What quite content does Oculus really need?
What quite content does Oculus really need?
Whenever an industry promotes a replacement entertainment platform — colour television , the VCR, Blu-ray, VR — it faces an equivalent classic quandary. Consumers won't invest during a new system unless there's great content available for it. Meanwhile, great independent content producers won't make that material until the platform features a lot of users.
So how do initial platform creators like Oculus get that content to start with? They buy it. They buy it by building internal content studios, by buying already-successful studios (as Oculus did in November by acquiring the maker of Beat Saber), and by directly paying, subsidizing and assisting outside developers to form what they hope is compelling, platform-defining content.
Modern VR's top consumer category has been games. So when Facebook hires a seasoned game executive like Mike Verdu to run its overall AR/VR content operation, what the corporate is basically saying is: Quest needs great games.
Quest is clearly Facebook's most vital VR product. Facebook is pinning its consumer VR ambitions on the hope that by liberating VR from wires, from separate sensors and from the necessity for a strong PC,
But Facebook isn't marketing the search as an excellent game machine immediately , perhaps for the straightforward reason that there are not any major top-end games available for the system yet. "If you check out our marketing materials today, they're about what Quest as a product can do," said Chris Pruett, Facebook's director of AR/VR content ecosystem. "You don't need a PC. you choose it up, you set it on, there is no wires. you do not do 20 minutes of system updates before you'll run your computer game ."
Rather than emphasize big-name games from famous properties, Facebook has been counting on relatively simple diversions to stress the essential physical and mental engagement of computer game . once you swing a virtual sword in Beat Saber, the wireless nature of Quest does actually allow the brain to mimic the feeling of wielding a (very light) blade. Because Quest is being pitched to everyday consumers, not hard-core VR experts, Facebook is curating the official store for Quest apps much more tightly than it does the marketplace for Rift S software. Facebook doesn't want the typical Quest VR newbie to stumble into buying some schlocky, low-quality app. so as to bypass those guardrails, Quest users must use a separate high-end cable (which Oculus doesn't provide within the box) and plug into a PC, thereby undercutting the Quest's main point .
"It's Beat Saber, it's Superhot, but it isn't a Halo, not a title that a gamer's getting to recognize outside of the space." Once users start to navigate the shop , Pruett said he hopes users will believe the standard of the games quite simple name recognition.
The casual games strategy seems to be working for go after now, but Verdu — Pruett's boss — said that one among his top priorities is driving so-called "AAA" games onto Oculus headsets.
For a minimum of this year, top-end gaming on Oculus are going to be available on Rift S, not the wireless Quest. (The Medal of Honor series from Electronic Arts is coming to Rift S later this year, for instance .) Quest can run AAA games — just like the groundbreaking Half Life: Alyx from Valve — while plugged into a computer, but not in wireless mode for the straightforward reason that the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor inside the headset is way less powerful than modern computer GPUs.
Jason Rubin, Facebook's vice chairman for special gaming initiatives, said that standalone VR headsets are fundamentally constrained — but new technologies like game-streaming could allow PC-quality graphics without wires within the future.

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