Steam deck costs 399 USD
You took the lowest grade one, on steam official page 1TB OLED costs 679 Eur plus 89 Eur for dock station, here where I am you also pay 1-2 hundreds on top, so said what I paid from top of my head
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Time for Pimax to give up on Crystal? Flight Sim Guy says Beyond 2 wipes the floor with Crystal Light.
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Beyond 2 costs over twice the price when you add in base stations and controllers. So still definitely a market for the crystal light.
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The true price /feature comparison would be the complete headsets with steam VR lighthouse tracking and audio solution
Big screen Beyond+audio strap
vs.
Crystal Light with steam VR faceplate +dmas speakers
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It’s not over twice as much though.
Beyond cost £1019. Add £400 for one base station and controllers. Total £1400.
Crystal costs £584.40 for HMD and £9.59 x 24 £230.16 Total £814.56
Difference £604.
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Lets hope Pimaxes Dream Air is as successful. I think byt the time the Dream Air does arrive Bigscreen will have the new Halo strap ready.
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That’s still almost double. @SmallBaguette has a point, with the Crystal’s price being substantially lower, I also believe there’s still a market for it.
But yeah in terms of quality it seems the Beyond2 has won the race.
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Plus if you want Lighthouse on Crystal you have to pay an extra £189
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I guess it then depends on the games you play - I am not playing super-pacy shooters where this may be an issue. I use my Quest 3 with VT and it is a charm. So much even that I have a hard time to go back to tethered with a MeganeX 8K or BSB2.
And yes, the Deckard will be aiming at a different market than the nerds hanging out in this forum today, but that makes it compete with the Quest 3 even more. So if the fact that Meta stands behind the Quest 3 is not a red flag for a user, it will be a difficult decision. Would you pay more than double the price just because you can play flat PC games on the device? Some may, for sure. But this will be a hard battle for the Deckard if it isn’t able to separate itself on the specs which users look at first.
Anybody who had a G2, Quest 3, BSB, etc. will be wondering why they should pay that amount of money to get an LCD screen of roughly the same resolution in return. Doesn’t scream progress too loudly, does it.
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Your points sound fair though imo there are few missing points. Index costs 1k, it’s dated and by modern standards it’s a very low res, though look at the market share
There is a reason why people buy it, yes they can buy only the hmd for 500$ or second hand but they still love index. Carmack told it many times, when user wants to use VR it should be as easy as possible. And it should be stable and behave predictable. Meta has huge issues with it, I have good experience with meta for virtual desktop and eg vrchat, in VD the latency is very fine, for fast paced games it’s not fine at all, you can play ALyx quite ok but not something like echo VR, sims, competitive shooters and so on. Every update I had some issues, bugs, it’s very annoying, q3 tracking for beat saber was very bad I didn’t check last updates but previously you had to keep your arms up or it could lose it for a second. They constantly change UI, you need to run steam link or VD or Oculus link, the image quality is suboptimal. Many small things. The Q3 hardware is good except weight (spoiled by BSB) but software wise it’s not good at all.
People love Valve, they have name and reputation behind them. It also will be a native steamvr hmd, it’s drivers and software will be definetely a top notch quality maybe not at start but eventually in a few months / 1-2 years.
If it will be just a Qualcomm chip without Linux support it will be way less attractive. If it will be a standalone PC with Linux and ability to play 2d PC games and not demanding PC VR ones it will be very attractive. They have expertise to do so, it requires eye tracking, foveated rendering and godlike optimization on a driver level and firmware, but if they do so it will be a blast, instant buy for a lot of users.
Plus ease of use, no daily friction, solid predictable enjoyable experience. New market for PC standalone like games, more social ads / activity as people will grab headsets with them, show to friends, it will be in big shops / events, laser tag like games etc. Steam library with all games you bought before, native support.
People also want resolution bump as media consumption and productivity with index is possible but not enjoyable, Q2 was the first hmd where it was on an acceptable level apart of comfort for such a tasks, 2160 for new Valve hmd is very ok.
I’m using BSB and find Q3 res quite low in regard to BSB, BSB is the first hmd for me where I feel like it’s close to a monitor, I don’t see any pixels, the image is very crisp (apart of lenses issues it has) but I feel like I don’t need more resolution and it’s only 2560, look at all this forum guys they want 8k, I have a sharp vision and don’t wear glasses, I see 4k tv / monitors difference very well but BSB 1 is very sharp if you have vision that lets you see the full potential of the micro olded.
