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derpysquirtle64 on 23 February 2021
zero129 said:
derpysquirtle64 said:

Of course they should. The issue is, as far as I know, WMR is not suited for gaming and if Steam compatibility list is anything to pay attention to, only around 30-40% of VR games are compatible with WMR headsets. So, if Microsoft doesn't want to create their own hardware (which I believe is the case), they have only two options: partner with Facebook for Oculus or partner with Valve for SteamVR. Actually, Facebook can already be ruled out, because their business model for Oculus is very console-like, they want their customers to buy games from their own store but still allow their headsets to be used with Steam VR games. I don't believe Facebook would want to allow Oculus to work with Xbox, because in this case it's a competing device. You don't need to connect your Oculus Quest to Xbox if Oculus Quest already works as a standalone device. So, this leaves Valve as an only option, but to make it work, Microsoft needs Valve to port all their SteamVR SDK, runtimes and other stuff to Xbox OS. Not an easy task which will probably require MS to pay a huge check for Valve to do it.

The PC WMR headsets are way better then say PSVR Gen1 for gaming. I honestly dont know where this misconception that it isnt comes from. Maybe your thinking of that AR headset MS made?. And every VR game on steam works with it. Just cos it doesnt state it does doesnt mean it doesnt, most games i've tried on steam never mentioned working with WMR headset but worked perfectly. Hell it even works with Oculus store games.

It also uses the SteamVR drivers https://store.steampowered.com/app/719950/Windows_Mixed_Reality_for_SteamVR/

I never said that in my post. Especially because you can't compare apples to oranges. PS VR is just a one headset. WMR is more like a platform which is used by lots of headsets. Hardware-wise, some of them could be better than PSVR, some not. But from what I've seen the majority of WMR headsets are technically better because a lot of them are more modern than PSVR. What I was saying is that game dev support for WMR is quite low compared to Oculus or SteamVR headsets. The app you linked, it's great. It seems like this is a compatibility layer created by MS to run any SteamVR game on WMR. But the fact still stands, it's more like an emulation. It won't work on a console, because it is a wrapper which runs on top of SteamVR. If you don't have SteamVR in the first place, it won't work.

The quote from the app page:

For Developers

Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR allows developers to test and optimize their SteamVR experiences for Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Once you've setup Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR go to the developer documentation to learn more about tuning your Steam application for Windows Mixed Reality.

I suppose this app also has some dev tools which should help devs to port existing SteamVR games to WMR which is nice.

But now, let's get back to the facts based on Steam Search:

- Valve Index - 5161 results (https://store.steampowered.com/search/?vrsupport=105)

- HTC Vive - 5497 results (https://store.steampowered.com/search/?vrsupport=101)

- Oculus Rift - 4213 results (https://store.steampowered.com/search/?vrsupport=102)

- WMR - 1671 results (https://store.steampowered.com/search/?vrsupport=104)



 

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Barozi on 23 February 2021

Yeah VR is nowhere near mainstream.

Oculus Quest 2 is estimated to have sold about 1.1m units in Q4 2020 when it launched.
Good numbers but still far behind the heavily supply constrained consoles. On top of that it doesn't really show by how much the VR sector has grown. Series X|S selling 3m units doesn't mean the Xbox community has grown by 3m people. So there's a good chance that the existing VR userbase has decided to upgrade their old device.
And when you look at other competitors that didn't launch during that period, the sales are pretty poor.

"PlayStation VR sold more than 125,000 units in the same period. Valve Index and the older Oculus Rift sold around 60,000 and 55,000 units respectively between September and December 2020."
https://segmentnext.com/2021/02/02/oculus-quest-2-sales-record/

With that said, I'm not against VR at all, it's just not big enough to be relevant.



Machiavellian on 23 February 2021
Ryuu96 said:
Machiavellian said:

You are looking at this wrong.  Either one of those companies have huge services that reach millions of users which as a service company which MS has transitioned to, gives them the ability to upsell their services to.  Everything MS does is geared toward a more service based company where they view building platforms as services with million of users than actually selling individual software.  Even Google, Facebook another these other services shone just advertising alone on these services bring in huge amount of cash.

Its not about short term or long term goal, its about what fits MS current strategy and how they seek to position themselves in the future.

Nah I agree with that, I get why they acquired Linkedin, Github and why they want TikTok US and Pinterest, I was simply pointing out that none of them will be making huge profits anytime soon and not everything is as black and white as short term profits.

Basically if Microsoft is truly a service company, and wants to push their service (Game Pass) as much as possible, then the fact is the best way of doing that would be not releasing these titles on Playstation consoles cause releasing them on Playstation consoles still gives millions of gamers no reason to switch to an ecosystem which actually has Game Pass.

Plus we know Game Pass will be pushing xCloud too, which is pushing Azure, that is Microsoft's #1 focus right now.

