Vr Headsets Are Better Than Ever and No One Seems to Care
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
gizmodo.comTechstory
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Vr HeadsetsGamingTech Adoption
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Vr Headsets
Gaming
Tech Adoption
The article discusses how VR headsets have improved but still haven't gained mainstream traction, with commenters debating the reasons behind this, including concerns over vendor lock-in, cost, and user experience.
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Sep 25, 2025 at 12:14 PM EDT
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Meta can’t announce an MQ4 when the MQ3 consumer is cost-motivated and instead of an MQ4 they came out with a cost-reduced MQ3S which is the brains of an MQ3 (software compatible) in the body of an MQ2.
The story is that Meta is looking for some escape from oldster-dominant Facebook but when I started focusing on the social features I met a lot of retirees who play Beat Saber and like to go on cruises and post pano videos on YouTube. I don’t think it helps with their demographic problems.
I have a big backlog of VR games which are similar to conventional video games, these are fun and all but they compete with so many flat games like Hollow Knight: Silksong and Arknights and such.
Another problem is, that despite headsets getting better, the prices haven't come down. They are just extremely expensive devices that can't really compromise on quality while maintaining good results.
Meta is dead in the water with most gamers after they locked people out of their purchases and tried to shove a mandatory facebook login down everyone's throat.
Pimax is famous for over-promising and under-delivering - if they deliver at all, that is. Reddit is full of people complaining that they still haven't received their purchases from the launch before the last new announcement.
Apple’s Vision Pro was the price of a used car and you need to voluntarily lock yourself into Apple's ecosystem and pay 30% of all revenue to Apple for the privilege, so VR's biggest market (which is gaming) just said FY Apple and that's why it's one of the products with the highest return rate ever.
So you have Spyware vs. Vaporware vs. Masochism as your options. What a surprise that sales are down !!!! (not really)
I am in the market for a high-res VR headset for gaming. But there isn't any product for me to buy. Quest and Apple don't play well with PC. And for Pimax there's no shop actually selling them. (The article seems to agree, too. They have sales links to Meta and Apple, but no link for Pimax.)
Pretty high resolution, but they don't have foveated rendering so you need a beefy rig to run it.
They're literally going to have to wait until the next generation comes of age and has disposable money to spend on a VR headset. And even then, they'd better hope that generation didn't listen to their parents' warnings.
This hasn't been the case for many years now (they corrected, almost immediately). You need a Meta account, which is extremely minimal. After making that, you can optionally link facebook.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveDeckard/comments/1n7sn17/gabe_...
Meta headsets can be used for PCVR, for some time now, with link. You don't have to use the platform, but that platform definitely subsidizes it all.
There are many PCVR headsets at eye watering prices, there is an adapter for the PSVR 2 which I think adds up to something not far from the MQ3 + link cable but you don’t have the standalone.
PCVR has bigger games and applications with better graphics but when it comes to games with a lot of motion like Beat Saber and such, standalone is hard to beat.
Quest 3 has much better lenses. Through the lens comparison: https://youtu.be/MsudARM5AOw?feature=shared&t=172
I believe we’re still in that period for VR. VR has not found its “killer app” yet, the closest thing we have is Beat Saber. People aren’t willing to put up with the inconveniences and cost of VR just to play a handful of mediocre games that would work just as well in 2D.
Valve has been the company really pushing this space forward, The Lab and Half Life: Alyx are hailed as some of the best VR software there is. If anyone has the chops to make a headset and software with mass appeal, especially after the success of the Steam Deck, I think it’s them.
I also have a personal theory that deep in Apple’s R&D department, a “consumer” level headset is brewing, which is the real reason for the “Liquid Glass” push. Forcing it onto their OSes right now is a move to familiarize end-users and developers with the design language so the market will be more receptive to the VR device that’s in the works. I haven’t had the opportunity to try the Vision Pro, but it has a reputation for having the best fidelity and “pass through” capability on the market. If the “Vision Air” comes close and comes in under $1200 it might be the final push that VR needs to go mainstream.
VR is a recreational tool. People aren't waiting for the tech to be better to jump in en masse. It just isn't a need most people have.
I think the problem is that right now, as with the internet and microcomputers, we can't see a use for VR that would necessitate its entrance into our everyday lives. That doesn't mean the use doesn't exist, it just hasn't been invented yet. There's no guarantee that will happen, but if it does I could VR could become a necessity just as high resolution displays, color graphics, and GPUs have. I think that people decrying VR's uselessness are forgetting the cycle we've been through with novel display and communication technologies time and time again.
This is me speculating: I think VRChat is a possible glimpse into what could make VR take off. Long range "presence" is very desirable. Apple seems to realize this with the 3D recordings that Vision Pro enables. If we could get anything close to "holographic" video chat, especially with multiple users, it could enable huge cost savings for businesses. Although many managers are loathe to approve remote work, if they could mandate virtual "presence" in a virtual office, that could dissuade heavy handed managers from requiring a physical presence, saving money on renting an office. Not to mention the appeal to consumers of being able to "visit" their loved ones from far away.
The industry is still thrashing around looking for a use for the technology, and they might stumble on it eventually, or they might not. Only time will tell.
Now buttons groups are wrapped in ovals ("rounded rectangles"?), which look suspiciously like some flavor of tear-off menu that could be moved around in space.
Unfortunately they chased user acquisition hard via non-vr modes and subscriptions rather than enabling creators using their platform highlighting what made such spaces unique. Updates actively made things more hostile to their most dedicated users, it was sad to see.
Eternal September got kicked into overdrive and most dedicated users either got pushed out or retreated entirely to private spaces. Lo and behold the mobile and casual VRless werent interested in spending money, so vrchats been running out of runway.
With VR, it's different. There's SteamVR, PSVR, HTC Vive, Oculus, all with their own DRM'd marketplaces , pricing structures and differences in content availability. It can't be taken on the go. Most people who game already have big screen TVs. So where exactly is the value?
The Metaverse idea was DOA, and not because of lack of VR headset quality, but just for the obvious reason that no-one wants to work that way. RTO or WFH with Zoom calls is enough.
The only use case for VR that seems to have taken off, to whatever extent it has, is gaming. If a new headset is a bit better, or cheaper, than another then it might be expected to do well, but it's not going to be headline news.
A good VR headset will be most probably a form of wireless screen (not a beafy computer) that is simple, lightweight (at most 200g in front of your face), cheap enough so you'll be able to wear it with you and not worry that something happens to it or be able to afford it for each member of your family without major effort and most of all - it should be replacing computer/laptop screen for daily tasks.
We could do it today, big tech is just holding us back with their vision of products
And I'm far more interested in AR anyway.
I really want a good headset for watching movies at home in a virtual IMAX, but yeah every headset I have tried leads to distracting blooming or other glare and reflection issues with the lenses.
Yes the Apple Vision Pro is not good enough, neither is the Big Screen 2 at least to my standards.
The people who are hooked are hooked, but it's in too slow of a growth curve to keep the attention of the hypergrowth omninationals. Inshallah the megacorps remain minor players.
The metaverse is here, for those with headsets to see. But all Meta will be remembered for in VR is sad tech "demos" that turned out faked, and, for a time at least, solid budget wireless headsets.
Mass media is still waiting for faster horses, but the real transhumanists already have one foot out of the physical world. (And sometimes four!)