But if you’re in Valve infrastructure and want update dated index res the 2160 with possible hardware and firmware level visual enhancements is very welcome. At the end it’s just a plain numbers, I have around 30 hmds myself and very often in my practice the more high res hmds looked way worse than others due to various reasons. It maybe lenses, sweet spot, geometry instability, poor contrast / brightness / colors, display temperature, mura, chromatic aberrations, smear, latency, pixels pattern artifacts, scanlines, poor anti-aliasing. It’s only visual issues. Add on top performance suboptimal behavior, usage friction, moisture, need of readjustments due to comfort / sweet spot, eyes fatigue, motion sickness, crazy heat, low fps or stutters. And you see that many hmds lack in many areas while index was very overall solid and high quality piece of technology. When people use it they just enjoy the VR, they don’t tinker, don’t fix bugs almost, they play games and socialize. Valve does exactly this. People ready to pay money for quality. 3,5k is a very high price but people still buy it for Apple as it’s a quality and cutting edge product with a lot of unique features and top notch software behind, still on early stage but it’s already good. For a gaming hmd 3,5k is too much but 1,5k is somewhere the right spot for a high end hmd.
I bet if they put Linux and ability to run PC VR titles standalone with eye tracking it will be very popular, shockingly popular, time will tell. Looking at current index market % share it proves that Valve does right. And it’s considering that it’s niche PC VR market wired device not millions of sold easy to use for newcomers standalone Quests. With all that billions FB spent on ads and standalone exclusives.
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I have all these hmds and many more. I use VR daily since 2016, and I have very strong interest in Valve hmd. I stopped buy new hmds a while ago as I get disappointed mostly everytime I buy. The only hmds I bought last years was q3, BSB1 and it’s not coincidence, those two buys were pleasant, many others were not at all (g2, vive pro 2). Because we have very small amount of manufacturers that actually do high quality VR.
I think if we want VR industry to succeed it is important to make VR devices that capable to keep users for years, not just to sell a user device that will give a short wow effect but if user keeps using it he/she will be repelled due to various small discomforts and lack of software evolution and UI stall.
I see very small amount of good VR gear. It’s only meta for hardware, Valve, Apple. Pico 4 had shown quite positive signs but then got stall. Pimax / PS VR quite meh, interesting thought, Vive was ok when Valve was behind, now it’s a compete disaster. Prosumer level hmds like Varjo have own set of issues including drivers games support limitation, not all features available like quad view, motion smoothing, also despite high res many have own issues like geometry instability, smear, insane weight etc.
Myself I stick to buying Valve and meta hmds. Now Bigscreen as they shown passion and high quality with an attempt to fix very old issues nobody solved in VR for almost decade. I would buy Apple but I can’t use it due to weight for prolonged sessions as main usage target of this hmd is productivity and I have 30+k hours in VR my neck doesn’t like sit 8-10 hours straight in VR with a brick on your head. For a few hours game sessions it’s fine but it’s not about Apple.
Crap like meganx and similar stuff where is the high res but almost everything is sub par quality and complete lack of drivers and software normal support, no no no, I had too much ugly devices like hp reverb with all that drivers issues and micro stutters of head tracking gyroscope.
Pimax 8kx had many issues but in a few areas it was very immersive, e.g. in dirt rally due to unique high fov experience and acceptable colors and good enough res, but it’s too heavy to use it daily. But in others like vrchat the xp wasn’t pleasant at all.
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Yes look at the market share. Index had been beaten hands down by Meta.
Index is surrender by 4 Meta HMDs. Why? Because they are around £500 or below. This is the target for Meta and it’s worked. If Valve release a HMD for £1200 with a 2160x2160 res it’s going to come 5th or lower because people will get the same experience for half the price.
If Valve compete on res then they have to compete on price which is why I for one can’t believe these rumours are true.
If I’m an Index owner and the choice is BSB2 for £1019 with 5k res or a Index2 for £1200 with 4k res I’m picking BSB2.
There must be something else that makes the Index 2 worth £1200 that we don’t know about.
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Beyond also comes without headphones…
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I understand your arguments, but it will then be the Index experience all over again. They will lose a number of willing customers right out of the gate by offering a slightly disappointing resolution (even if it perhaps is so well executed that it looks better than it should, like the Index managed to do).
This first battle is won or lost on paper, there are no stores you can run into to test the headset.
