[willis936]

The cost of less nefarious data collection is... 1000 USD.

I'm glad there is competition in this space, but for average person 1000 USD is too much for a toy. I bought an oculus CV1 used on ebay a few years ago when there was a lull in demand. It's fun, but the second they demand a facebook login it permanently goes on the shelf. Rather unfortunate, but hey maybe one day VR toys will be accessible to non-elites without having to buy into a cyberpunk dystopia (ie if a more benevolent competitor releases cheaper hardware).

[gravypod]

The sad thing is that the Quest has other benefits that, to me, make it worth more than the Index. This video covers some of the magic that's possible with the Quest [0]. Before the Quest was in people's hands I was constantly getting shot down when I was saying:

1. Inside-out tracking is the future.

2. Detaching from the desktop and playing on the go is a huge feature (tetherless).

3. Hand tracking will re-imagine HCI

Everyone I know, some of whom are very big Valve fans, would tell me that "fidelity is more important" and "outside-in is fundamentally better and will always be better". That's simply not true as evidenced by the new headset from Facebook.

Multiple studios have completely switched to developing for the Quest 2 as the standard.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6qqWzThlI