Message from @Nadeko
Discord ID: 268455698189385728
maybe nintendo is being risk-adverse too but we'll see how their first party titles pan out
I think the VR devs are playing it safe though by pricing so high, that they wont lose bad if it flops
They could risk more and push it out significantly cheaper but that's a risk
software or hardware? the hardware is arguably as cheap as it gets now in the current incarnation
Hardware, but software too
close to being subsidized by title sales but that's another rabbit hole
VR won't reap too many benefits from moore's law and is limited by the physical kit
big deep rabbit hole but if people pay $450 for a pair of sunglasses and $400 for a cell phone it's kinda silly to say that VR is overly expensive
The rift is mostly a cheap ~1080p screen, gryros, expensive headphones and the sensor
it costs $400 for a 70" 4k TV at walmart in the US now
so the redirection of funds could go towards the VR kit if popular culture and a team of attractive streamers starts to generate that mindshare to create demand
people seek the lust-worthy items instead of investing in something silly like a 401k
a $500 VR kit seems like a natural progression
Also yes, they're different experiences, competitive games and casual games are more like board games, either something you want to be good at to prove yourself but for most people something to do with friends while immersive games try to immerse you in a different world and amaze you
yup... so VR is perfect for that market
the Nintendo Switch takes the more common ground road
there's an intersection of the two that would hopefully evolve things further
be it AR or local multiplayer "copilots" who remain in the "real world"
The BoM of a rift is ~$200(and could be reduced even more by larger scale), they could cut the price quite a bit if they were confident and wanted to get VR into homes
the worst thing is lukewarm press
if it was slashed in price today and people bought them up cheap, and it became like pokemon go, it would be a disaster
But they're playing it safe and making customers pay for all the RND so if they fail they wont have huge losses.
a VR shop needs good rapport with developers
if they made a dust-magnet doorstop right off that bat for the sake of being first to market then they might as well say they're making it a totally open platform for everyone and they're just going to liquidate and become a nonprofit organization
because it commodizes everything they've made
race to the bottom is not good
The closest I can think of like that is battlefield, very immerive while having fun and lasting mechanics, and they had the commander mode in bf4. Commander mode failed though since the commander couldnt do much.
hopefully the money they make goes towards investments in better development tools
Somethng like that needs loads of both CPU and GPU horsepower though
games like battlefield and mechwarrior would definitely benefit, and are obvious choices for launch titles, but i'd hazard to guess that the blockbuster titles in that vein would be much more interesting than that
i'm sad there aren't more games that try that RTS+FPS formula since it can be fun, albeit hard to balance
world of warships kinda does that with carriers
anyway there are people getting paid to do this stuff, rest assured
nintendo can have my mcbucks
for not following the pack at least
But a cheaper VR sets would mean incentive for people to acctually make serious games, which are almost nonexistant atm, they'll have to get them out before others will invest in games for them. Hype also dies down, and it wont come back for a good while once it's a flop in peoples mind.
It wouldnt make them more of a comodity, other than being less of luxury items, it'd acctually make more competition less likely to enter the market if they pushed out the best product for a good price.
And I dont rest assured about anything in gaming, I see little but decline.
you might be right, we wouldn't know without more empircal data
rts+fps?