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Microsoft announces Windows 10 VR Headsets by HP/Dell/Lenovo/etc., starting at $299
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
It's neither of those.
Microsoft's interest here is to move VR software sales from environments which are open (OSVR/OpenVR) or controlled by Valve (SteamVR), Oculus (Rift/GearVR), Google (Daydream), or Sony (PSVR) to their own.
Of course, like quite frequently in recent times when Microsoft wanted a chunk of a burgeoning consumer market, it likely is too late and too little (and it does look really low-effort on MS' part so far).
Yeah, that's the next issue if you manage to reliably solve inside-out tracking.
Does MS support them? Yeesh. I only see the HTC Vive in Windows stores, thankfully. I don't want to even try the other one.
Blam
Member
I think they might use the kinect software because they did say this was markerless
This. Everyone ranted and raved about how nice it was. Weird to see a few people flip their shit because another company used it. That's basic product evolution.
ODDI
Member
Worst first post of the year congrats!
That is probably exactly what these are, lol.
Jacksinthe
Banned
thatsgoddamnright.gif
Topic:
Good. The more manufacturers dive into the VR space, the more other vendors kick up their production values and drop pricing.
I really dig VR so anything that can get VR into people's hands for the first time, the better. VR needs to take off.
Zalusithix
Member
No way are they using time of flight IR cameras in the headset.
So for PC we will have:
Oculus Rift - Can play Oculus exclusive games and Steam VR games (unless they require roomscale) Motion controllers sold separately.
Vive - Can play all Steam VR games. Can only play some Oculus exclusive games via unsupported software.
Microsoft partner VR - Can play little (No?) VR games due to inferior tracking method. Possibly no support for motion controllers.
Good luck to someone just wanting to play some VR games on PC out there.
Oculus Rift - Can play Oculus exclusive games and Steam VR games (unless they require roomscale) Motion controllers sold separately.
Vive - Can play all Steam VR games. Can only play some Oculus exclusive games via unsupported software.
Microsoft partner VR - Can play little (No?) VR games due to inferior tracking method. Possibly no support for motion controllers.
Good luck to someone just wanting to play some VR games on PC out there.
VincentMatts
Member
couldnt care less.
Rift+Touch can play SteamVR roomscale games.
These MS headsets will probably be supported by SteamVR, too, allowing them to play gamepad games. Unless the tracking is exceptionally bad, I guess.
GhostTrick
Banned
Blam
Member
We can only wait to see. Because if they are using markerless tech, and it works well then this is a very good headset, but something tells me that I shouldn't be so optimistic.
Yeah from what I've looked up it seems like they are putting those kinect cameras to good use.
Iced_Eagle
Member
I feel like people forgot the original announcement where HTC partnered with MS to support the Vive for Windows Holographic platform.
http://m.windowscentral.com/windows-holographic-platform-now-open-everyone
Maybe things have changed since then, but the original announcement said more details would come at WinHEC in December.
http://m.windowscentral.com/windows-holographic-platform-now-open-everyone
Maybe things have changed since then, but the original announcement said more details would come at WinHEC in December.
Hari Seldon
Member
Is inside out tracking a fancy term for "really sensitive gyros that no one has invented yet"?
BleedOrange
Banned
And the Oculus and Vive look very similar to ski googles. There's only so many ways to attach a HMD to your head. Expect all designs to leverage the forehead going forward.
No. Think more like PSVR with the camera built into the headset for motion tracking, and no markers (lights) set up for markerless tracking. How well it works is currently unknown.
Hari Seldon
Member
So the camera self calibrates on something in the environment and determines position based on that? Like it finds a picture on the wall and uses that as a reference?
I think that's the idea, but I don't think any specific frame of reference would be needed for markerless. Between accelerometer data and visual data from the cameras it should be able to track movement pretty well, but that's the unknown for these headsets at this point. Things like uneven lighting, excessively dark or light conditions, or things like IR light sources could potentially make it difficult to track depending on how they're doing it.
nycgamer4ever
Member
Why is that a cringe worthy comment? It looks like cheap knockoff of PSVR. LOOK at it! LOL
Neuromancer
Member
Every Oculus Rift comes with an Xbox One controller.
What part of 'has inside out tracking' don't you get?
