So now 10-15% of the PC base is tiny… Wow, so how many PC users are? Just to see what’s the number of this small group of VR users is.
So people who haven’t tried VR are against VR, LOL…
Just to break some misconception about price, Pico4 is a great headset for 429 euros, guess it’s just better to sell the idea that VR cost $1000 to make your bias point stand.
Really would like to know those numbers…
I had oculus long time ago and that was the major problem why I changed to a hp g2.
For me now there is no more screen door effect and can read pretty well screens in cockpit.
However I think for small details, cockpit designs for VR should include bigger typographies or slightly bigger screens to see all details correct with average equipment.
I’m going to double down, and say the best way for to people to try VR is with a dirt cheap Rift CV1. The CV1 with SS bumped up the wazoo through one of multiple methods you can totally get sharp cockpit details to read things, which you couldn’t do originally. Right mouse to zoom instrument works if you really need to, but you can get away without that in a lot of cases too.
All you need is the right GPU, which didn’t exist when it first came out, and OpenXR toolkit.
SDE dissolves after a while to nothing. You also have post processing now to boost color saturation/vibrance++, so it doesn’t look like a washed out fuzzy old blurry watercolor painting, and remove the horrible shimmer with TAA or DLSS.
It is not the CV1 experience of old.
It won’t cost $1K, it won’t cost $500 (which is still not cheap), you can likely get one for ~$200 to $250 which is far lower risk, and with tools available now it can still hold its own against modern $500+ headsets. All those headsets also have their own issues still, so they don’t beat the CV1 hands down just because latest generation. It’s far more nuanced than that.
Don’t waste your money on even mid price VR headsets until you’re sure and have learned about it low risk and low cost, and then you can keep the old CV1 as an emergency backup. Dirt cheap, comparatively. You can do it on as low a GPU as an RTX 2060 too.
There should be no hardware snobbery in VR. Use what works, while it still works, if it can provide a quality experience at a good price point that suits your risk level and budget.
So since there’s no numbers backing up the low VR users, I did a little search and found that there’s more than 10million users, as of december 2022
Let’s just take that 70/30 floating around (7million xbox/3million PC) and we find out that VR users are about 300k to 450k, assuming Asobo meant the percentage comes only from the PC base, a very small number indeed…
If people think this is a small number that justifies Asobo giving no attention to VR then there’s nothing that will make them change their minds.
That’s total people that have tried it. It’s called marketing.
The actual market of regular users is way smaller than that, maybe even rolls dice a fifth.
Then - no matter what number you come up with for VR users - there’s the relative market number of those VR users to the total PC user numbers, and issues that need to be prioritised for ALL users.
There’s a good technical argument that focusing on issues that effect everybody as a priority will lift all boats faster, and then - along with improvements in VR tech - the issues with highly active but smaller overall niche areas like VR can be looked at in more detail and focus.
Not to beat a drum too much, but the huge VR UX improvement in an older VR headset like the Rift CV1 is a current working example of this in action. Of course, ultra expensive headsets that people want to run at full ultra in 4K+ are going to have a completely different set of issues. The simple solution might be just to turn things down until things get better and just enjoy it for what it is.
Well I showed you the numbers from the source, while you just keep making assumptions.
So for you it’s not 10million but 2million, that makes about 60-90k VR users, I see it’s really small…
We can also say Asobo 10-15% is a low ball number for them to justifiy neglecting VR and the real number is way higher hehehe.
No matter what, I see you’ll keep just downplaying this.
Well, I’m happy flying with my Pico4 and when I show people what’s like flying in VR, they’re blown away and have never imagined this is possible.
That source is well known. I’m also not making assumptions, but whatever, it doesn’t matter.
I’m not downplaying it, It is what it is. They’re also not “neglecting it”, they’ve stated that many times.
Look how many job openings for MSFS Asobo have: Job list (page) | Asobo Studio
I count 21. That’s hardly neglecting anything, that’s a serious recruitment effort that smacks of a lot of work needing bodies at the coalface. You can bet the technical and design roles are equally required to develop for all environments, because that’s what people are using.
Everyone wants their personal issues with MSFS fixed yesterday, VR users are not the only ones.
Just give it some time.
I’d also recommend you watch the bit about the World Update Development Process, and get some insight into what goes into it but also the size and span of the teams involved:
This is not a small process by any means.
I personally don’t have any problems with VR in MSFS at the moment, loving it.
Sure, there are issues, but there’s a lot of issues still being working on.
They’re not independant of VR is the mistake I think a lot of people are making, even though there are VR specific issues as well. Swings and roundabouts, as they say.
