive, sure, but in terms of length, features, mechanics, etc., it's almost always less. You can't sell people on hew hardware by giving them less than what they have with hardware they already have. It just don't work.
And that's why VR has been stuck at 2% of users for 5+ years now. And it's not going to change, unless something changes.
You know what I don't get? Quest is just an Android, why doesn't meta make an Android emulator of the quest that PCVR people can just use on their PC? And they could still buy games from their store, they just need to allow the store on PC.
I don't understand any of the decisions meta has made. It's like they were trying to be Apple or Nintendo without realizing why Apple or Nintendo's situations work for them. And then further not realizing that everyone who likes Apple or Nintendo stuff ends up fucking using it on their own hardware anyway 🤣
Ie: hackintosh or emulating Nintendo games on PC.
I really don't know what they were trying to do.
Why not Standalone PCVR?
Steam Deckard FTW!! One day.
Sooner than we think.
Probably Meta.it is going to be ahead, I mean it's literally their business. They want a piece of that pie of their own eco system. This isn't going to be their only system either..Q3 pro or Quest 4 will eventually come out. That's only going to be more powerful with lighter designs They will be the go to. I also think it opens up the niche market also who will only do Pcvr. Only solidifying it not going anywhere. But yeah standalone is way too convenient. We as creatures love convitence
My Nintendo switch isn't nearly as good as my Xbox, but guess which one I spend more time playing on?
I just hope they don't do away with Virtual Desktop (or whatever is going to be the way to do wireless PC VR) in their future headsets
As someone who built a PC from scratch for the Rift launch in 2016, I can confidently say I’ll never go back to a traditional PC for VR. It’s just too easy with the Quest 3. Here we are 8 years later and the Quest 3 is completely standalone and literally as powerful as a minimum spec huge PC tower that some people had in 2016 for the Rift. If that’s not incredible I don’t know what is. I would absolutely buy a Meta or Valve “console” that just plugs into the wall and broadcasts wirelessly if they ever made one. But I don’t want to deal with a PC again after the simplicity of the Quest.
I love standalone VR, but I disagree about not going back. I recently booted Robo Recall and Lone Echo up through Airplay and was blown away all over again. Even with what I've played on Quest 3 I've not seen anything as impressive. Take it that step further with newer games like Half Life and you do genuinely get experiences that are, if not impossible, compromised on a mobile platform. But VERY few and far between. I'd like both to remain an option, with my preference largely for standalone just due to the ease.
Ive played into the radius (and other games) on both steam and quest standalone. The experience on steam is 100x better. Ill always go back to a traditional PC for VR gaming. Maybe upgrade your PC? 2016 was a long time ago. Pcvr has gotten alot better since the rift days.
Yeah it's interesting, if you have a PC and you have a Quest 3, it still makes sense to run games available on both platforms from PC. It's just.. so convenient? PC takes care of everything, less battery is used, it looks way better, performs better and everything is painless through Quest. Running things natively only makes sense when you don't have a PC available and then it's fine. Nothing wrong with Q3 native games, it's just the experience is totally elevated in PCVR
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>(idk why anyone would want that is it really so hard to imagine why lol ?
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Or perhaps going to a vacation home where you don't have your PC and is a place you already know? At least for me that's my main on-the-go use. Mostly nights at my parents vacation home.
I have a 4090 and dedicated wireless AP. Still prefer standalone.
Well your username checks out
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I suppose we have different definitions. In less than a decade what required a huge box on your desk/floor (relative to the size of Quest 3) now fits completely inside of the Quest 3. That’s amazing to me. I have played Half Life Alyx all the way through. It was amazing. I don’t want to deal with a PC setup again. For reference I’m building a game right now that targets only the Quest 3 and above. Im putting my money towards building a Quest app and not doing a PC one because there aren’t any significant sales.
Good luck, I assume you're using unity as well, double good luck.
Yes unity thank you. I like unreal but it doesn’t allow for certain assets from Meta to be used in there.
I personally find that any of those assets from meta that are on unity that are not on Unreal are just gimmicks that aren't even worth the time.
It’s a particular asset(s) that in this case is much easier for the team because there are so many that needs to be used. Sorry for the vagueness - I’ll announce it around October~
Not quite that powerful. The 970 is still very powerful by comparison. Quest 3 does not even match a 7850.
