this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Yeah, but that's my point. People rage at Meta for requiring a Facebook login out of pure reflex. The Quest isn't a peripheral, it's a standalone computing device. It boots into an OS when you turn it on, using it with a PC is an added feature.
Nobody complained about this specifically when Apple did it with the Vision. Nobody complains about needing to log in to use the PSVR headset on a PlayStation.
If you are more than superficially interested in this space you may remember that the reason why there's all this residual rage is that when Oculus got acquired they already had a login system and there was a lot of back and forth and backtracking from Meta, first saying the Oculus login would still in place and then enraging people by putting the Quest under their unified "login with Facebook" login manager.
That was legitimate. They were doing things they said they wouldn't do, it was impractical to sync to an account bearing your real name as a demand of the EULA, and this wasn't the first time Oculus had reneged on promises.
At this point, though, a couple of hardware generations down the line, years after they reversed that policy and with a well established ecosystem that works pretty much exactly the same way an Xbox does? This is purely reflexive "Meta bad" stuff that is disconnected to whether the login requirement makes sense, is convenient, does anything untoward or any other practical consideration.
I'm just sitting here with my WMR headset which works perfectly well for all my games and software without needing an account from anybody. The only bugbear is that it's tied to Windows (for now), but what else is new?
Yeeeeah, how much did that cost?
Cause I know this is a huge mess of a thread, but the point was whether the Quest is a good entry level headset. Last I checked the Quest 2 starts at 250 bucks. Is there a WMR device for under twice that?
Also, do you have a Steam account or are those games and software being delivered by mail?
I don't think the Quest is the only option that makes sense, but it's certainly the entry point no-brainer, even if that's relying on Meta spending a ton of money to keep people within their ecosystem.
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.