My current VR setup for Q3 2020: (4 years into VR at this point, started with a Samsung Gear VR)
1. Oculus Go: This is for dedicated use with my recumbent indoor exercise bike using VirZoom. The Google Earth integration is pretty awesome. It's $99 a year to use the service (games + bike in Streetview), so I just view it as my gym membership fee. I sometimes watch movies & stuff on like Netflix or whatever, but the slightly-fuzzy quality kinda bothers me sometimes & gives me a bit of eyestrain.
2. Oculus Quest: I use this for standalone Quest games & for streaming Steam games from Virtual Desktop wirelessly. This lives in my living room. I have a PC connected to my TV for Windows games.
3. HTC Vive: This was the original one I purchased at launch, still working great! It lives in my basement with a pair of Lighthouse cameras. I upgraded to the Deluxe audio strap a few years back. It's been a surprisingly solid unit! I like having two Steam-capable headsets because then my wife & I can play VR games together, which is pretty fun!
My thoughts on VR in general:
1. Really like the concept. As far as implementation goes, it's pretty fun if you're already a nerd & don't mind doing all of the setup required for stuff. Playstation's VR did a pretty decent job of making it accessible for non-technical people, but there hasn't really been a deluge of VR games become available for it. I've been wanting to pick up a Sony VR headset, but meh. I'll see what the PS5 has to offer.
2. The release of Alyx was cool, but things have been pretty stagnant lately in the world of VR. For like, years now.
3. The Vive Index looks cool, but not enough for me to upgrade from my current setup. The HP Reverb G2 looks nice. Price is decent. Would be fun to use with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 as it will be the first headset supported. Not in any rush to upgrade, super happy with my current setup as it is right now. Could sell my Vive to offset costs, but meh. Curious to see what FB will offer with their upcoming Quest models. imo the current Quest is the one to get out of all of the VR headsets; the mobility & standalone option really makes it a game-changer.
4. VR would get hugely popular if they could fix the resolution issue, especially for remote desktop, especially in the middle of COVID where so many people are working from home...having as many high-resolution virtual monitors as you want would be amazing. I'd totally set things up like Mr. Universe from Firefly lol.
5. Games seem to be limited to kind of specific categories that work well for it, i.e. shooters, archery, etc. It's definitely not as broad in scope as simply sitting down with a console at a TV or at a computer with a PC. I've talked about this before a bit in terms of watching reruns on TV, where you've already had the "experience" & so things can get a little stale. VR is similar to but slightly different from regular video games because of this. Although I don't think limited categories of gaming & games getting old after you play them is the real issue, it really just boils down to a lack of continuous really good content. There have been some absolutely
amazing titles come out (Lone Echo, Alyx, etc.) but it's not like owning a current-gen console where new crap is constantly in the pipeline to look forward to...it's somewhat more scattered. I'm hoping the big Facebook push will help monetize it better & get more devs onboard, because the future is pretty bright if that happens!
6. I really like the exercise aspect of it, but again, things have kind of stalled. I'm keeping an eye on Holofit, which is kind of like Virzoom (VR for stationary bikes) but handles more types of exercise equipment., although my personal exercise routine is pretty much just daily cardio (indoor bike) & calisthenics (bodyweight exercises), so at the moment I'm not really interested in any more equipment. Then there's stuff like BeatSaber or even
VR Workout on Sidequest, so I guess it kind of depends on what your goals are. I aim for 30 minutes of brisk cardio 7 days a week & having a VR setup for biking around Google Earth & watching movies meets the requirement!
7. Not a fan of Facebook's upcoming account requirements. It's turning into a
pretty big issue. But as that linked article said, it's not like there's a lot of competition & Facebook is a juggernaut. And I understand why Facebook would want to do it that way ($$$). And if the tradeoff is more regular, good content being releases non-stop...ah well. We are fish in a barrel & FB has the gun lol.
8. Hardware accessory availability has been somewhat disappointing. There's not really a turnkey in-place walking system for smaller rooms like mine, nor many really cool accessories. I have my original Subpac, which is pretty cool, but one of the problems with VR is that you can't just plunk down & use it like you can with a regular video game, so there's always a bit of a mental barrier to using it, which is definitely a first-world problem. So putting on an impact speaker vest plus the headset plus going through the rigamaroll of getting it all setup software-wise can be a big off-putting, but I'm also a fan of VR, so it's worth doing to me.
9. Having multiple systems has been pretty nice. I use my Vive in my basement with my home theater projector setup & then we have a gaming computer hooked up to our living room TV for the Quest to work off of. Granted this is like four years of building out the system, so it's not like it happened overnight haha. Has been nice to use in COVID season where you're stuck in the house, and I do feel very blessed to own these wonderful machines, despite their "flaws" & occasional lack of novel content.
Also, 6 years ago & $730 million dollars later lol: