 Oculus Rift versus HTC Vive. This is a battle that I have been following very closely, and up until recently, the whole scene has felt rather dominated by the Oculus Rift. Then Oculus launched pre-orders at a few hundred dollars more than people expected, right around the same time that HTC decided to show off their HTC Pre, their newest prototype, which was a tremendous improvement over their previously shown off headset. So where do both teams stand now? Well, if you asked a month ago, I swear the public opinion would have been with Oculus. But I ran a Twitter poll very recently that received over 3,000 votes and left them at 50-50. So the battle's close. Let's take a deeper look. The Symmetar RGB from Corsair features 17 programmable buttons, a 12,000 DPI optical sensor, and a shape designed for comfort in MMO and MOBA gaming. Learn more in the video description down below. Now, like I said, things have changed relatively recently for both teams, mainly on the HTC Vive side. So let's start with a refresher. This is going to be a long video. Hold tight. The consumer version of the Oculus Rift will be running a resolution of 2160x1200, split between two OLED displays running at 90Hz, which are oriented in portrait, not landscape, which is an interesting decision. These screens and their new lenses that make things look a little bit more clear when looking at them directly and a little bit more distorted when looking near the edges, will be able to move independent of the headset, which will allow them to accommodate IPD ranges of anyone between the 5th and 95th percentile. Your FOV will be above 100 degrees, but will depend on how close the screen is to your face. The fit and finish of the new Rift has been very impressively improved. Not only is it very surprisingly light, but it feels like quality when you hold it, which is uncommon in a light device. A lot more fabric was added to the design, which at first sounds kind of horrible because absorbing oils and sweat from your skin, but Palmer has said that while you won't be able to throw the fabric in a washing machine, it will be washable. The foam part that touches your face can be completely taken off of the headset and replaced if you so wish. The side straps now have springs built into them, which pulls the triangle-like plate for the back of your head in, so that it's nice and snug while you're trying to fit it on. It also comes with a pair of on-ear headphones. These are mounted on the headset and have been the source of a ton of controversy. Audiophiles are complaining that they're paying for junk on-ear headphones when they already have awesome cans, and average consumers are complaining that they don't really see the point or the value. The benefits that these do have is that they naturally won't fall off the headset, so if you're whipping your head around in something like eValkyrie, you're safe. And it's also been claimed that it's a benefit to the developer to know exactly the performance capabilities of what headset you will be using. They know the volume they can push out, they know the quality of the sound, etc. Profiles for these included headphones are set within the SDK, and whether or not anyone will notice these benefits is yet to be seen, but I'm not writing them off quite yet. The sensors have also had a significant improvement. You can really tell when trying out the device because the bounds are much wider and you don't hit them nearly as much. The LED layout on the headset should make it so that you can be facing any direction and still be tracked by the sensor, which you can tilt just in case you want to stand if you're playing a game like Bullet Train, which by the way is super freaking fun. An improvement to the overall accuracy of the sensor design will come later on down the line when you add the Oculus Touch. This will happen not because the sensor will get better, but because you'll add an additional sensor. The Touch is Oculus's approach to VR input and it's two independent controllers, one per hand, which is meant to make it feel like your VR hands are, well, your real hands, not like you're just holding a tool. Punching things, throwing things, flicking things, all of this should feel natural. They even have a grip button, so when you're holding something, you'll naturally be holding the controller more tightly. They even have you covered if you want to make obscene hand gestures or just give a thumbs up, because the thumb stick and the trigger buttons both have capacitive tops and can feel if you've lifted off of them or not. Next up, the Vive. HTC has been a lot more tight lipped in regards to their headsets, but I'll cover everything I can. Hardware spec wise, when looking at the inside of the headset may seem a little bit like Deja Vu. 21 by 60 by 1200 split across two screens, OLED panel, 90 hertz refresh rate and over 100 degrees of FOV, depending on how you wear it. Easily one of the biggest improvements that HTC brought to the table at CES was improvements to the linen or dirty window feel that the previous panels had. It was pretty rough with their earlier prototypes, much like it was with the Rift, but I'm happy to say that it's almost entirely gone now and looks great. The fit and finish has improved dramatically for the Vive, and while they're claiming that it actually isn't any lighter than their previous prototypes, it definitely feels lighter due to their improved weight distribution by optimizing their head straps. No news on the interchangeability of the foam or how easy it will be to clean, however. HTC has now mounted a camera on the front because someone forgot to tell them it was a phone, which actually adds some pretty major improvements, to be honest. Their chaperone system, which previously just displayed the wall boundaries that you set within the program, is now able to make a cool blue outlined grid model of any objects that are in the room, so you don't have to worry so much about moving around and bumping something or breaking it or falling over yourself. One of the most notable improvements with this is what's being called the cat detection system. There isn't actually a specific system for this, but it does allow you to not worry so much about stepping on something like your cat or other small animal, or really anything while in VR, which has admittedly been a pretty huge issue. The addition of the camera was a serious step in the right direction. Previous prototypes also had big issues with occlusion or essentially the blocking of various sensors, their lighthouse system sensors, either with your own body or something else in the room, or say one of the controllers could be overlapping the other one, which would totally screw things up, resulting in controllers teleporting all over the place and major disconnects in terms of player positioning. HTC has made their photodiode sensors more sensitive than before, changed their layout on the headset itself, and done a massive overhaul to the controller, both in terms of how you hold it and the layout and design of the sensors. The controller now sits in a more consistent position in your hand, which is better for developers, so they have a more accurate idea of the exact position and orientation of your hand. These Wiimote-like wands also feature a ring at the end, which seems to be solely there for tracking reasons, as the ring has no specific function other than holding a large amount of those photodiodes distributed all around the