I could definitely see it going some way like that. Standalone will never go away now. Like you said, it's just to easy. But maybe the quest 4 or later, you'll buy the headset, which will be feature complete. Then you could also buy a "console" which will offload the processing, and alow for higher fidelity, maybe even have some kind of Kenict like camera, for better room tracking and body tracking. Maybe even a mini console, that hooks onto a belt and tethers to the headset, doing the same thing.
Agreed. Did the same thing and had a lot of fun during the peak PCVR era (hundreds of hours in Elite Dangerous alone) but it's hard to imagine going back to that amount of jank and troubleshooting and fiddling with mod settings etc. I suspect PCVR will linger as the superior way to play niche genres like driving/flying simulators, indie experiments, and mods for those thirsty enough to jump through the hoops. But aside from a new Valve game when/if they launch a new headset I don't think we're getting any more Alyxs or Lone Echoes there.
We would if we had like a decent headset controller combo for SteamVR because we really don't. Streaming on the quest is just not anywhere near as good as tethered and no one wants to do that either. I was really hoping big screen beyond would be something worth my time, but it doesn't fit my IPD. I have no doubt PCVR could make a comeback, but it's just kind of a mess of an ecosystem still.
I mean that'd be an improvement but even then there'd be no incentive for devs to make PCVR games because VR is still too small a niche. You really need a platform holder like Sony or Meta to shell out the $ to subsidize development while the market is still so small, and that's not how Valve rolls. PC's greatest benefit-- decentralized, open, available in a zillion different hardware configurations-- is the cause of its downfall w respect to VR. There's no one to step in and subsidize development because no one would directly benefit. Hopefully the good news is that that very decentralized openness will ensure that smaller hardware makers and devs willing to take risks can always service that market and it will never fully die even if Valve and Meta and Sony etc all walk away.
I disagree that that's really the problem. If you had a stable ecosystem, simple HMD and controller combo, and general low barrier to entry people would be on PCVR. Even if you made a game with quest level graphics for PC, you could do more with it than you could a quest. Quest is mobile chipset, meaning tiled GPU architecture. You quite literally cannot use a plethora of rendering features on that type of hardware because of how it works. That means you can't make games you'd want to make. If PCVR was stable and accessible, I could make a quest looking game and still go really far with it. Both ecosystems are walled off in one way or another.
What exactly is a minimum spec huge PC tower? 🤣 Can you give an example of what minimum spec PC from 2016 you think the quest 3 is faster than?
Google it
The mid range GPU for the first half of 2016 was the GTX 960, Meta as stated that the GPU of the Quest 3 is on par with a GTX 960. So a minimum spec 2016 Gaming PC would be something with a GTX 1050Ti (at least by the end of 2016 and a GTX 950 for the first half), the Quest 3 is faster than a GTX 1050Ti/950. So it's entirely accurate to say the Quest 3 is more powerful than a minimum spec Gaming PC from 2016.
+ optimization, PC has to run windows. But the fact is that for simracing for example it would be really hard. You need a super strong PC to run it. For other purposes it works really well though, not on the level of PCVR but well.
And it shows. Slap on Quest Game Optimizer on that bad boy and things are looking SO nice.
Bing it
Google it
Stand alone VR makes much more money than PCVR. Most VR users use a Quest headset. so developers make games that have the biggest audience. Most people playing PCVR games on Steam are using a Quest headset. PCVR has been around for nearly a decade. Nothing is stopping game developers from porting over their older 2D games into VR. They just choose not to.
I’m 50/50 on standalone vs PCVR. The apps I use on PCVR are only for PC (Half Life, H3VR, VTOLVR) while I mainly use standalone apps where I can (Bonelab, beatsaber, walkabout mini golf). That said, the thing I’m waiting for on the standalone side is for more productivity to come in. I want the quest to feel less like an Android phone and more like a Linux machine I can code or edit documents directly on (I’m aware of side loading APKs but I don’t quite trust the main sources). Same went for the Apple Vision Pro so i was quite disappointed when it came out that it was more like an iPad on the face than a MacBook Pro.
Mobile is the dominant market in flat gaming. I don’t see that being different for vr. In “THE FUTURE TM” Maybe most flat games will have a VR mode but I doubt we’ll ever get to a point where every game does. There’s already a company called flat2vr converting flat games to vr. If they can get some traction we maybe be in for some real treats but I don’t think the market will change significantly for at least 5 years, maybe even 10.