IT HAS POSITIONAL TRACKING FFS, in fact by default it has ROOMSCALE tracking built in, it's just done from sensors ON the HMD itself not from external sensors or cams. This is the way Vive and Rift will go eventually IF they can also make controllers work well with it.
There is no reason to suggest the higher priced models (it said starting at $300 not only $300) can't compete/beat rift and vive on resolution and FOV because even at the same price $600 MS can afford to subsidize them more than even Facebook can (MS are richer).
So to sum up, these ones hint at 'creators', but clearly they said a range of HMDs (please people stop calling them "a VR" it makes you sound dumb as fuck, it's not "a VR" it's a VR HMD or just a HMD, head mounted display or even just say 'that's cheap for virtual reality' no "A") starting at $299 and "for everyone". We know they are going to be having VR on Scorpio so obviously they'll be looking at making a full on gaming HMD too (for PC and Scorpio) and wouldn't want to make anything less than the already year old rift/vive for PC!
This is great news for VR, stop looking for faults. Consider it a get-out clause from what could have been a terrible facebook VR monopoly (I know we have valve too - I'm an ex Vive owner and had DK2 and PSVR also)
Google "oculus santa cruz" for a video of their inside out tracking prototype shown at OC3 recently. It simply means less clutter, less restriction and roomscale 'for free' anywhere you can plug the HMD in. It doesn't need anything else to track you in a full positional tracking way. Multiple cams on the HMD look out into the world, scan it and as you move it can work out how you moved based on the differences between past scans and new scans.
Norm at tested tried it and blocked off 3 of the cams with his hands and it still kept on tracking so we can assume this problem is now basically solved if both oculus and MS are shouting about it already.
xenorevlis
Member
Everyone in here shitting on posters who pointed out that they look like cheap PSVR headsets need to get your heads out of your asses. You're basically lobbing insults at people who noticed that something is the same color as something else, because it's better at reflecting light.
The strap designs are ABSOLUTELY copying the PSVR, and likely because it's way more comfortable than the goggle strap design.
The strap designs are ABSOLUTELY copying the PSVR, and likely because it's way more comfortable than the goggle strap design.
base shagohod
Member
Donald trump truly has exacerbated people's use of hyperbole
and everybody knows it!
Always reminds me of that vita GDC demo with markerless AR tracking. It created and tracked areas of detail in the environment to produce pretty stable tracking just using the vita and camera. Expand that to more robust processing and more cameras and it should be doable.
dragonelite
Member
This summer i played/programmed a bit with a hololens on a hackathon is what it uses Inside out tracking?
Head and body position tracking worked okay, but my reference in position tracking is really limited.
Just because something is very similar doesn't mean it's a rip off. Besides that, yeah people can notice it's following a head mount rather than face + strap mount of the other 2 biggies, but that's just common sense. Everyone knows that PSVR is the best designed for comfort so far (certainly me as an ex vive and current PSVR owner). I think people are knocking those posters for implying only negative things "lmao they copied PSVR product must be shit".
Ok so they used head instead of straps mounting? big deal there's only two ways to do it now and they chose the best way, has nothing to do with how good it'll be and I'm sure it'll be light years ahead of PSVR when used on PC and probably light years ahead of Vive and Rift too for the more expensive models. It'll have roomscale by default (inside out tracking means you get that and positional tracking for free), the only question mark is will they have good controllers without external sensors?
Either way this is great news for PC VR which had begun to slide being left to Facebook's tired and slow trickle feeding and Valve's still mostly a devkit feeling Vive. This may light a fire under their asses which is good for everyone!
BleedOrange
Banned
Everyone in here shitting on posters who pointed out that they look like cheap PSVR headsets need to get your heads out of your asses. You're basically lobbing insults at people who noticed that something is the same color as something else, because it's better at reflecting light.
The strap designs are ABSOLUTELY copying the PSVR, and likely because it's way more comfortable than the goggle strap design.
The better question is why do they care? Isn't it a known fact that the PSVR has the most comfortable mounting solution currently out there?
Why is it a bad thing to copy that? Wouldn't people _prefer_ their HMD's to be comfortable?
Edit: Yeah, what Sharpfish said. If they'd have gone the face-strap (ski goggles route) would everyone in here be complaining that they copied HTC/Facebook? Somehow I think not.
