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HTC Vive outselling Oculus Rift 2:1, claims Tim Sweeney

According to the founder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, the HTC Vive is outselling the Oculus Rift by a ratio of 2:1. Claiming that the reason for the greater success rate of the Vive is its open-platform design, Sweeney said he expects this trend to continue and that ultimately open platforms will dominate in the VR space.

Oculus was once the darling of the virtual reality world. The developer of early VR kits like the DK1 and DK2 and headed by then well-loved, VR evangelist, Palmer Luckey, Oculus rode a wave of popularity to its consumer release. However after backtracking, a higher than expected price and a very Apple-like stance on software stores, much of the Oculus good will evaporated throughout 2016.

That seems to be the case for developers too, as Sweeney was heavily critical of Oculus' strategy in his chat with Glixel. He's not just mindlessly hating on Oculus either, as Epic has provided a lot of support for Oculus and vice versa with the development and impending release of Robo Recall. However much like his dislike for the locked down Windows Store, Sweeney just does not like closed software ecosystems.

sweeney

Sweeney shown here during his chat at GDC 2016. Source: OfficialGDC/Flickr

“I think it's the wrong model. When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store,” Sweeney said. “You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It's just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers. It's telling developers: “You're on notice here. We're going to dominate this thing. And your freedom is going to expire at some point.” It's a terrible precedent to set. I argued passionately against it.”

He went on to highlight that the most successful games and apps were always multi, if not cross-platform. Tools designed for interaction and communication are only great if you can use them to talk to everyone he said.

Although he didn't provide hard numbers to show that the Vive is outselling Rifts, our own research into the UK marketplace offers evidence that should back it up. While you can find the Vive at many hardware stores – and OCUK alone has sold thousands, we were told – the Rift is only buyable from a few select outlets. For some reason, one of them is John Lewis.

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KitGuru Says: Even though the Rift is excellent, the Vive's open platform is a major reason I would still recommend it over its competitor. 

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8 comments

  1. In fairness, Oculus did just release their Touch controllers in December. That may help them close the gap. In terms of corporate strategy, HTC seems to rush a little more while Oculus takes more time.

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  3. Probably biased towards Vive, but Steam’s own hardware survey shows Vive outselling Rift by more than 2 to 1.

  4. “Claiming that the reason for the greater success rate of the Vive is its open-platform design” This is bull. Owners of the Rift can use the Oculus Store and Steam…. Vive owners need hacks for Oculus exklusives. So which platform is more “open” from he point of view of a customer? Oh, and the Rift has lowerd hardware requirements now, so more PCs can use it. And the Touch controllers are far superior to what Vive offers. Let’s see the data from Q1 2017 in a few weeks.^^

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  6. Reality seems to disagree with you.

  7. To even come CLOSE to replicating the Vive’s performance, you need THREE cameras (all connected to your PC via USB!) and the touch controllers. Total cost? $880. Also, since developers can not count on ALL Rift users to have three cameras, VERY FEW titles will take full advantage of that kind of setup, most developers are going to make their game compatible with what the majority of users have…which means that most titles made for Oculus will be for a seated or stationary standing experience.

    Additionally, once the third party wireless adapters come out for the Vive, it’s essentially “Game Over” for Oculus. Don’t underestimate how compelling a truly wireless VR headset will be, even if it does cost an additional $250 or so for the add on!

    Also, “in fairness”, Vive has done an excellent job of keeping their executives OUT of the headlines! The same can’t be said for Palmer Luckey (shitpost funding, pro-Trump see https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/23/oculus-rift-vr-palmer-luckey-trump-shitposts ) or Dov Katz (Currently charged with solicitation of an underage prostitute, see http://www.geekwire.com/2016/oculus-engineering-leader-arrested-near-seattle-charged-soliciting-sex-cop-posing-15-year-old-girl/) While these incidents have nothing to do with the technology itself, some people don’t like giving monetary support to scumbags, don’t think this doesn’t play into final sales figures…it most certainly DOES!

    In the end, you have an outstanding, user-friendly, DEVELOPER friendly company, run by PROFESSIONALS with an OPEN VR platform, vs. a CLOSED environment, owned by one of the most DISTRUSTED names in tech (Facebook), run by SLEEZE, and forcing a closed proprietary app store on users. Gee, I wonder who is going to win in the end?

  8. One word “Facebook”, cya Oculus!