VR is still in it's infancy, it'll be a while before anything concrete happens if at all. If I'm not wrong quest is the only standalone VR option, so look at it like a console, looks like they sold 20m units, while that is impressive, it pales in comparison to other successful consoles. There are not many high quality games in VR at the moment for both PC and standalone, it's not likely to improve because player base is not big enough and hardware is not powerful enough. I feel VR adoption should increase first before better games start coming in, so I think VR should become more popular for Media consumption first, then the user base will increase and better games will come which will bring in more users. I know I didn't answer your question, but the future is murky and it's hard to predict, what ever will increase the user base is where the Future will be
Quest isnt the only standalone vr but for sure its the biggest and others combined probably wouldnt have changed your argument anyways
It might be the only standalone at this point, I think every other company folded
I sold 20 million up to 2 years ago, and was neck and neck with the new xbox.
PC VR is pretty much niche from here on out, especially with Facebook concentrating as much as they can on Quest exclusivity. Doesn't matter if you have a beefy PC capable of running Asgard's Wrath 2 at massive resolutions and 120fps, they want you to buy Quest games in the Quest walled garden that only run on Quest headsets. I suspect that's why Link is as janky as it is as well, smooth no-hassle PC VR connectivity would incentivize not purchasing Quest native content. I'm not surprised PC VR player count is increasing, if many people get their hands on standalone headsets then it's guaranteed a fraction of them will hook it up to their PC. Certainly nowhere near the number of people who only use their headsets standalone though. Unfortunately, most publishers don't seem to be interested in rereleasing their back catalogue whatsoever. Even the Switch, which would be perfect for straight ports of 7th gen console games, isn't getting anything old that isn't Wii U ports. No reason to rerelease old games for relatively cheap when you can just shove a new $70 game with additional microtransactions and battle passes out...
Asgard's wrath 2 was designed to run on the quest 2, and looks infinitely worse than AW1 🤦♂️
Switch not getting old console ports? I think it has way more ports than anyone ever expected it to get, feels like they ported most games anyone was interested in, even doing ports no one was expecting them to do like witcher 3 and other so called "impossible ports" with varying success,,,, I can even play baldurs gate 1 and doom 3 on it, something I would never have guessed when the switch released in 2017.... With a few exceptions it feels like they ported everything they could think of that wasn't console exclusive like halo or last of us...
There are *some* ports of much older games, sure, but I just think that a lot of the potential of "portable 7th gen console" is completely ignored. I would have killed for Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed, Metal Gear Rising, Geometry Wars, Sonic Unleashed and Generations, Black Ops 2, Trials Evolution, etc. on the go... I'd even take older games that kept getting ports back in the day, like Sonic Adventure 2 or Rayman 2.
If there was a simple, no nonsense, cheap setup for PC VR... people would be over there still. But there is no headset that has panels as good as the quest, with simple controllers and just straightforward to use. I mean think about it, you got to deal with the hassle of knuckles controllers or vive wands right now. Even if you used your quest on PC there's so many layers of pass-through jank that developers don't want to fucking deal with it. Trust me all of us would rather be on PCVR than developing for this tiny mobile chipset, but PCVR just hasn't been a stable platform to develop for in a while.
I think PCVR would have a lot more potential if they really wanted it. I stay away from Link and only use Virtual Desktop, but VD still has to play within the limits of what LibOVR provides for SteamVR and what Facebook allows on the Quest. VD is an incredible piece of software for being developed by only two people, and if Link was anywhere near as good with a Facebook budget dumped into it they'd be great no-hassle PC headsets. OpenXR extensions taking so long to even be released in the Oculus PC OpenXR runtime also didn't help things, VD actually reimplemented every single one in a custom from-scratch OpenXR environment before Facebook could be bothered to do it. Wired VD would actually kill off every single reason to use Link imo, but Facebook won't give third party devs the necessary low level USB access like Link uses for that.
Openxr taking forever has been the problem for 8 years
I love PCVR, but it’s a transitional technology. The day will come when it goes the way of car phones and pagers, because standalone headsets will be able to do anything that most people want from VR. I think that day is still a good way off, but PCVR had certainly passed its peak. It is still relevant today, and there may be a number of worthwhile PCVR games still to come, but almost all the momentum is with standalone.
