About $400, and remember that at the time I bought it the Quest 3 wasn’t even announced yet. The Quest 2 was the new hotness from Facebook and the Reverb G2’s resolution is superior which was also an important attribute for me. 1,832 × 1,920 per eye vs. 2160 x 2160. And at that time the cheapest Quest 2 was not $250, it was $299.
A Steam account is irrelevant. You’re building straw men to ignore the fact that a WMR headset itself physically works without any account requirement whatsoever tied to the hardware. But if you insist that ever having to type in a password for anyone is some kind of “gotcha,” which it isn’t, my Reverb G2 absolutely does work with every game that natively supports VR in Windows that I’ve tried which includes Elite: Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, MS Flight Sim, Asetto Corsa, Project Cars/2, etc. All of these games can be had outside of the Steam environment. Yes, it even works with pirated games. You don’t even need a Microsoft account to download and play free (not paid) VR games and “experiences” from the Windows store! If you absolutely insist, you can even play Oculus titles on it using ReVive.
There is no technological reason any of Meta/Facebook’s hardware products need to force you to sign in with a Facebook account just to work. A lot of people, myself included, will never buy a Meta VR product no matter how shiny or cheap they make it because of that reason, and where it comes from.
No, I’m not building a straw man. The argument that having to use a log in at all is a dealbreaker has been made here repeatedly. You do not need a Steam account to use a Quest, you are just as gated in both cases. There is only duplication at play if you use the Quest as both a standalone device and a HMD. And all the major platforms where you’ll get content delivered for your device make you log in to digitall distribute the software.
Outside of the context of the history of people getting mad about the Facebook account requirement while that was in place no reasonable person would understand the virulence at play here. It makes no sense. Why would people be so fundamentally angry, furious at the idea of having to have an account to use a gaming platform. Nobody cares on PlayStation, Xbox Live was hailed as a major innovation despite introducing not just a login but also a fee to play online. Steam introduced digital distribution and DRM into the PC market and it’s widely considered a net positive for the gaming industry.
So why is the Quest so much worse than those?
The answer is, of course, it isn’t. It’s a heavily subsidized platform with a first party store requirement, just like Xbox, PlayStation or the Switch. The anger is a carryover from a previous incident that is no longer applicable but people don’t want to let go, partially because it blends with other complaints about the brand.
By the way, you seem to have gotten a deal for that Reverb G2, my understanding is it launched at 600, not 400, and that was one of the more affordable options in that space at the time. I feel that if you’re going to nitpick the 50 bucks discount I get to call you out on the 33% discount there.
Look, I think you’re being honest about your impressions here. I believe you when you say that you just won’t buy a Meta VR product because it’s from Meta regardless of how cheap or good it is. That’s one of the most sincere takes I’ve seen in this mess of a dogpile so far. And it’s your prerogative. I’m not here to sell Quests to people. Presumably giving them out for peanuts did that well enough, if the reported numbers are to be believed.
I do reserve the right to my opinion that this is a very unreasonable stance that ignores the places where Meta did respond to community demands and that newcomers with no horse on that race for purely emotional or ideological reasons should probably consider it as an entry point. If you want to be mad about it, be mad about it, but that seems like a reasonable take that shouldn’t be particularly offensive.
About $400, and remember that at the time I bought it the Quest 3 wasn’t even announced yet. The Quest 2 was the new hotness from Facebook and the Reverb G2’s resolution is superior which was also an important attribute for me. 1,832 × 1,920 per eye vs. 2160 x 2160. And at that time the cheapest Quest 2 was not $250, it was $299.
A Steam account is irrelevant. You’re building straw men to ignore the fact that a WMR headset itself physically works without any account requirement whatsoever tied to the hardware. But if you insist that ever having to type in a password for anyone is some kind of “gotcha,” which it isn’t, my Reverb G2 absolutely does work with every game that natively supports VR in Windows that I’ve tried which includes Elite: Dangerous, No Man’s Sky, MS Flight Sim, Asetto Corsa, Project Cars/2, etc. All of these games can be had outside of the Steam environment. Yes, it even works with pirated games. You don’t even need a Microsoft account to download and play free (not paid) VR games and “experiences” from the Windows store! If you absolutely insist, you can even play Oculus titles on it using ReVive.
There is no technological reason any of Meta/Facebook’s hardware products need to force you to sign in with a Facebook account just to work. A lot of people, myself included, will never buy a Meta VR product no matter how shiny or cheap they make it because of that reason, and where it comes from.
No, I’m not building a straw man. The argument that having to use a log in at all is a dealbreaker has been made here repeatedly. You do not need a Steam account to use a Quest, you are just as gated in both cases. There is only duplication at play if you use the Quest as both a standalone device and a HMD. And all the major platforms where you’ll get content delivered for your device make you log in to digitall distribute the software.
Outside of the context of the history of people getting mad about the Facebook account requirement while that was in place no reasonable person would understand the virulence at play here. It makes no sense. Why would people be so fundamentally angry, furious at the idea of having to have an account to use a gaming platform. Nobody cares on PlayStation, Xbox Live was hailed as a major innovation despite introducing not just a login but also a fee to play online. Steam introduced digital distribution and DRM into the PC market and it’s widely considered a net positive for the gaming industry.
So why is the Quest so much worse than those?
The answer is, of course, it isn’t. It’s a heavily subsidized platform with a first party store requirement, just like Xbox, PlayStation or the Switch. The anger is a carryover from a previous incident that is no longer applicable but people don’t want to let go, partially because it blends with other complaints about the brand.
By the way, you seem to have gotten a deal for that Reverb G2, my understanding is it launched at 600, not 400, and that was one of the more affordable options in that space at the time. I feel that if you’re going to nitpick the 50 bucks discount I get to call you out on the 33% discount there.
Look, I think you’re being honest about your impressions here. I believe you when you say that you just won’t buy a Meta VR product because it’s from Meta regardless of how cheap or good it is. That’s one of the most sincere takes I’ve seen in this mess of a dogpile so far. And it’s your prerogative. I’m not here to sell Quests to people. Presumably giving them out for peanuts did that well enough, if the reported numbers are to be believed.
I do reserve the right to my opinion that this is a very unreasonable stance that ignores the places where Meta did respond to community demands and that newcomers with no horse on that race for purely emotional or ideological reasons should probably consider it as an entry point. If you want to be mad about it, be mad about it, but that seems like a reasonable take that shouldn’t be particularly offensive.