[sayurichick]

the rift controllers are nicer, at least until Vive releases their new ones.

Tracking is less of a hassle on the vive. Fewer cables, easier.

rift has their own ecosystem which can also play almost every game on the steam library.

vive primarily has steam, but with some hackery (revive), you can play some rift games.

Hardware-wise, they're practically the same. Comfort-wise, Rift takes it.

Development-wise? tough, but I think Rift takes it as well. You get a free license for unity or unreal4 i forget which. And they've improved the developer documentation greatly recently.

The good thing is most multiplayer games support both.

[pshc]

Hardware wise, Vive's tracking tech supports larger tracking volumes and is more scalable. We'll be able to add quite a few more tracked objects to a Vive scene.

[dkonofalski]

Why do you say that the Rift takes it comfort-wise?I'm only curious because I take issue with the OP for exactly this reason. The latest Vive release ways less than the Rift (according to their specs) for which the hardware has changed very little. They were so focused on the controllers that they haven't bothered to update the main hardware and I think their win with the controllers will be short-lived.

[agar]

As I understand it, the Rift's weight includes the weight of the integrated headphones.

Also, the actual HMD (excluding strap, headphones, cable hooks, etc.) of the Vive is still about 40% heavier than Rift's, so there's still more "face tug" and fatigue over longer sessions.

Again, I have not directly tested this, but it makes sense as there's substantially more plastic in the Rift's strap system (i.e., back of the head) than Vive's.

[dkonofalski]

Where are you getting that info? According to the specs on both sites, the Vive is lighter than the Rift (although you're probably correct that this includes the weight of headphones whereas the Vive only comes with the in-ear buds). That to me makes it seem like the HMD hardware has gotten lighter because I can't imagine that they would make the straps less sturdy to shed weight. I could be wrong, but that doesn't make sense to me.

Edit: It seems the initial Vive release was heavier than the Rift but the latest release is lighter.

[agar]

According to Palmer Luckey[1], the Rift strap assembly (including back of head counterweight and earphones) is about 150g. That puts the HMD portion at about 320g.

The new Vives weigh about 468g. According to Amazon, a replacement back strap weighs 1.8 ounces (51g)[2]. The Vive HMD w/out strap would be - at the least - about 417g.

Even at a 417g weight, that's about 30% heavier than Rift's strapless weight. Since the 1.8g may include packaging, the HMD may weigh a bit more, bringing the % up to 40% or so.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/47rb3m/the_rift_cv1...

[2] http://a.co/6PUVw7v: "Package Dimensions 4.2 x 3.9 x 3.9 inches; 1.8 ounces" (so 1.8 ounces may include packaging).