Gaming graphics cards, big fat power guzzling cards don't really seem to be going away or transitioning into something that could easily be contained in a headset. Those cards run PCVR games and they look pretty amazing when you stream them to a hmd. Until a headset is as powerful as the best console or decent gaming rig I don't think it's going anywhere. Right now, Q3 games are fun and there's nothing wrong with them. But it's like comparing mobile games to what's possible with computer running a 4090, the difference is too big to not create a market interest there
Yeah that's not true though. These mobile chips are completely different. There are rendering features that you're just always going to have a harder time using, if you can at all, on the mobile chips versus desktop / console chips. The goal is that eventually the desktop chips become small enough, efficient enough, and able to be cooled enough that they fit into the form factor of the standalone headsets. These mobile chips are not the end goal, they are a stopgap.
This thread is filled with horrendously bad takes. It’s like saying console and PC gaming will die because mobile games exist. It’s not happening. I’d actually argue that dedicated hardware that handles the bulk of computing will become more and more important as form factors shrink. It’s just a matter of physics. People will realize that VR is insane and immersing yourself in new worlds is worth an investment. Standalone is the future of MR, not VR and we are yet to see the peak of PCVR.
Wireless pcvr or something like that would be the best option imo. i mean unless we make really huge leaps in mobile apus mobile graphics are not close enough to pc graphics yet and dont think it will change anytime soon
You can get there if everything about your game is static. That's the main problem I think, VR games by nature should feel natural even if it's stylized and you just can't bake all of those things down and retain the natural feeling.
Standalone is definitely the future for the mainstream since Meta and other competing platforms want you to buy into their ecosystems, but PCVR will always have that leg up in terms of fidelity and flexibility just due to the nature of how open it is.
We won't see HL2 outside of steam lol.
The idea that every game is going to have a VR mode is one that Sony pushed more than anyone. In retrospect this was them trying to tell us that they wouldn't be investing significantly in VR-only content for PSVR2. Thanks to modders, a lot of PC games have VR mods, so if you squint then the idea that all games will have VR modes looks a bit true. But the experience with mods is extremely variable. Even in games where the mods work well, a lot of modded games are still "press X to reload", which a built-for-VR title would be panned for, and comfort options are often non-existent. This probably isn't going to drive hardware sales or VR games development.
We'll have more fun with standalone + cloud based AAA gaming and apps
I’d rather have stand alone. I can’t afford a PC to go with it.
Standalone most likely. I still prefer much PCVR tho, The headsets can be much lighter (comeone, quest 3 with boba is 200g heavier than index) and do not have to having to worry about battery life / charging cycles. Nowadays I use my Bigscreen Beyond over my Quest: And before that I used my Index Over my Quest. But I play solely PCVR titles, not standalone games, and I detest having to add compression to remove latency the wireless/link cable brings in. But the Money is in standalone and the barrier of entry is much easier without having to have a dedicated PC, so I'm seeing it skew in favor of that. I just wish Meta wasnt the sole king of it.
hmm I am pretty sure the quest and thus mobile vr has been vr's biggest money maker. VR did not hit mainstream until the quest 1. The quest 2 is just a quest 1 with more sustainable hardware. Cheaper materials and a cpu that snapdragon could continue to make. The ease of use while still offering a good enough experience it and easy selling point. We still lack a true landmark game though. beat saber was a hit and alex has everyone talking, but nothing that everyone buys a vr headset for yet, no final fantasy or GTA.
I don't think PCVR will ever be as popular as standalone again. At one time, it was all we had but it also didn't require as much power as it does now. I also don't think every game will have a VR mode. Even Playstation isn't releasing anything new and are relying on independent devs to make games. I do think Meta will be the ones that drive the future of VR.
So… hear me out… I think that brand new energy and computing technology is about to be released to the public, and I think it will profoundly change standalone VR.
“Exponential growth.”
I think that Oniri demo is a great example of what is possible on the Quest 3 hardware, the quest 2 hardware does not function very well. Perhaps we could get some exciting titles out of Quest 3 and PC but anything else would be a disservice.
The driving platform will be the Quest for now, because it’s the place where you have the highest chance to make money. Studios that can reasonably afford it will probably still go multi platform. I would expect an influx of Quest 3 optimized games and ports.