My hopes are that like my preferred movies ALWAYS in 3D, and only in 3D I watched some from time to time, this VR technology end in a shelve and disrupted like 3D movies, for to be a minority user market not too much apparently profitable, I think/hope no, and this time is different.
I went from ‘a little bit interested’ to ‘full-blown flight sim nut’ in a short time because of VR, and i hope MS/Asobo knows that can happen.
My flight sim history:
1984- MS FS2.0 on an Apple IIe, had lots of fun as a kid
1989-2020 - 100% Mac user, no “gamer pc’s”. tried xplane a little bit but never got into it.
Aug 2020 - “oh neat they made a new flight sim, looks nice!”
Dec 2020- “its in VR now? wow i have to see it!” I loaded it up on my kid’s pc, which has a oculus rift. immediately hooked! kid said i was using his computer too much.
March 2021 - spent thousands on fastest pc and graphics card available, & widest FOV VR, pedals, joystick, quadrant etc.. bought many 3rd party planes and helis
today - spend thousands more on custom 6DOF rig, I am in VR MSFS at least 3 days a week
While MS’s profit was only a tiny slice of that, it does feed a larger (still niche) industry. If msfs was flatscreen only, i would never have bothered with any of that.
Im a bit younger (first FS as a kid in the 90s) but it was similar for me, just not quite at the motion rig stage yet.. Just bleeding edge PC hardware and 1k+ headsets for now!
Never said I was against VR. I have no doubt within the next 10-20 years we’ll be well on our way as a species (developed countries) to never leaving our houses and living our lives in VR based worlds. I remember reading somewhere about how some hardcore users of VR were becoming so involved with it that they started to neglect their own physical and mental needs and were becoming stuck or spending too much time within the VR world as opposed to the actual living world. We’ve seen this phenomenon with PC’s where as an example you have online cafe’s or can rent rooms for gaming where people would game for well over 24 hours non stop. One guy in Japan/Asia gamed for over 50-60 hours straight and ended up dying and nobody noticed because they all thought he was sleeping. Other cases have involved parents neglecting their children in lieu of focusing on gaming. With how VR takes you into another realm of being even more desensitized with what’s going on around you outside of being in the VR environment, I can see issues like this increasing as the userbase grows and becomes more common.
Plus side though is that finishing a VR flight with FS is a great reminder to “take a break” as you don’t have flights that are endless hours as is common with other gaming. Summary is that I think it needs more time to grow and develop and for the time being the way I use MSFS/FS and the platform I use to play it with it suits my needs. Is it the next level? Yes. Will it become standard not just in gaming but in how the world functions in the future? Most likely. Is it something I’m ready to try out and forego the way I’ve enjoyed gaming since I can remember? Not yet. Do I see health concerns of using VR that still need to be tested that don’t exist for many people who use PC? Yes. Time and patience will tell. For those who have started down the path and are enjoying it, more power to you and I respect it.
As a VR user you obviously see more enjoyment and pros in using it. Funny though, since being around for decades and having a supposed large application base already establish over multiple different industries and areas of professional usage, why is it that it’s still a minority product within the common household?? Genuinely curious. If I went around my neighborhood which is a middle class/upper middle class and knocked on 100 doors. I’m guessing I’d find out of that 100 maybe 15-20 have VR, sounds reasonable. With what others have said, it’s not that popular…yet…as you think it is. Now since you’re on a gaming platform in the MSFS VR section, of course it’s going to “look” like there’s quite a few VR users since it’s a central hub to trade knowledge. But as you look outside of MSFS and this sub section geographically within the gaming world, that userbase shrinks ever smaller into becoming a small corner of the room in a very big one.
Who said VR has to mainstream and everyone has to have it?
What the hell has this to do with MSFS neglecting VR for so long? Aren’t the thousands of MSFS VR users enough for Asobo to be more active in fixing bugs and improving the experience? Or do we need millions of users, or all of them using VR so that there’s more action from Asobo?
Cmon, you’re just making excuses to justify Asobo.
Oh lordy, I don’t care what Asobo does and am not justifying them. It’s their platform and development project. If Mc Donald’s had developed MSFS it wouldn’t matter to me. As for you asking about whether or not you think there needs to be more users of VR before Asobo starts giving your side of the coin more attention, you tell me? Your fellow VR users seem to think so or else I wouldn’t see why this thread would have been made in the first place. I don’t care who makes what. If you actually go and read my posts, you can see I’m talking about the reasons as to WHY VR users on MSFS may be getting the short end of the attention span. You’re focusing on the WHAT. WHY users of VR may be getting less attention from Asobo/ WHAT do users of VR need to do to get more attention from Asobo. Two different things.
