Oculus To Ship "Lucky's Tale" Game With Rift (oculus.com) 39
An anonymous reader writes: Oculus has announced that a second game, Lucky's Tale, will come bundled with their virtual reality headset. The system will also come with another free virtual reality game: EVE: Valkyrie from CCP Games. An announcement reads: "Today, we're excited to announce that Lucky's Tale, the incredible made-for-VR platformer by Playful, will be included free with every Oculus Rift! Lucky's Tale, an Oculus Studios title, takes you on an adventure of a lifetime with Lucky, the fun-loving fox. The game takes you to a charming new world, with dozens of locales and lush environments."
Missed opportunity (Score:2)
The price worries me a bit. (Score:2)
In the past they've indicated a target price less than $500. I can't help wonder if they've found that to be a tad unrealistic and are bundling games and an xbox one controller as a way to smooth over a higher price tag.
VR is at that stage in its life where it could become the next big thing, but it's not going to take off if the kit costs much more than a traditional high-end gaming monitor.
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Re:The price worries me a bit. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that it's been there for a long time. I played Duke3d in VR at Slam Site in the mid 90s. The only effective change from an end user perspective is that you don't have to stand on a DDR type platform to use it anymore. That's 20 years of innovation.
The innovation is not in the look of the device, it is in all of the technology inside the device. I think you are discounting the massive improvements in screens and video processing that makes this generation of virtual reality possible. The minimum requirements for an Oculus Rift is a computer equipped with a GTX 970, a top of the line $350 video card. To put things in perspective, the GTX 970 is about 60x faster than the GeForce 6800 GT that was released in 2004, and I'm not even sure how to compare it to video cards from the 90's.
The Oculus Rift consumer version will consume 233 million pixels per second and will display top of the line graphics, which blow away anything from the 90s. The screens being used by the Oculus use the best panels money can buy, and they are a huge difference compared to what was available 5 years ago let alone 20 years ago.
The reason we have so many VR headsets coming out in such a short period of time is not coincidence. It is because the technology has finally caught up with peoples' expectations. Or at least that is what the companies producing these products are betting on.
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and I'm not even sure how to compare it to video cards from the 90's. The Oculus Rift consumer version will consume 233 million pixels per second and will display top of the line graphics, which blow away anything from the 90s.
Good comparison.
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I think it'll take off at any sub-$1K price point. Obviously it'll catch on faster if they can get it under $500.
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VR is better than a high-end gaming monitor for anyone who doesn't get motion sickness. Even Gear VR is incredibly immersive, and the Rift + a gaming PC will be a much more powerful device.
I think it'll take off at any sub-$1K price point. Obviously it'll catch on faster if they can get it under $500.
I really hope Oculus Rift is truthful with their claims that the CV1 release of the headset will do away with motion sickness problems. I can handle 3-D movies and first person shooters, but need Dramamine for boats, can't deal with spinning amusement park rides, and can't read while driving. I really hope I will be able to use the Oculus Rift, which I will certainly purchase if it is $500 and will probably still purchase if it is around $750.
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In the past they've indicated a target price less than $500. I can't help wonder if they've found that to be a tad unrealistic and are bundling games and an xbox one controller as a way to smooth over a higher price tag.
VR is at that stage in its life where it could become the next big thing, but it's not going to take off if the kit costs much more than a traditional high-end gaming monitor.
I don't think that's the case, what's much more likely to be the reason is that they don't want a chicken and egg problem. VR has very little penetration, so there are very few games for it, so why buy a VR headset now? By bundling games with it, you increase its value, perhaps sufficiently so that people will buy it just for the packaged games. It's pretty much what Nintendo did with Wii Sports.
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I don't think that's the case, what's much more likely to be the reason is that they don't want a chicken and egg problem. VR has very little penetration, so there are very few games for it, so why buy a VR headset now? By bundling games with it, you increase its value, perhaps sufficiently so that people will buy it just for the packaged games. It's pretty much what Nintendo did with Wii Sports.
