John Carmack described PC VR as “a boutique area of interest”, standalone VR as “the largest win that VR ever had”, and Beat Saber as “way more vital than Half-Life: Alyx”.
In a put up on X, the previous Oculus CTO as soon as once more clarified his place on standalone and PC VR, a place he has held for greater than a decade.
Each time I put up one thing vital of Meta’s dealing with of VR, there are at all times some previous timers that pile on with “Yeah! Extra AAA PC VR Video games is the best way to win!”. To be clear — standalone VR was the largest win that VR ever had, by an enormous margin, and Beat Saber was way more vital than Half-Life Alyx.
Utilizing a PC to drive VR experiences is a boutique area of interest. Nonetheless invaluable and positively price supporting as a bonus function, however not one thing that was going to show into even console stage success, not to mention cellular stage.
The economics of AAA growth had been by no means going to be extensively dropped at bear on a PC accent. I do assume there’s alternative for AAA content material to profitably have “VR bonus options”, however not totally designed-for-VR tasks at comparable ranges of effort.”
Carmack was the driving drive behind the unique cellular VR efforts at Oculus, spearheading the software program aspect of the Samsung Gear VR partnership and Oculus Go, which was primarily a standalone model of it.
In 2012, earlier than he even formally joined Oculus, Carmack described his objective of a headset that might use “cell phone {hardware}” and cameras for positional monitoring with no wires. And in 2013, whereas CTO of Oculus, Carmack even described this ultimate headset as operating a model of Android.
A number of months after the unique Oculus Quest launched, bringing positional monitoring and tracked controllers to standalone VR, Carmack proudly revealed that it was “by far” the corporate’s most retentive headset but, surpassing each PC-based Rift headsets.
By March 2023, round two and a half years into the Quest 2 period, Meta had bought practically 20 million Quest headsets, vastly greater than any PC VR headset.
Carmack: Quest Is ‘By Far Our Most Retentive {Hardware}’, Rift S Surpasses Rift
Fb’s new VR headsets are already seeing spectacular retention, in line with John Carmack. Throughout his keynote speech at Oculus Join 6 right now, Carmack introduced that Oculus Quest is “by far” Fb’s most retentive {hardware}. The Oculus Rift S, nonetheless, has already surpassed the unique Rift when it comes to
Half-Life: Alyx has bought roughly 3 million items. In distinction, nearly 10 million individuals have unlocked the primary achievement of Beat Saber on Quest alone, and the sport can be out there on each PlayStation VR headsets and SteamVR.
So on goal attain, Carmack is objectively appropriate. However whether or not you assume Beat Saber or Half-Life: Alyx has higher cultural influence might be a matter of debate.