I’m answering to your “health issues” as well as “there’s few”…
What do you want?
Asobo to kill it because there’s health issues and there’s not a lot using VR?
Well if they wanted that they would’ve done already but I guess those users are enough for not to kill it…
Point being, they should’ve been doing more, like other aspects of the sim, and not dragging this…
Address the issues and not saying we’re looking into it and stay at that for months…
Interesting. Now you’re claiming that I supposedly said or implied that VR is pointless and a waste of time and that Asobo should just abandon it and let it die out. Yeah, impulse typing is always entertaining. I said it needs more time to grow and develop with more people using it. Those who have already started using it, respect to you for being on the frontier of technology. Like I said BEFORE since you didn’t bothered to read it, someone has to do it.
Your last two points, Asobo dragging things on for months and should be working on other aspects of the sim. It’s not just VR and I agree with you. I’ve said often around these forums that it seems that their priority is beautification over functionality. Now they say they have different departments doing XYZ which is all fine and good but I’m seeing more beautifying happening throughout each release than actual function. For every 1 SU we get 2/3+ of “beautifying” in the form of airport, scenery, or aircraft.
If these (roughly calculated) 9,625 million non VR users only knew what they are missing …….. almost everything.
VR rulez! Anyone should have the chance to see this by himself.
I think Asobo knew well about how great VR is but they have to deliver what the beancounters demand. And these do the same math like you….thats how it works imho.
MSFS 2020, the gift that keeps on taking.
I’ll just put my 2 cents here. It frankly does not even matter how many people are actually adopting VR and what % of userbase it represents. How WE FEEL about VR doesn’t matter either. But what DOES matter is that Asobo/Microsoft were actually MARKETING the Reverb G2 in a tight relationship with MSFS’s VR release and it was at that point the go to product for it. Hell, it was actually advertised as a product made with purpose for the MSFS. For a while it was also the only headset mentioned as being supported for the game. Now, if you went ahead with that campaign, it’s only right you actually support BOTH products from that campaign. So this for me is the main reason i hold both companies responsible for genuine support. MS for WMR as a platform for the Reverb and Asobo for MSFS’s VR funcionality.
As far as my personal feelings for VR go… I love it. I bought a cheap Dell Visor 3 years ago and was imediatelly hooked. A few months ago i sold my G2 V1 and i was without a headset for roughly 2 months until i got G2 V2 and i can tell you i HONESTLY tried flying pancake (with headtracking, mind you) and it was just impossible to go with it. Even with all the fancy graphics that you notice in comparison to VR. It’s just not possible to go back to pancake. Even if i had a multimonitor setup and a motion platform and an entire flight deck, i’d still choose VR every time. But, to be perfectly honest, i do think PCVR at this point is no where near suitable for a common user. It’s one thing playing Pokerstars or Beat saber with a Quest, which i presume is a pretty “plug and play experience”. But any serious VR simming is a ton of hassle and tinkering and only an enthusiast-level user is going to bother with all that. I’ve probably spent 1000 hours+ in msfs just tinkering, trying to get it to run smooth, etc. So, until things are more straightforward, optimised and “dumbed down”, and especially cheaper, we’re not going to see a large influx of users
I don’t know. This year we can expect the Quest 3 which should be better than the G2 and have pancake lenses. Apple will launch into VR with its first product. Likely out of reach of most people but it is going to promote VR a lot. Pimax Crystal is shaping up to be a great headset for clarity getting closer to monitor displays. As you put it, once you go VR you don’t go back. VR users will grow and if MS/Asobo are smart they would encourage that growth. 2023 is shaping up to be a good year for VR.
Who cares if VR is mainstream or not. Do you honestly think the majority of MSFS users care about METAR? Well, we all got lumbered with that didn’t we? Now there is no opportunity for proper dynamic weather without this broken METAR “snapshot” breaking the entire immersion?
So, it seems majority plays very little part in whether or not functionality gets implemented. I hardly think a few hundred votes represents the “majority” of the player base… And its amazing how you get so many people wanting to disparage VR for MSFS. Well, at least you have an option to NOT use it. I have no option for Dynamic weather now without this ridiculous out of date METAR breaking the whole thing.
Oh and without software support, its going to be very difficult for any hardware to become mainstream so I guess you should be thankful that hardware does not have to be mainstream before it becomes fully supported in software or else almost all hardware peripherals would be pretty much non-existent today.