True, but will that in the short term move significant subs or generate a lot of animosity.  Gamers can be very petty in that sense especially when you are moving established series from their platform of choice.  In the long term, yes but the short term, I believe no.  That then leads to my revelation below.

You know something, I missed something very important.  I had a long write up on MS strategy until I got to the point where the web based browser that MS is extending Gamepass to be able to play games on just about any device that supports a browser is a key technology.  Now I can actually see MS going full exclusive if they believe their entry point to Nintendo and PS customers is through that browser.  

MS main goal is Gamepass and with that goal is to reach any and all devices that can play games.  Xcloud is the key but still not there yet but if we think about 5G its not that far off.  Xcloud and that web based way to play Gamepass games give MS the entry point to all devices including Sony and Nintendo without having to care if they like it or not.

Hmmm, I still believe its too soon for all of Bethesda games to go full exclusive but the framework is definitely being built.



Machiavellian on 23 February 2021
Ryuu96 said:
Machiavellian said:

True, but will that in the short term move significant subs or generate a lot of animosity.  Gamers can be very petty in that sense especially when you are moving established series from their platform of choice.  In the long term, yes but the short term, I believe no.  That then leads to my revelation below.

You know something, I missed something very important.  I had a long write up on MS strategy until I got to the point where the web based browser that MS is extending Gamepass to be able to play games on just about any device that supports a browser is a key technology.  Now I can actually see MS going full exclusive if they believe their entry point to Nintendo and PS customers is through that browser.  

MS main goal is Gamepass and with that goal is to reach any and all devices that can play games.  Xcloud is the key but still not there yet but if we think about 5G its not that far off.  Xcloud and that web based way to play Gamepass games give MS the entry point to all devices including Sony and Nintendo without having to care if they like it or not.

Hmmm, I still believe its too soon for all of Bethesda games to go full exclusive but the framework is definitely being built.

Hmm, I would like to agree but I think PS5/Switch actually block browsers

So does Xbox, I think it was a security thing? None of the new consoles have a web based browser IIRC.

But I think, xCloud will be in enough places anyway without them, GamePass/xCloud by the end of this year will be on Xbox, PC, iOS, Android, Smart TVs, etc.

It'd be cool if they did xCloud sticks like them little FireTV Sticks too.

I use MS edge browser on the Series X all the time and not just to watch porn.  My PS4 Pro also has a browser, I am not sure about the PS5, I would need to check but partnership with TV manufactures could close the gap.  You can also cast your device to your TV which is pretty simple and something I have done using Xcloud/gamepass when I was travelling.  Like I said the framework is being built but nothing short term will this be a viable option just yet.

I can definitely see a fire stick happening in the near future.  It auto sync with your Xbox controller.  You can then use your phone as a wifi hot spot and take your game collection on the road anywhere for smooth gaming. At home with Gig internet connections dropping in price, its becoming more a reality probably in the next few years.

It appears that MS already hinted at some type of streaming stick in the future.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/23/21529925/xbox-tv-streaming-stick-xcloud-cloud-gaming-phil-spencer-interview



EspadaGrim on 24 February 2021
shikamaru317 said:

Rand and Parris doing some more teasing about Bethesda exclusivity:

I honestly believe that they already know and have shared info privately but can’t say anything due to NDA’s. Events leaks all the time and MS and Bethesda already know what the plan is going forward and want to be the first to announce it, who know they may even already have a prerecorded vid of this event already.

The wait is killing me honestly, I think that someone credible will leak something the minute that acquisition is legally announced.



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KiigelHeart on 24 February 2021

Got tired of waiting for Cyberpunk patches and started it. What a game so far! I'm surprised there's so many cool gameplay mechanics and different styles to play. The main story kicks ass so far.

I missed all talk about Cyberpunk during launch. How did you guys like the game?



AsGryffynn on 24 February 2021
Ryuu96 said:

Oh, this was also the same Microsoft that was about to acquire TikTok US for $20bn+ and are interested in buying Pinterest who are worth $50bn.

Neither of which would make huge profits anytime soon, ByteDance (TikTok's owner) reported a $3bn profit in 2019 but ByteDance owns a lot more than TikTok, and also Microsoft was only getting TikTok US, Pinterest meanwhile is posting losses!

You don't get to where Microsoft is though by only focusing on short term goals.

They want Pinterest?! 

PLEASE DO IT! WE NEED IT! 

Ryuu96 said:
derpysquirtle64 said:

Github is still a mystery to me in terms of how it makes money. From all that happened after acquisition it is actually bound to earn even less money unless I miss something. Even private repos are now free for everyone while they always were hidden behind paywall before MS acquisition.