ring. This, in combination with the improved lighthouse sensors, made a significant and very noticeable improvement to the tracking of the controllers. Now, finally, how do they compare? This is not an easy thing to quantify, even if they were released. They're both very similar, yet completely fundamentally different at the same time. Their screens sound very similar on paper, yet they're implementing them differently. Their first-party controllers are wildly different, and controller alone has been enough of a reason for gamers to decide differently between consoles in the past. Their sensing and motion technology are very different implementations as well, making the experience totally different on each version. While you can stand and walk around with an Oculus Rift, and you can sit in one place with an HTC Vive, they're both targeting different experiences. I have personally never gone through a Vive demo that was stationary in any way, and I have personally never gone through an Oculus demo that had me move around a space that was any bigger than two yoga mats. In games like Bullet Train, Rift users can teleport a short distance, then fight from a pivot point instead of walking around, which in theory allows you to travel through levels relatively naturally. Vive has a leg up here, however, by having a larger walking area, which would support the idea of teleporting, and I haven't seen this at all implemented yet, but considering they're partnered with Valve, would allow you to do things like walking through a portal to get to your next area. Speaking of larger walking area, both have issues with constantly tethered cables, but it is much more of an issue with the Vive. Being mobile and having a cable near neck height isn't great. The Rift demos, no one really worries about the cable because it's never really an issue, in Vive demos, it is very common for a dedicated person to be walking around just managing the cable. That's crazy and not going to be an option for many people. Watching someone play a game is one thing, being someone's cable boy is another. There are people actively working on this, like Gigabyte Aorus with their backpack, which we checked out here, or even Intel, who's working with partners like Aorus to deliver these types of backpacks, which are great, and Intel has some amazing ideas coming down the pipe which should make them even better, which I can't talk about yet, but this still requires you to have a super powerful laptop, or super light computer capable of running games at 90 FPS minimums. That's an expensive pill to swallow. Last but not least is the controller, and this, quite honestly, is in your hands. Pun intended, I'm sorry, let's move on. This, like most controllers, will come down to personal preference once all is said and done. In my personal opinion, which may not matter too much here, I prefer the touch controllers. The way you grip things, the fact that they wrap around your hand, and just how incredibly natural they felt within a minute or two of using them was a thing to behold. No one needed to tell me what buttons did what, I just naturally knew without ever using controllers like these before. That's pretty freaking cool. They didn't feel like a magical virtual reality enabling wand, and honestly, I quickly forgot they were even really there. They became an extension of my movement, a part of my body. This potential level of immersion is very important for VR. As a whole, looking at the VR landscape altogether, there are still many challenges that need to be overcome. The uncanny valley of reproduced movement and reverse kinematics of your own bodies when looking at ourselves in a virtual mirror, or just looking down at our virtual bodies, will continue to be an issue for a while. There are major differences between the controllers, and while this is a good thing in terms of innovation, competition, and just in general pushing the limits of the platform, there may need to be standardization at some point, and at that point we will probably see a higher adoption of VR. Speaking of higher adoption, VR hasn't had its Android butter moment yet. Virtual reality still lacks the polish you find in most widely adopted products. It will come, but I don't think it's there yet. Then there's the price. The Rift announced at $600 US dollars, an understandable price, but still considerably higher than we were led to believe. The Vive has been positioned as a premium VR headset this whole time, so I don't expect it to be cheaper. My guess is under a thousand bucks, probably closer to $899 or $999, although there's been some rumor mill sites that have said $1500. I don't really know if that's going to happen. I don't really think so. While that may sound expensive on its own, another thing to realize is that it's actually only part of the associated cost. People haven't honestly had a good reason to build crazy badass computers for quite some time now, other than just wanting a crazy badass computer, which is totally fair, but the lack of games that really push gamers to upgrade their PC has left the PC market mostly saturated with slow old machines happily chugging along in World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike Go, and League of Legends. That leaves the overall cost of the platform incredibly high, because people are going to have to upgrade a whole bunch of stuff to get there, and this will hurt the average consumer's ability to adopt early on, which is probably fine. Actually, I'd rather us hard cores tried it while the other people just waited, because I'd rather that we fought with the rough edges now than have a massive amount of people trying it, assuming it's not ready, and dooming the platform, but it does suck for the hard cores that can't afford it. I've been waiting for this for a long time, so I've been saving, but some people haven't or are not able to, and that really sucks. Ting is the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and customer satisfaction first. Don't speak to a robot, they put you directly through to a person, and you only use, or you only pay for what you use. The average Ting bill is only $24 a month per device, which is pretty sweet, pretty sweet. If you're stuck in a contract, they'll help you switch over to Ting by covering 25% of your cancellation fee up to $75. So head over to linus.ting.com and try out their savings calculator. When you sign up on our link, you'll also get $25 in service credit or $25 towards a new device. Thanks for watching, guys. I know this was a long video. I hope you enjoyed it. If it sucked, I guess you can thumbs down, but if it was good, get subscribed, hit the like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon, buying a cool t-shirt, we have a bunch of them, description down below, or with a direct monthly contribution to the forum. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next, so click the little button in the top right hand corner to check out this video, where I, with a horrible sunburn, get all the members of Linus Media Group and Lew from Unbox Therapy to try some demos from my development kit too, and make some interesting predictions about the future of VR, which are fun to kind of go back and look at now. If you're still watching at this point, please don't forget to like the thing. Took me a long time to make this video, and I want to make more of them, so I need to show Linus some pretty cool lake numbers. Anyways guys, I'll see you next time.