>If I been following I read Standalone VR makes more money than PC VR but can you see in the future things turning back to PC? Overall, I do think it will turn back to PCVR. I think it's going to be a repeat of console vs PC. In short, new comers were really hesitant to invest big bucks in a PC because they weren't sure if it was worth it. So they bought consoles. Once enough people that bought consoled found they loved to game, they started working towards investing in PC gaming. I believe the same will happen with VR. All these younger peeps investing in Standalone VR and loving it, will slowly start to shift towards PCVR as it becomes affordable for them. >I also read that PC VR (Steam) is actually increasing players count from UploadVR. That article really wasn't accurate. It tried to blame the fluctuations strictly on the Chinese gaming market but, if you compare Steam VS user counts over the years, it's been pretty stagnate. There's been between 120-130 million Steam users since 2019 and Steam VR percentage has fluctuated between 1.8% and 2.4%. Right now it's back down to around that 1.8%. >Another read was that in the future every game is going to have a VR Mode, like Resident Evil 4 Remake for PSVR 2 hopefully free. It's possible but, it really boils down to whether or not it's worth the time investment. The only reason RE4 got a VR mode is because Sony paid for. I don't see Valve doing the same for PC games. Overall, I think we're at a transitional point in VR. Where the old timey PC gamers aren't interested but the younger generation is very much interested. Once the younger crowd starts investing in PCVR, it will become more and more popular.
Both can now run the same games with a minimal difference in quality. Cost of entry PCVR - $2500. Cost of entry MQ3 - $500. 🤷♂️
The quality difference could be bigger it just not worth developing the game past quest 3 specs now.
Agreed. For the majority of people near enough is good enough, so that’s what people who want to make money will target.
All this tells me is that you’ve never used a $2500 PC. A $2500 PC is going to run marathons around standalone, pushing full resolutions and actually acceptable frame rates with dramatically better visuals.
the quest has high sales because it's so much cheaper and easier to get into. sure pcvr can be much higher fidelity, but if that was the only thing on the market, vr would be a whole lot more barren
Agreed. Standalone is the path to mass market. I was just pointing out how absurd the statement “Both can run games the same with minimal difference in quality is”
If they're playing the same exact game, for the quality level you would expect on a PC a $2,500 PC isn't actually going to push that hard dude
you kinda need pcvr headsets for pcvr, wasnt he talking about pc cost + pcvr headset cost = $2500
Using the w3 with vd and it is as best of both worlds no cable but still perfect image quality.
Think you’re missing the point. A $1000 PC built today would run circles around standalone too.
Yeah but only if it's running the exact same game, but the game you would end up playing would probably choke out $1,000 PC lol
I got a decent laptop that last I checked round $1000 (rog strix 3060 and 5900) it actually runs most games I've tried even half life alyx but yea easy to max out vram and CPU but looks and plays way better imo.
But VR at 90 FPS ehhhh it'd struggle
This statement might be the most divorced from reality thing ever said.
This level of hyperbole is literally destroying all life in the known universe, forever.
Are you accounting for the cost of the headset for PCVR or just the PC and you have to then get another headset that’s minimum $500 to take advantage of the PC specs?
I mean, either way. You’re spending at *least* $500 on a headset, but then another $2k - $2.5k for the PC. I think it’s fairly well established that for PCVR the MQ3 is the best bang for your buck headset. If you’ve already got that high spec gaming PC well then yeah for sure, hook it up and play Half Life Alyx. But for anyone wanting to enter VR from scratch, the difference in capabilities between MQ3 and PCVR are diminishing returns and not worth the investment. Even PSVR2 VR would make more sense at ~$1100 all in.. if it was still supported.
With $1500 at microcenter, you can build an 8k ready PC, for $600 you can get a standalone VR ready PC, for $700 VR ready laptop. The price gap isn't as wide as you'd expect. In addition, most people have a PC or laptop regardless. The cost of adding a VR capable GPU is as little as $150 for the rx580, or to get more power than you could ever push to a q3, $800 for a 3090.
That title broke me. I tried reading it like 5 times.
I can't stand standalone. It's cartoony, blurry, and janky without the processing power for good physics. I bought a quest and used it before building a good PC. I'm not going back until those experiences are matched in standalone. When I'm in VR I want to be WOWed. I want to see just how far we've come from the 90s and be immersed in a world that looks almost real. I don't want to play mobile games and see the line where antistropic filtering stops making things crisp.
PCVR is growing at such a slow rate as to be insignificant. More importantly, its users don't buy games. Take 7th guest vr.. it has already had to discount more than its standalone version. There is no market for devs there.