But let's get back on topic, such comparison is not really correct as it seems, because MS didn't significantly change the way GitHub or LinkedIn make money. In Bethesda's case we talk about potential cut of one of it's revenue streams and most likely the largest one. I can be wrong but Bethesda games sells the most on Playstation. It's a risk and a huge change on how the bought out business operates. But if I were to guess, Microsoft still hasn't decided what to do with Bethesda, so I personally don't anticipate a clear answer on "exclusivity" question during this rumoured March event. I'm not a Microsoft exec but clearly this point of time is not the best one to make such decisions for various reasons.

It doesn't. Github was acquired cause Microsoft wanted to improve their relationship with developers and to push Azure, I don't think Microsoft cares if Github or Linkedin ever profits on their own Tbh.

I was actually thinking Bethesda makes most of its money from PC but I'm not sure either, hard to tell with private companies.

Bethesda will lose the Playstation revenue but in turn that may benefit Microsoft more cause if a Playstation user swaps to Xbox there is multiple avenues of Microsoft making money off them, there is only one through Playstation and of course it pushes Game Pass to its full potential which is what Xbox's entire focus is right now.

Far more people would swap if they were 'forced' to than if Xbox still released the titles on Playstation and went "hey but this single game is cheaper on Xbox" cause frankly, the majority of people don't give a crap about paying full price but they do care if they can't get their game at all on their platform.

  • Digital Download: 100% Cut > 70% Cut.
  • Game Pass Sub = Win.
  • Physical Purchase: 70% / 70%
  • + Potential of an XBL Gold Sub.
  • + Potential of more 3rd party store purchases.

Really don't know why they would pick the one avenue of making money over the method which may achieve multiple avenues of making money.

GitHub generates money when it attracts users who might end up (more often than not) Azure. It doesn't generate money: it generates traffic to a service that does. It's like owning a drink vending machine and giving away spicy corn dogs. 

LinkedIn I think generates money mostly off the usage like Whatsapp and FB Messenger do for the Zuck... 

derpysquirtle64 said:
shikamaru317 said:

What do you guys think about the just confirmed next-gen VR headset for PS5? Do you think Microsoft needs to counter it?

Personally I think MS absolutely needs to counter it, VR is clearly not some failed gimmick like Kinect/PS Move style motion controls were, VR has showed that it is here to stay through continued growth. I don't think MS can allow PS5 to have that advantage of VR support over Xbox. MS needs to either design a proper Xbox VR headset (ideal) or at least offer support for PC VR headsets and Windows Mixed Reality headsets on Xbox Series. 

MS already will have several 1st party studios who are able to support an Xbox VR headset (as well as PC VR headsets) with content, Ninja Theory has VR experience from the Darth Vader VR game they did, Bethesda was pushing quite hard for VR so id, Bethesda Game Studios, Machine, and I believe Arkane all have VR experience/teams now, and MS can either acquire some more VR studios or build a few new VR studios or a few more VR teams at existing studios so that they have enough teams to support a VR headset with content.  

Of course they should. The issue is, as far as I know, WMR is not suited for gaming and if Steam compatibility list is anything to pay attention to, only around 30-40% of VR games are compatible with WMR headsets. So, if Microsoft doesn't want to create their own hardware (which I believe is the case), they have only two options: partner with Facebook for Oculus or partner with Valve for SteamVR. Actually, Facebook can already be ruled out, because their business model for Oculus is very console-like, they want their customers to buy games from their own store but still allow their headsets to be used with Steam VR games. I don't believe Facebook would want to allow Oculus to work with Xbox, because in this case it's a competing device. You don't need to connect your Oculus Quest to Xbox if Oculus Quest already works as a standalone device. So, this leaves Valve as an only option, but to make it work, Microsoft needs Valve to port all their SteamVR SDK, runtimes and other stuff to Xbox OS. Not an easy task which will probably require MS to pay a huge check for Valve to do it.

If Valve is the only option, snagging the whole enchilada is a more sensible option than a piecemeal approach and the company will pay itself off over time. 

derpysquirtle64 said:
Ryuu96 said:

Lol.

Inb4, XGS buying Kojima Productions rumours

That's on my "hysteric reaction" list and I would like it just for the sweet schadenfreude. 

derpysquirtle64 said:
shikamaru317 said:

The way I see it is they have 2 options:

1. Either release an Xbox VR headset (with MS VR exclusives releasing on both Xbox VR and WMR) or make WMR compatible with Xbox Series, and hope that the sales of 1st party exclusive VR games from Bethesda and others will drive enough Xbox VR and/or WMR sales that more 3rd party devs start supporting Xbox VR and/or WMR

2. Partner with Valve to get Steam VR on Xbox, which like you said could prove rather expensive.

Personally I think they're better off with option 1. Release a Microsoft designed Xbox VR headset (which is part of the WMR family) on Xbox and PC, and release 1st party VR exclusives from Bethesda and Xbox Game Studios on both Xbox VR and WMR, in order to drive more WMR sales, which will in turn drive more 3rd party developer support for Xbox VR and WMR.

