It going to take other 10 year get reasonable price VR

[Ronin]

The Motion capture methods are to be considered. Everything else is newish. However, the quarterly average R&D expense of Tesla are under that number. That's building a new car from scratch. Sure a load of it is system integration, but it's facing challenges that are different to just "packing things nicely". You have to build a car that is safe on the road. You can't just "make it work", it needs to work with guaranteed reliability.

This is completely me being **** and all I wanted to really point out was, 2 things:
- It can be done for a fraction of that number.
- It's not a good stat, if it obliterates the potential market, it's the description of a disaster.
If you are in hardware (and have a grasp on business), you should agree. You can't recuperate expensive development write-offs, by casually slapping those costs on the price and doubling or tripling the cost the hardware actually generates in production/sales/mgmt. Sales numbers traditionally fall roughly exponentially. If R&D is such a significant cost, you get 2 things really: A product that doesn't sell and write-offs you can't satisfy. In a smart, responsible world such products don't get their development funded.

Look at the apple watch:
They surely outspent the competition multifold, just to make a product that I honestly never even have seen in the wild and at the same time they devalue the brand. The only reason they are doing it is, because are a behemoth and they have to do "something" with their human/financial capital.

Some gimmicky products work to an extend and I don't judge people who buy them and like them, but with all those gimmicks I personally have bought, I'd never call unreasonably expensive development something to be amazed by. (Aside from, "wow how the heck did this thing even get made at all".) Marketing uses it as some sort of "positive excuse", but it's not that and it's not sensible, it's a sign of people doing a sub par job.

[Manic]

I think you're confusing my explanation for why desktop VR is expensive with why it is impressive. That's not the argument that I'm making. As an aside, the loose estimate I gave is the total cost of development over the lifespan of the product, so it's not quite fair to compare it to the quarterly expenses of another company (doubly true if that company is an entirely different field).

[Xenonight2]

I just think Ronin is happy there's someone here who will argue/debate with him again.

[Ronin]

I think you're confusing my explanation for why desktop VR is expensive with why it is impressive. That's not the argument that I'm making. As an aside, the loose estimate I gave is the total cost of development over the lifespan of the product, so it's not quite fair to compare it to the quarterly expenses of another company (doubly true if that company is an entirely different field).

Well, to be short an simple, my train of thought was as follows:
"They" try to sell at a premium pricepoint. They do not know how to market the fact, because aside from shinier plastic, they can't differentiate their product from the cheap hacks we see pop up everywhere. People will find out immediately, that the unit cost isn't premium at all. As a result, marketing tries to throw sand in everyones eyes, by making up cost figures.

That's the point I was trying to illustrate. I think that it's a screwy tactic. What you make of it is for you to decide. See, if the figure is an estimate, like you said, that all gets funny as hell, because there is no reason not to throw that estimate out of the windows after the sale was made and go "nah, decided that should all be pure profit anyways, sorry guys".

While I am typing this, I am looking at the steam controller sitting next to me. I am for you buying their pricey gadget and I am pretty sure you will get a lot of fun out of it. I doubt you will regret it. For me it's just that marketing tricks like that irk the hell out of me. It's always the "famous" and the "prestige" brands.
I find myself very often at the crossroad between the boring low quality and the gimmick product. There just rarely is the third option, the actual premium item. That bothers me, as I already said and that's why you get my replies to your posts. It's just a reiteration of the quality vs. feature bloat idea. They aren't exactly doing something wrong, but the price they want is wack.

(The whole deal excludes the mocap aspect, which makes up a portion of the price as well and which i have no beef with.)

@Xeno:
I ain't feelin no shame bout that.

[ehhh]

hey how's it going jazneo *waves*

[Manic]

I just think Ronin is happy there's someone here who will argue/debate with him again.

I've come to reclaim my throne as chief bullshitter of the realm.

@Ronin
Here's where I have to show my hand and admit that I'm a bit of a VR fanatic. I know, I know - it's a bit of a surprise.

I've tried 'em all, from Morpheus to OSVR and even 3DHead. The time and money invested into making the Vive and Rift superior products is clearly evident in the quality of the experience. The precision of both of their tracking solutions, the quality of their displays, lenses, and lens correction methods, and the impressiveness of their input devices sets them far apart from cheaper products. I don't know how much of the money that went into them really made a difference, and I recognize that what I'm saying is entirely anecdotal, but I stand by it. They're quality products. The carrot on the end of the stick in the VR race is the feeling of presence within a virtual world, and these two HMDs are the only ones that really give you that.

With that said, I see and appreciate your point. In fact, I see a lot of what you're saying in the post-preorder damage control that Palmer Luckey was doing with regard to the Rift's price. I think it's partly because you really do have to try out consumer VR at this level to appreciate it, but to those that lack personal experience, it's difficult to explain why you should try it without touching on the "look how expensive it is" argument (if you were in marketing). And you're right. That doesn't say much of anything, and it's an ironically cheap tactic to impress people.

I'll also concede that my guesstimation of how much they've spent on production is probably flawed. With the acquisitions of companies like Nimble and Carbon Design, I can see that figure being close for Oculus. With Valve, I'm not sure that anyone knows exactly how much they've spent except for Valve and HTC. It's quite assuredly a lot though.

Reading all of the typos in my posts is so painful, but I'm too lazy to go and unfix the "corrections" that autocorrect decides are necessary.

[Oisterman]

Waaaayyy tl;dr so with zero context I'll express my opinion on the matter and Leave the thread without anything else to contribute.

I'm old and set in my ways. I have no interest in vr or digital download games and next generation when it's the norm I'll prstop buying new games. That's all.