Hmm, not so sure about this one - they are not really competing in the same space. I would of course super happy if Oculus released a high end headset for say $800 or $1,000 but it is unlikely, given their focus on casual mass appeal. The highest being expected at current seems to be approx. $600 for their new Quest 3 or Pro. The overlap would likely lie in the tracking of eyes, face and body, but I fear that’s about it, otherwise Oculus will aim lower than Pimax (but polish their offering to way higher standards than Pimax, completely different level of professionalism given the budget Facebook is providing).
I have been wondering what drove Pimax to burst out with this wonder specs so early - but I guess the answer simply is, because they are Pimax and not much has changed, it’s still more or less the same characters at the top (what happened to Nordic ? Don’t hear much of him these days). They are just so eager to show what they have planned & tried. While others cover their R&D in shrouds until the production is ramped up, Pimax gives away their road map early.
At the end, it may have been a plan to protect the sales of the 8KX & co… But less related to Oculus, more towards Varjo (and Valve some day) - these plus the G2 are their competitors in the higher end class. Imagine, the 12K doesn’t arrive on schedule, but 1, 2 years late. You know it’s supposed to come, with all the goodies Pimax announced. Now you want to upgrade your VR experience today, not in an uncertain future - but at the same time the 12K has more exciting specs than the Aero. So what do you do ? Hey, Pimax said grab an 8KX today, and send it back when the 12K releases - so you get an upgrade over your Rift S or whatever you are using today and at the same time don’t miss out on the new holy grail of VR, the 12K. And like that - snatch - the customer has been lured away from Varjo…
(and if Pimax never release a 12K, they lured a number of users into buying a headset from their current line-up Okay, I’m sure that’s not their thinking but it could even work out that way if they completely mess up the development of the 12K)
The point is, the 12K sounds way more complex than the 8K/8KX did. And certainly than the DMAS did; yet they had to delay the releases of both considerably.
So many different components to integrate into one headset; a whole range of critical paths I see with the tech they are aiming to bring in. Frankly I am afraid it could end up as a device which technically possesses all the advertised specs yet doesn’t deliver a substantial part of them properly (like the eye-tracking module, DMAS - yes, both were released and delivered, but underwhelmed a fair portion of the recipients).
Due to this much greater complexity I foresee a big chance for them to not meet the targeted date. When I said earlier that I expected them to be 6-12 months late, that actually is what I consider an optimistic prognosis because that is what I would likely even think if this was Varjo who had announced that kind of wild specs.