About option 1 - I think that this might only happen in case if Microsoft would come to conclusion that they need VR but they have no other options than to go with the "build their own headset" approach. Two reasons: Microsoft is not a hardware company and doesn't want to be a hardware company, right now they wish they didn't even have console hardware and you ask them to build yet another hardware. Second reason is that if such headset happens it will 100% be Xbox+PC compatible like everything Microsoft releases gaming related these days. The problem is, it won't sell well among PC crowd at all. If it is a WMR headset or any other standard (which would be even worse) for the reasons I mentioned in previous posts - WMR is barely supported by PC VR game developers. On the other hand, Microsoft still can make it WMR+SteamVR compatible on PC and WMR only on Xbox. But if I were to bet, this option would be the last thought for them because they would rather not bother with even more hardware.

About option 2 - it's not even about it being expensive, it's about the way how VR works on PC. I can be wrong, but as far as I understand, SteamVR is a runtime, a platform which is used by game developers to target their games to. So, it makes porting SteamVR games to Xbox impossible without SteamVR libraries being baked into Xbox OS even if Xbox OS will receive the headsets hardware support. Which means that MS would need to get Valve on board with this, but the issue is that Valve doesn't really have an interest in porting it to Xbox. It won't suddenly have any positive effect on their business by doing so. They are already fine with what they have right now, so why spend additional resources. I saw that there are some open source implementations of some libs which allow to run VR games without SteamVR installed, so MS can probably use this, but I'm not sure how good it works or if it even works at all

Surface is their designated seller for working machines. It's not that they don't like making stuff, but they want to make hardware for stuff they are pushing or as a form of market denial (like Surface to Apple). You'd need to find a way to convince MS stopping Sony is a good idea or they should promote VR as a complement to GP. 



derpysquirtle64 on 24 February 2021
zero129 said:

You said in your first post "WMR is not suited for gaming". So i guess going by your reply thats just you trowing around misconceptions in this thread then, At first i thought maybe you where just getting mixed up..

As for your facts they are just more misconceptions that your trowing around. Doing steam searchs in no way shows how a new wmr headset wouldnt get support on PC or xbox. If it was a good headset at a good price users would buy it. And the best thing even if you where the only one who did buy it you still going to be able to play all them VR games on Steam as its not like lack of sales = lack of support on PC.

PC's are not like consoles, it makes no difference to the PC user if they are using Steam VR, many including myself would sooner use Steam VR for our VR games. If Gamepass started offering PC VR gamer many users including myself would play VR games there if the offerings was good. Remember having your games on one Store on PC vs another isn't the same as porting to one console from another.

AFAIK every steam vr game uses OpenVR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVR .So no Steam doesnt need to be used its used for convenience sake as thats where most PC VR users are. And its also not the same as emulation at all as the is no performance impact its not emulating anything its just a driver pretty much.

And if MS support any of them headsets on their console the games would still need to be ported anyways same as if they want to port it to PSVR.

If MS started supporting the WMR headsets on xbox i see no reason why devs wouldnt port their games to xbox as more headsets = more sales, the only thing stopping them is the fact xbox doesnt have a vr headset something MS could easy fix.

It's false and just shows that you don't understand what I'm trying to say. If this would have been the case, Epic's version of Tetris Effect (which was a money-hat timed exclusive) wouldn't have required Steam to be installed to run VR mode. But it did - https://mspoweruser.com/epic-exclusive-tetris-effect-vr-requires-steam-to-run/. Because, surprise, it uses SteamVR as it's VR backend implementation. OpenVR that you are talking about is just an API, which can target any backend - WMR, SteamVR, Oculus, etc. But it still needs some libs on the backend layer to run the game that is written using this API. So, what I was trying to say is that Xbox has two options - go with WMR backend which only has around 30-40% of all Steam games compatible which will require additional work for other 60% of games if the devs would want to run them on Xbox (they would need to make them at least WMR-compatible first), or to ask Valve to port SteamVR libraries to Xbox which would result in easier porting of VR games to Xbox.



 

derpysquirtle64 on 24 February 2021
KiigelHeart said:

Got tired of waiting for Cyberpunk patches and started it. What a game so far! I'm surprised there's so many cool gameplay mechanics and different styles to play. The main story kicks ass so far.

I missed all talk about Cyberpunk during launch. How did you guys like the game?

I played just throughout he main campaign and enjoyed the game. I understand that CDPR went open-world route just for the atmosphere, but IMO the game would have probably been better off as a linear experience with side stories timed in.



 

Libara on 24 February 2021
shikamaru317 said:

Rand and Parris doing some more teasing about Bethesda exclusivity:

3 pairs of eyes, 6 eyeballs total. Confirmed Bethesda event 6th March....