Yes!
Well, I mean we can claim they're all just copying the VFX1 from the mid 90's. So they're all like 20 years late design wise I guess?
The over the head/fold down design is probably the best, it was used off and on many years ago.
They talked about how the next version of Windows would allow everyone to create in 3D for about an hour and the whole time you were left thinking 'Ok but how do I experience all this great stuff people are creating', almost like that was the intention of the presentation but then all they had for that was a tiny bit of Hololens, which still isn't a consumer product and then this announcement which felt less than half baked, no hardware details, a clearly faked demo...makes you wonder if that was a spot for oculus at some point that they decided to replace with other third parties (who are nowhere near market).
Worth noting they didn't show or mention anyway to interact with the 3d space other than voice, again it would have been a great opportunity to show what Oculus Touch is going to do in the Software space...
Worth noting they didn't show or mention anyway to interact with the 3d space other than voice, again it would have been a great opportunity to show what Oculus Touch is going to do in the Software space...
dragonelite
Member
Aah oke my company bough a Hololens for a hackothon,
really surprised how well the tracking worked on the Hololens.
Shame about the shitty Fov it has, but maybe something Microsoft can fix in v2
I think the idea of the strap being copied is a bit disingenuous.
The way that the PSVR head mounting works is really effective in comparison to other VR headsets and it would make sense for companies to learn from that moving forwards and it may even end up being the default way of doing this on future headsets.
If Microsoft are even aware of the advantages of doing the way that PSVR does it would make no sense at all for them to know that it's better but decide not to do it just because they've learned that from another company.
The way that the PSVR head mounting works is really effective in comparison to other VR headsets and it would make sense for companies to learn from that moving forwards and it may even end up being the default way of doing this on future headsets.
If Microsoft are even aware of the advantages of doing the way that PSVR does it would make no sense at all for them to know that it's better but decide not to do it just because they've learned that from another company.
xenorevlis
Member
I wasn't defending negative posts, but was calling out the posters who attacked anyone that was pointing out how similar the designs were, though appearing like knockoffs in their design.
I already stated it was similar most likely due to being more comfortable. I'm simply saying that people noticing the similarity in design are being met with "cringe" and other responses that are unwarranted hate. Get out of here with that.
My whole post was literally about shitting on people who noticed they look like a knockoff because of going with the same design, but also VFX1 is NOT the same design.
You probably won't hear more about it until Creators Update is officially released next year.
malboroking
Banned
The word "hyperbole" should be in your Gaf checklist too. People here love to use the word "hyperbole" when the actually mean "you have an opinion I don't like."
Example:
"X game was terrible."
"Stop being so hyperbolic!"
You used the word correctly, so no problem there, but seriously, look out for how often the word "hyperbole" is thrown around in this forum and the context in which it is used. It is literally the worst thing in the known universe.
BleedOrange
Banned
https://youtu.be/X_vyVXuc1Rc?t=22m14s
See here to get an impression about how far long Inside-out positional tracking is. It's very much at an acceptable, with little to no regressions from outside-in tracking, level, just hasn't been rolled into a consumer product yet.
I don't see any evidence to believe that these won't be game-worth headsets that exist on the same spectrum as GearVR -> PSVR -> Oculus/Vive.
See here to get an impression about how far long Inside-out positional tracking is. It's very much at an acceptable, with little to no regressions from outside-in tracking, level, just hasn't been rolled into a consumer product yet.
I don't see any evidence to believe that these won't be game-worth headsets that exist on the same spectrum as GearVR -> PSVR -> Oculus/Vive.
michaelius
Banned
Is that windows 10 only ?
Hmm built in camera that scans whole room+ windows 10 which will send data to MS to improve our customer experience.
Nice try Microsoft
Hmm built in camera that scans whole room+ windows 10 which will send data to MS to improve our customer experience.
Nice try Microsoft
Def not same exact design, I think it's a great evolution.
This design from another company 4 years ago was getting close. They opened up the back for a better fit.
Agreed. "Hyperbole", "Pathetic", "Disgusting"...all words I wish wouldn't appear at all unless they're used correctly. They do belong in some threads, but are silly in a lot of threads like this.