Facebook announced Oculus Quest, and it's already obsolete... according to its designers!

Remember when Facebook won (and lost) a lawsuit partly waged over the way they poached John Carmack away from Zenimax/ID? I wonder if they're re-thinking that acquisition after Carmack compared their next-generation "all-in-one" Oculus device to last-generation gaming consoles?

For the record, here is how Facebook/Oculus described their new device during the actual announcement, as reported by Gizmodo yesterday:

“This is it,” Mark Zuckerberg said to a crowd of developers and press at Facebook’s annual VR developers conference, Oculus Connect. “This is the all-in-one VR experience that we have been waiting for. It’s wireless, its got hand presence, 6 degrees of freedom, and it runs Rift-quality experiences.”

And here is how Oculus' CTO described the Quest at the same conference, as reported by arstechnica:

In a wide-ranging and occasionally rambling unscripted talk at the Oculus Connect conference today, CTO John Carmack suggested the Oculus Quest headset was "in the neighborhood of power of an Xbox 360 or PS3."

That doesn't mean the Quest, which is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, can generate VR scenes comparable to those seen in Xbox 360 or PS3 games, though. As Carmack pointed out, most games of that generation targeted a 1280x720 resolution at 30 frames per second. On Quest, the display target involves two 1280x1280 images per frame at 72fps. That's 8.5 times as many pixels per second, with additional high-end anti-aliasing effects needed for VR as well.

"It is not possible to take a game that was done at a high-quality level [on the Xbox 360 or PS3] and expect it to look good in VR," Carmack said.

So... it's wireless, but needs a four-camera room-scale setup to work, and it aims to provide a Rift-quality experience, but can't because it just doesn't pack enough processing power. Also, count on it, Quest will cost significantly more than the Go, if only because of those cameras... and Oculus Go isn't exactly flying off shelves. Why does this exist, again?

Oculus cuts prices, which will be great if they're still allowed to sell headsets

With VR headsets of all kinds struggling to lure in consumers, and Oculus Rift in particular lagging behind its competitors, a price cut of some kind would seem to be long overdue, but at least it's finally happening.

From New Atlas:

If you were holding off on getting a high-end VR headset because of pricing, Oculus just made the hit on your wallet a bit lighter, with a significant price drop on both the Rift headset and Touch controllers.

Starting today, the Oculus Rift headset now costs US$499 (down from $599) and the Touch motion controls are now $99 (from $199). A bundle that includes both is now $598. The new pricing is reflected on Oculus' website, as well as Amazon and Best Buy.

Additionally, a third Oculus sensor (required for 360° tracking) drops to $59 from $79.

The Rift was always too expensive, so bringing the Rift more in line with PlayStation VR, and making it significantly less expensive than the HTC Vive, could help sales... assuming they're still allowed to sell headsets, of course, something that ZeniMax has filed an injunction to prevent.

Bringing the price point of a Rift bundle down by US$200 won't solve any of VR's other problems, though, including a lack of compelling content, a lack of consumer interest in the devices, generally, and unresolved issues like VR sickness, and I doubt that it'll propel users into VR. Consumers weren't sitting on the sidelines because VR was awesome-but-expensive, they were sitting on the sidelines because VR is basically useless, and therefore too expensive at any price. Unless VR becomes significantly more useful, the price is going to have to come down a lot more than this to make it appealing.

At least it's now just the cost of an expensive peripheral, though, and not the cost of a major appliance; seriously, you could have bought a new fridge for what Oculus was originally charging for the Rift. HTC should be following suit soon enough, and most reviews describe their product as superior (assuming you have a room to dedicate to a room-scale VR set-up), so if you're waiting for VR to come down in price before buying, you may want to wait a little while longer.

The Oculus v. ZeniMax drama ain't over yet

When Oculus dodged the big legal bullet earlier this week (i.e. a civil finding of basically industrial espionage), I figured that all the big drama was over with this one. Yes, Facebook would pay a steep price for failing to do their due diligence before buying Oculus, but $500M is chump change for a corporation with tens of billions in their cash reserve, and the jury declined to find that the Rift was based on tech that Oculus had outright stolen -- which should have meant the business of VR could go on without any further litigation drama.

Facebook and ZeniMax somehow both turned out to be horrible losers, though, with Facebook planning to appeal the damages that were awarded, Carmack openly talking smack about ZeniMax's case (something that I'd think Facebook's legal counsel would have recommended against, but whatevs), and ZeniMax escalating things by talking about seeking an injunction to stop sales of the Rift.

Since the decision specifically found that the Rift wasn't built using stolen tech, it was unclear to me what ZeniMax's reasoning would be for seeking such an injunction, or why any sane judge would grant it, so I was a little surprised to see so many tech journalists basically salivating over the possibility that the injunction might actually be granted. But litigation in the U.S. is bananas, and it looks like there may actually be a chance that ZeniMax can still cause some trouble for Oculus/Facebook, after all.