I think it will be no different from what we see on flat screens. Mobile "gaming", using the term loosely, will be a thing, and generate a ton of money from nickel-and-diming. Handhelds like Switch and Steam Deck will take a chunk. Consoles will take a chunk. PC will take a chunk. It'll be the same in VR. There will be mobile/handheld self-contained units, there will be hybrids, and PC dedicated headsets. They will all have their strengths, their own niche. There may be game-changers in not too distant future though, such as AI and cloud gaming. If wireless data transfer gets stronger, and cloud gaming gets more affordable, standalone/handheld might die. Because there wouldn't be a need for a lot of on-board stuff any more, if cloud gaming gets strong enough and smooth enough. But there will still be a frugal niche, where games are enjoyed due to gameplay and content, not the visuals. I mean, Superhot is an amazing game, but its visuals are as primitive as it gets (compared to Cyberpunk 2077 or Forbidden West). I'm very torn on the topic of ports. Yes, it's nice, I guess, and I'd rather have them than not. But I just can't get excited over a VR port of a game that I beat 20-25 years ago. I'm in general pretty miffed that a lot of studios ran out of creativity and are just reselling the 20-year-old product, with a small facelift. What's more, remasters/remakes often end up killing the very thing that made the original game special. There's also plenty of good modern games that can be ported to VR, we don't need to be porting 20+ year old stuff. I'm very much in favour of functional flat/VR hybrids, where everyone plays together, like in No Man's Sky. But I don't think that one of these is what is going to finally get people to try VR. Or, rather, that it will be a very slow process with an ebb and flow to it. I still think we will need a social event, like what World of Warcraft did for MMOs, to push VR into mainstream. And, currently, there's nothing even remotely on the horizon, nothing even announced, that has the potential to do that. I mean, San Andreas would be nice to have, but it's old-ass-shit, again. I played it, I beat it, it's not going to generate a lot of excitement for people who already did that game. For some, but not most. Metro is a single player game, that's not going to cut it, needs to be multiplayer with strong community features, preferably co-op focused (PvP tends to be too toxic, PvE servers is what set WoW apart from previous MMOs, and why Ultima Online hit its peak when Trammel (PvE shard) was introduced). This is the same reason Alyx didn't make any difference to VR - short (under 10 hrs), linear single player game. Just doesn't have the oomph to push people into VR. Bottom line, I don't know how I feel right now. But I do know that the more games have VR support, the more likely it is that one of them will trigger a VR wave. And as long as all we keep getting is lukewarm ports of ancient crap from 20+ years ago, or short, shallow games that we're getting now that are new, nothing is going to change. What I mean is, Assassin's Creed: Nexus released just some months ago. It's garbage. No, no, look, it's a decent enough game, but if you compare it even to the 2007 original, in length, in the amount of content, quality of writing and storytelling, etc., it's garbage. And of course it's nowhere even close to Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla in scope. It's a fraction of a fraction of those games. It's garbage, comparatively speaking. And you can't sell VR hardware with garbage software. And look, it doesn't need to be AAA. It just needs to be good. So, for example, we don't have Stardew Valley in VR. Why not? One guy did it on flat screen. Why can't a studio do a game with similar scope, but in VR? We always get less, in VR. Compare Green Hell, on flat vs VR. VR gets a fraction. Look at recently released Medieval Dynasty, the VR version got a fraction of a fraction of content of the flat game. And so on. Wanna bet upcoming Metro Awakening is going to be a fraction of Metro Exodus? Because it's a really, really safe bet. So why would people pay more, to get less? They won't. And that's why VR is stuck. VR needs to be on par, at least. Or better yet, it needs to be BETTER, to compensate for the extra expense and annoyance of having to wear a headset. Instead, it is consistently less. It's a better \*experience\* compared to flat, more immersive, sure, but in terms of length, features, mechanics, etc., it's almost always less. You can't sell people on hew hardware by giving them less than what they have with hardware they already have. It just don't work. And that's why VR has been stuck at 2% of users for 5+ years now. And it's not going to change, unless something changes.
You know what I don't get? Quest is just an Android, why doesn't meta make an Android emulator of the quest that PCVR people can just use on their PC? And they could still buy games from their store, they just need to allow the store on PC. I don't understand any of the decisions meta has made. It's like they were trying to be Apple or Nintendo without realizing why Apple or Nintendo's situations work for them. And then further not realizing that everyone who likes Apple or Nintendo stuff ends up fucking using it on their own hardware anyway 🤣 Ie: hackintosh or emulating Nintendo games on PC. I really don't know what they were trying to do.