So you know what I've kinda been backing / leaning towards these past months / year+ when it comes to VR. Well I can finally say I've tried both now and...
I don't want Oculus anymore.
It pains me to say it but
@little P is right... I mean how often is that uttered? The Vive is great, that much better. Oculus was good, extremely smooth VR experience... and I didn't think it would be a big deal to move around and such, but it is... and it's amazing.
First, like I said, the room scale VR is way better than I thought it would be. It's not simply moving around, walking to the edge of a cliff, like in the Mountain demo scene... It's SO much more. The view was stunning and it was pretty enthralling. But the first thing that floored me was, during that same mountain scene, bending over and reaching down for a stick and to pet the toy / mechanical dog. I really felt like I was there, bending over to pick up and throw this stick.
There is this "reach out and touch" sort of feeling you have with a lot of things in VR and it was there in Oculus. In the Oculus demo there was a railing right next me, over the edge of a tall building that I almost wanted to reach out and grab. THAT feeling is way more present within Vive and I don't think it's really explainable in words because I believe it's more of a subconscious feeling, that you're really to the point of feeling you're there and not just wearing goggles. And I would say that the extra ability, yes the room scale part but especially the small details of being able to lean and bend over or kneel or whatever are translated perfectly.
After the mountain demo I played a bit of the bow and arrow game, which is a lot of fun as I expected. Wish I could've played more. Then switched to the space pirate trainer or whatever it's called. I wanted to use these examples to bring up the last part of my amazement which was another part the oculus demo lacked: controllers. I could not believe how precise the controllers were. Within the bow and arrow game (and mountain scene) the controllers were just virtual versions of their controllers, with a bow / arrow within them. So you saw the controller itself and how you were holding it. I can't say much other than the range of motion and tracking was fricking perfect. The track pad-type thing is a bit awkward to learn but I'm sure it gets easy with use. Turning, tilting everything with the controller was exact. But you could see the controllers just as if you didn't have the headset on which is good and all in some cases...
But then when I went into the space pirate demo, bam, the entirety of the controller was gone and they became guns. Or a shield. Perfectly. The gun rotated when I wanted to shoot like a thug / ganster... and spewed death and missed as per usual. It was so real it was unreal.
You didn't see me do a long write up like this for Oculus because it was what I expected - static VR that would work well in a stationary envirunment. But the demos it gave weren't the best and it wasn't an awesome sell. I still think the Oculus would be good for stationary-type VR, like anything cockpit based. But the Vive demo blew me away... it is everything and more than Oculus and well worth it... like I said it is that much more in depth and that much more believable, especially because, like I highlighted, there's little things Oculus can't do, not simply just walking around.
It pains me to say it but I was wrong and P was right. I'm on board Vive now.