From Brian Crecente at Polygon:

It might seem unusual that a company can be found not guilty of stealing a trade secret, but guilty of copyright and that that decision could scuttle a product already on the market.

Joe Ahmad, a founding partner at Houston law firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., said that’s because it’s much easier to prove the copyright infringement. And in this case, the thing copyrighted is some of the code used to run the Oculus Rift headset.

“I would think the injunction is potentially much more important than the damages award, especially to a company as large as Facebook,” Ahmad said. “What ZeniMax would have to show is that it will see imminent harm and an irreparable injury without the injunction, and harm for which there would be no adequate remedy by an award of monetary damages. With respect to the last factor, typically, the plaintiff would argue that it would be difficult if not impossible to measure the amount of monetary damages stemming from the harm, an injunction is necessary to prevent the harm.

“One typical injunction could be to prevent the sale of the offending product, the Rift, but there are other possibilities as well. The prospect of such an injunction often prompts settlement discussions. One common arrangement would be a licensing agreement between the parties.”

For the record, I still think that ZeniMax are going to lose this one. Even if they find a really sympathetic judge willing to grant an injunction, Facebook can (and will) simply appeal it... and appeal again if that appeal isn't granted, and so on, and so on. Facebook is planning to lose money on Oculus for the next decade; an injunction that stops them from selling the Rift for a few months doesn't seem likely to force them to settle with ZeniMax for a share of Oculus' eventual profits. Especially since they're appealing that copyright-infringement part of the decision, anyway.

Also, Oculus is already losing the fight for VR market share, so there's no particular reason to think that an injunction against the Rift would change the state of play in VR:

Now, I didn't think that ZeniMax were going to be able to make any more legal trouble for Facebook at all, so maybe I'm wrong here, too, and maybe Facebook will try to settle out of court to avoid any possibility of losing any more VR market share at a time when the VR market still barely exists and isn't growing all that rapidly, anyway. I seriously doubt it, but what do I know? It is clear, though, that ZeniMax are planning to make this is difficult as they can for Facebook, apparently heedless of the cost to themselves, so the drama will continue for a while yet.

Make some popcorn, I guess, and watch the show.

Oculus v. Zenimax decided

From polygon:

A Dallas, Texas jury today awarded half a billion dollars to ZeniMax after finding that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, and by extension Oculus, failed to comply with a non-disclosure agreement he signed.

In awarding ZeniMax $500 million, the jury also said that Oculus did not misappropriate trade secrets as contended by ZeniMax.

Of the $500 million, Oculus is paying out $200 million for breaking the NDA and $50 million for copyright infringement. Oculus and Luckey each have to pay $50 million for false designation. And Iribe has to pay $150 million for the same, final count.

Reached for comment shortly after the verdict, Oculus said they will be appealing, but that they look forward to eventually putting the case behind them.

Basically, Facebook and various Oculus execs were ordered to pay a total of $500 million in damages for poaching Carmack away from id/Zenimax, but were exonerated on ZeniMax's industrial espionage claims. Facebook, who have boatloads of  cash, intend to appeal the $500 million award, apparently confident that they can outlast ZeniMax in the litigation marathon and end up paying a hell of a lot less than $500 million. Look forward to an out-of-court settlement, with no admission of wrongdoing, and an undisclosed dollar value that clocks in well short of today's awarded damages.

With ZeniMax having failed to litigate their way into the developing tech sector, and Facebook holding the hammer going into the 10th end while being up 3 rocks, the overall effect on the VR industry should be basically nothing.

/drama

The cost of Oculus

I'll be honest -- I'm not all that interested in the blow-by-blow of Zenimax v. Oculus proceedings. There's no legal precedent that the case promises to set, and with plenty of other players in the VR game, no obvious wider ramifications should Oculus end up being shut down; there's just a lot of "we say, they say" back-and-forth that won't really make sense until the judge tells us whose version of events is more credible, and whether Oculus gets to stay in business.

That said, it was somewhat interesting to learn how much Facebook paid for Oculus (US$1 billion more than previously reported). More interesting still, though, is the revelation that Facebook are apparently planning to sink another three billion dollars into VR, apparently with no profits in sight.

From digitaltrends.com:

Facebook is planning to pour $3 billion into virtual reality in the next decade in an effort to improve the tech.

The revelations came from the company’s head honcho himself, Mark Zuckerberg, who made the remarks while testifying in a federal court, reports The New York Times. The Facebook founder was surprisingly forthright in his projection for VR — which was released to the masses last year in the form of several devices from the likes of HTC, Sony PlayStation, and Facebook-owned Oculus — claiming the computing platform’s experience isn’t currently “good” enough for general users.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, the admission that VR simply isn't good enough yet, is new; everything up to now has been hype, hype, hype, with the seeming expectation that consumers will stump up hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for tech that has a ton of issues and no real use. All of the VR hardware developers have been full of breathless optimism about the usefulness of their devices until now; Zuckerberg is the first one to admit that VR simply isn't ready for prime time.

