The Index is great (thinking of getting one myself - it's just the price putting me off!), but at the price it's unlikely it'll reach big enough numbers become mainstream.
As Index will be a fraction of the VR headsets, it's unlikely a lot of devs will make it and the index controllers their core focus. They'll always have to offer a control solutions for touch controllers and vive wands, which makes it tricky to have games which really make use of the Index controller's unique features. In one respect Oculus has the advantage here as their touch controllers are standard across all their headsets, and are good enough for the majority of uses.
Devs are seeing huge increases on sales for Oculus Quest ports over their Steam VR, Rift & PSVR versions, so it's likely that will remain the focus for a lot of VR development.
I agree. 919 isa big price tag and will therefore likely not gain mainstream traction easily.
However we live in an age where people spend 1000 on their phones and 1000 on their ipads. If Oculus can tackle the culture of VR being a gimick and actually a necessity, then the acceptable price of entry for a premium experience will rise too.
However Valve's biggest issue towards mainstream appeal is not their pricing, its their reliance on an expensive gaming PC.
The Oculus Quest is no doubt the way forwards for mainstream VR. Thats VR for everyone. Its portable, easy, boot times are fast, no additional hardware required and the attachment rate is way higher. The sad byproduct of that is one of the big innovators in VR (Oculus) will no longer be innovating at a high end level. If Oculus want to chase the mainstream market and maintain an acceptable price tag, then at 399 or 499 they are really limited in regards to what they can release. They simply can't afford to release a competitior to the knuckles when the knuckles cost 280.
We saw the byproduct of this with the controller input parity between the Rift S and the Quest. The Touch controllers make PERFECT sense for the Quest. Great, ergonomic, cheap but durable for portable transport and no reliance on rechargable batteries. However for direct PCVR use, they just scream a lack of effort when it comes to the Rift S and could have been much more.
The only way I see for Oculus to succeed TBH is to split ways from the Rift product line or continue to outsource it. The quest is the better device. It is the Valve Index of Portable VR. It's amazing. It feels good, its build quality is good, its compromises are understandable, it will have finger tracking for portable use without the controllers. And finally it can still act as a PCVR headset.
The sad byproduct of this is will Oculus keep funding PCVR game development or just concentrate on Quest games and port over to PC? I haven't been blown away my Oculus's exclusive titles when I compare them to the equivalent Sony/Nintendo/MS exclusives and its sadly dreadfully obvious they're new to the gaming development business. I have no doubt for example in my mind that Half Life Alyx will blow away any Oculus exclusive title. But at the same time, one less high end PCVR developers for high end users will be very upsetting.
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I'd prefer for Oculus to release two products
1. Quest 399/499
2. Quest S 699/799
Quest is just your budget friendly Quest.
Quest S is a simply better Quest geared towards PCVR use.
And both use Oculus Link V2.0
I don't see a future for the Rift product line aslong as there exists an Oculus headset which does what it does AND offers a portable tether-less experience.