This is what happens when Valve announces their new inside out tracking headset
Over $100 billion in research and investment just to go “Nah, nevermind.”
Or it’s a great way to cover up where 100 billion went.
Capitalism is the most efficient system!!!
The last of the old cargo cult is finally converting to the new one.
Good now maybe indie developers can actually do something interesting with VR and begin the process of rehabilitating the destroyed perception it has gotten with the public.
Good thing they kept the “Meta” name. Very fitting now that everyone knows they’re at the end of their existence as innovators and are just Meta-slaves to whatever bubble is blowing up next.
Fetch™ didn’t happen so now they’re on to Fetch™ 2.0
And now OpenXR/SteamVR shall become the dominant standard. Hooray!
There’s practically no moat right now for VR operating systems. Meta had the closest because of their studios. Wide open again for Valve and SteamOS/Linux
If anyone’s ever going to be able to crack the secret to widespread adoption of VR, I think it’ll be Valve.
In the VR modding scene for games (things like Minecraft Java edition being playable with an Index), SteamVR/OpenXR has become the defacto standard already, and in games like VRChat, the vast majority of high quality content needs a PC with SteamVR running to have it function.
VR will probably remain a dedicated niche for a long time, but innovation and embracing open standards will continue to happen :)
There were over a thousand people working on it?
It says it’s multiple studios, which I assume were acqui-hired. So it’s not just “VR developers”, but also UI designers, concept artists, QA, PMs, HR, IT, tech writers, community managers, sales people — maybe even localization, reception, janitors… who knows. The structure of these things can vary wildly.
They couldn’t even get the people making it to play it in their spare time