In the case of the Rift, bootstrapping support is something the dev kits were for and accomplished. There are already a fair amount of games that support it, and NVIDIA and AMD already explicitly have VR support libraries for devs to use that help to tie into the Rift and other headsets.
From my perspective, I already own three or four games that have first class Rift support that I can't wait to throw the CV1 at. Increasing the cost of the kit to bundle a bunch of stuff I don't want is a big discouragement.
Facebook Oculus (Score:2)
I am a big fan of the underdog and the fact that FB owns Oculus just makes me not want to touch it.
I know there is the Samsung deal (Gear VR).
It seems like 2016 will be the year of the VR headset wars.
How do you think it will turn out? Oculus on top? Unfortunately, I am guessing this will be the case.
I was also a big fan of HD-DVD (for the inexpensive / backward compatibility aspects)... I clearly don't have very good predictive skills.
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I was also a big fan of HD-DVD (for the inexpensive / backward compatibility aspects)...
Huh? The only backwards compatibility aspects to HD DVD was that the player could play DVDs, but so could all Blu-Ray players.
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Well, it was a red laser technology just like DVD so backward compatibility was less complex.
For BR players to be able to read DVDs it has to have a separate laser.
There was also my long standing bias against Sony at play too.
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Well, it was a red laser technology just like DVD so backward compatibility was less complex.
Not really. Putting the two lasers on a single head is actually not that complex at all.
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Which is why if you buy a used bluray player you have a 50/50 chance of it being able to play dvd's even if it has the dvd logo on it.
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It has DVD in the name. Therefore, it is more backward compatible with DVDs, in the same way Blu-Ray is more compatible with Bluetooth.
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HD-DVD manufacturing could be retrofitted on DVD equipment with minor upgrades. If you're a DVD plant, upgrading to HD-DVD equipment was simple and could be used to make both HD-DVDs and DVDs together. Blu-Rays require a whole new plant as Blu-Rays require a new production technique incompatible with DVD.
That's why most HD-DVDs came with a DVD copy of the movie as a "flipper" disc. D
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I am a big fan of the underdog and the fact that FB owns Oculus just makes me not want to touch it.
They weren't an underdog for some time prior to acquisition. They had raised $94 million.
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I thought Valve was going to steal the show, but with their recently revealed screen problems it looks like Occulus is still the one to beat.
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From where I sit it's looking like Oculus, Vive and Playstation VR are the "serious" contenders. However, it's still early days. And Apple will probably come up with something, too.
All my instincts tell me to pull for HTC Vive. Steam is great. The lighthouse tracking system is great. It's not FB. Seems like an easy choice, but my crystal ball is always murky, and usually whatever I go for is the first thing to flop.
Spoiler Alert (Score:2)
Turns out he's not so lucky after all.
Did Facebook pay (Score:2)
for this advertisement?
Coming to Facebook wall near you (Score:5, Funny)
Mark Zuckerberg has announced he will be giving away 1000 Oculus Rifts to people who share this post.
Is it exclusive to the Rift? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will this game be available for other headsets?
The one dark cloud that I see hanging over VR right now is balkanization. Just like in the early days of computering: When you were the guy with the Atari 800, but you walked into the store and all they had was Apple II and Commodore 64 games. Then you went to the next store and found only Tandy and TI99/4A software. . .
So, are we going to have Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Razer OSVR, Playstation VR, Vrvana Totem, and something we haven't even seen yet from Apple, all running their own little software ecosystems full of "exclusive" titles?
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...all running their own little software ecosystems full of "exclusive" titles?
Yes. Until VR sets are more of a commodity. Pretty much like any other new genre of product, I expect.
does anyone give a fuck anymore (Score:2)
rift missed its own hype train 2 years ago
Does anyone know anything about this game? (Score:2)
Is it any good? If not, who cares that it's "free"?