Second, this is the first sign we've seen from one of VR's biggest players that they realize just how much more money they're going to have to spend developing VR technology before it actually is ready: VR is going to cost Facebook billions of dollars, on top of the billions of dollars they've already spent, before they expect to see any return to speak of. I guess this is one advantage of having a (former) silicon valley start-up paying your bills: losing money for years on end with only the vaguest promise of profitability somewhere down the line is basically the dot-com playbook, and Facebook is one of the most successful dot-com survivors out there.

Whether Facebook's current shareholders are on board with this strategy, and willing to continue playing along, remains to be seen. If they are, and if Zenimax v. Oculus doesn't end up crippling Facebook's Oculus operation somehow, then Facebook might actually be able to make VR into a thing in a decade or so. It still won't be the current generation of VR tech that becomes a thing (something that some people have been predicting for months), and you still don't have to buy into VR anytime soon, but since there might actually be a next generation of Oculus' VR headset, the tech isn't dead yet.

And if HTC/Valve, Sony, and other VR headset developers are also willing to spend billions on research and development for the next decade, then Rift 2.0 could have plenty of company/competition when that happens.

Now, if Zuckerberg & co. could just see how short-sighted their "walled garden" approach is, when it comes to developing VR as a platform... Ah, well. Billion-dollar baby steps, I guess.

In other VR news

Zenimax v. Oculus seems to be gathering steam, with Mark Zuckerberg taking the stand today, and Zenimax claiming that Oculus/Facebook have destroyed evidence, so I'm thinking that the last thing Team Oculus want to hear is that developers are more interested in HTC's Vive than in Oculus' Rift, as a platform.

Wishes are not fishes, though, and interest in HTC Vive apparently is surging, as VR developers reveal they prefer it to Oculus Rift. At least, so says Richard Scott-Jones at PCGamesN:

Game developers making VR titles are showing a preference for Valve and HTC’s Vive headset over the Oculus Rift, according to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 survey. On every category - games in development, future platform of choice, general interest and platform exclusives - the Vive was in the lead. This is especially significant since the Vive was behind the Oculus in some categories as recently as last year.

Among the survey respondents who are making VR games, “24 percent are currently making games on HTC and Valve’s Vive headset, 23 percent are supporting Oculus Rift, and 13 percent are supporting Sony’s PlayStation VR,” according to the findings. Though that’s a scant lead for the Vive, it's a huge surge compared to last year, when it was on just six percent (the same as the PlayStation VR) to Oculus Rift's 19 percent.

Looking to the future, when devs were asked which platform they would use for the game after their next, 40 percent said the Vive, 37 the Oculus Rift, and 26 the PlayStation VR, in another clear sign that more devs are interested in developing for PC than console when it comes to VR.

An explanation for this apparent trend is not given, but it's not unreasonable to think that Oculus' "walled garden" approach to a VR market that basically doesn't even exist yet may be turning developers off the Rift as a platform; HTC and Valve have pursued a much more open approach to development on the Vive, and with the most popular PC games marketplace, Steam, available for the distribution of Vive games, Oculus' attempt at exclusivity may just end up squeezing them out of the VR market before that market has even formed.

At least, that's how Epic Games' Tim Sweeney sees it; from digitaltrends.com:

Epic games co-founder and Unreal Engine creator Tim Sweeney recently said in an interview that the HTC Vive virtual reality headset is outselling the Oculus Rift by 2-to-1 worldwide. Why? Because Oculus VR is following Apple’s software distribution model that many describe as a walled garden, which means the company’s device supports software sold through a proprietary store by default. By contrast, HTC doesn’t use that method for the Vive, providing a completely open platform where owners can purchase games and experiences from many different online markets.

“When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store,” he said. “You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It’s just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers.”

The fact that PCGamesN's survey showed developers to be more interested in HTC Vive than they are in PSVR, in spite of PSVR initial sales success, would seem to support this theory; PSVR is also a walled garden, and a console to boot, and the Vive's open approach and PC platform position (Steam's 125+ million users is still far more than PS4's 50+ million) seem to be outweighing even PSVR's larger installed user base when it comes to generating developers' interest in the platform. With Oculus having both slower sales and a walled garden, Vive may have too many advantages for Oculus to overcome, even before any impact is felt from the huge spectacle of their court battle with Zenimax.

Added to that, VR generally is still struggling to convince consumers to invest, and cheaper PCVR headsets are coming to compete with both the Rift and the Vive. Facebook's deep pockets notwithstanding, Oculus may be in trouble, here.