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by intellix 419 days ago
I had the HTC Vive quite a few years ago, using it a lot and constantly buying new games and experiences to try it out. It was a little annoying paying full whack for little 5-10min tech demos but was still encapsulated by it. Eventually got the wireless extension to avoid having to detangle the rope of a cable you were tethered to, but the base stations in the corner of the room were still annoying me cause you constantly had to re-calibrate it everytime someone nudged or moved them.

Left it for quite a few years and after seeing the reviews about the Quest 3, I bought that and was amazed by how simple it was to pickup and use and the fact that you didn't need a monster computer running it. You literally pick it up and get going. The Meta app store is filled with lots of VR Titles which aren't just tech demos and you can STILL hook it up to your computer and play a host of Steam games. The Quest 3 was like €500 and basically a full platform.

The Vision Pro got announced with a few improvements like higher resolution but it was an insane €3500... ok I was curious how much better it would be, since I was quite impressed by my Quest 3.

My friend had bought one, one of those people who loves to wear expensive watches and be seen in public having a lot of money. As with a lot of Apple products it's sometimes about being seen to have the latest thing and the Vision Pro was great for sitting in public, catching attention and showing people that you can afford a €3500 device.

He brings it on holiday and is passing it around the room, showing people the dinosaur tech demo and everyone is amazed at how brilliant it is. For all of those in amazement (including my friend) it was their very first experience getting into VR and I also went through the same feeling when I first got the HTC Vive.

He gives it to me and shows me the dinosaur tech demo and all I could really think was... how does this thing cost €3000 more than the Quest 3? I asked him: Where are the games? there are none. Can you hook it up to Steam? No... When the battery dies, can you swap it with another? No.

Unless I had bought my Quest 3 to compare them side-by-side I honestly could not feel that it was much better visually... the finger tracking to go through menus wasn't bad, but that was it.

I think the fact that Apple devices are generally in the thousands already: MBP can be like £3000, iPhone can be like £1k... it makes sense that they were able to sell them for the price of what they did, but for me it's just insanity.

Do they have a library of games yet? Do they have any VR Games yet? Someone said it wasn't priced for consumers and I guess that's fine, but again... why wouldn't you just buy a Quest 3 (unless you hate Facebook)?

1 comments

what about the non-entertainment factor? i.e. using Quest 3 or AVP to replace the monitor for development work?
you can't really use them for long durations of time because your face gets hot and sweaty, from my experience. It doesn't feel good to have something stuck to your face.

Also, the resolution still isn't good enough to see small text IMO.