Then over time you might read people gushing over how great a headset it is, and then in 1-2 years, they may give it a try.
And sure, given the restraints of the Snapdragon SoC they would not be able to support higher res for flat PC games anyhow, but still…
I just want to like this headset so badly but am fearing that I will end up with yet another headset which does A,B,C a bit better and D,E,F a bit less good than it’s competition in the same price range (or even my Quest 3), and I will be left with the same conundrum yet again I have experienced the last couple of year: no matter which one I’d choose, I would end up slightly disappointed because something is missing. So I stuck to the G2 for a while, then got me the true upgrade of a Quest 3. And here I am, nothing has convinced me to jump to a different one yet as all of them end up being trade-offs where I am having difficulties to justify spending 4 digit amounts for what sums up to a small upgrade, all pro’s & con’s taken into account.
I know, I sound like a terrible Quest 3 fanboy, but it is oh so convenient (didn’t have as many issues as you had), and just a mere bump in resolution isn’t even enough to lure me away, let alone no bump in resolution, Mr. Deckard.
Oh, and my 8KX is collecting dust due to the stereo convergence I always found difficult with it, but I am really sad about the loss of the FoV. I would still be using it occasionally if it didn’t cause me so much eye strain.
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If you look from that perspective, it doesn’t look superb, ~65% meta and almost ~ 18 Valve (HTC vive og and 1st pro were their first hmd so I count it here as well)
But if you look from aside the other biggest manufacturer has only 3.25% and it’s pico 4 it was a great hmd, BSB takes 0.45% and it’s a very solid hmd as well, from the all left lines of the survey 65 + 18 - 100 = 17 % Valve grabs the half of the left market if you combine the left 15 hmds lines they yield less than Valve, it’s almost 1/5 of the whole market share. And they have almost zero ads, had few videos and hl ALyx at the beginning but then it’s all. It’s very significant result.
People just buy it, compare on web and others buy it over time, Meta has issues with keeping users to continue use their VR headsets, they sell good due to price and hardware is decent, but many people log in once in a few months and then stop using it, in a long term Valve strategy will work better. With Q3 lenses and av1 codec and steam link it became better but still meta shifts from VR slightly as they don’t see the growth of community and old users get gone and people buy hmds and started to buy less apps from their market. They lose money on it. If not their billion annual investments Valve would be first.
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I think it’s fine with Valve to lose customers at start, they don’t advertise aggressively, they don’t attract users badly as e.g. meta does, they allow other manufacturers like g2 or BSB to advertise and sell on steam. So they are fine with it. I guess it’s not a problem for them if batch of people skip it on launch but eventually in 1-2 years get back , not all but many. Index is still 1k, if you check Reddit people still buy it, thought meta users constantly force users to buy q3 but they still buy an index. On BSB discord I saw so many users that still were on vive og and switched to BSB as their second hmd, it was quite an often case. There also were a lot of people who didn’t buy VR coz they tried it and didn’t like and BSB form factor was the reason they bought their first hmd as finally it looked more or less adequate to them.
IMO Valve is more focused on attracting long term users in a passive way. They don’t race for sales, they try to develop concept, their vision. See if it’s profitable. They lost some interest in it due to low numbers but didn’t abandon. Steam deck was way more profitable project for them than a VR, but from my perspective VR if not super profitable still attractive and shows positive dynamic, it also enhances their platform and attracts new users all over the world.
Also it’s a new interface, new philosophy of computing and UI / UX. Devs, nerds and average users love it, it’s a future. So they keep enhance the infrastructure and make mature decisions while meta tries to dominate market and make business. They had so many passionate people and f… them up, like Pulmer L., Ready at Dawn and many others, Carmack left eventually, they do more harm than the profit to a VR community in general. If you remember there were many companies like lense and displays manufacturers that other companies invested in like Valve did, but then meta bought them and cut access to initial customers, it’s all dirty hacks that break spirit in industry and abuse other industry members.
If you use Q3 you still use steam, so not a problem for them at all, however for people who want to get more solid experience they will offer their own hardware. In many cases people will find Q3 better than the new hmd by various reasons I guess (price is the most obvious, and Valve said many times that Q hmds is an entry point to VR, so they are good for newcomers who don’t want to spend 1.2k) but there should be other reasons why people will prefer Valve hmd over. Anyway it’s all speculations, let’s wait and see what they release.
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