But you can plug the Quest into a PC and use it as a PCVR headset. Oculus sells a 16 ft fiber optic cable for $80, but it works well over any good quality USB 3 cable (and even works over USB 2 now).
The downside of this is that it's more front heavy than a PC headset without all the standalone guts, and I'm sure there's non-zero latency for running the video stream over a USB connection rather than a standard video cable. It works pretty well though, I think the trade-offs are absolutely worth the benefits of having a standalone headset.
The version on the Oculus Store doesn't do SteamVR streaming though, you have to buy it and then sideload an alternate version (which still checks for a license from the store).
There's supposed to be some sort of easier sideloading system coming (currently you need to sign up for a developer account and enable developer mode), but no new info since that was announced a few months ago.
Pixel density isn't as high as what you'll get on a real monitor, but having lots of them ought to help make up for it.
Carmack brought this up in his talk last night, apparently with the higher pixel count in the Quest 2 the quality is now limited by the fresnel lens optics, and they won't be able to just keep bumping the pixel count up to improve visuals. So it's not clear what the path is to higher quality VR is for them. People have made headsets with more exotic multi-element glass optical setups, but there are trade-offs for cost, weight, and likelihood of things breaking if you knock it off a table.
Also, there is a good amount of compression involved so the graphical fidelity takes a massive hit.
They claim that they are going to be improving both of these issues, but given that they still exist in largely the same state as they did with the Oculus Link Beta with the V1 Quest, people should be skeptical about how much improvement they are going to be able to accomplish. Carmack talked about some ideas on how it can be made better, but I don't know if he's still assisting them with anything at all.
I'm very happy with my v1 Quest, but its PC support has some significant drawbacks.
He also mentioned he hopes they can eventually get an official wireless solution out to the public.
So now you're tethered, your tether is more fragile, and you have significant extra latency.
Standalone headsets are so much more convenient, and are affordable to people without a high powered gaming computer, so I see why Facebook is going in this direction.
>We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward. We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we've seen significant growth in PC VR via Oculus Link, and the Rift Platform will continue to grow while offering high-end PC VR experiences.
So, yeah. End of the road for the Rift. Oculus Link makes it redundant.
https://www.oculus.com/blog/play-rift-content-on-quest-with-...
Tethering just feels like an bootstrapping niche. Appealing to those who already find gaming PCs appealing, obviously dovetailing with highly engaged gamers. But, tethering is never going to "win." Tethering for power makes current battery life OK, even the quest 1 is good enough.
Mass adoption, almost certainly, means an affordable all-in-one unit. We have enough history at this point (with home gaming) to know what the price range is. Oculus have been playing within that range.
Graphics/power is already (Quest1) good enough for a lot of games. An interesting part of the history of home gaming is that both "more is never enough" and "good enough is good enough" seem to be true. Lots of the most popular gaming products (games, consoles.. eg minecraft) did not push boundaries at all. OTOH, bleeding edge has always been highly relevant, especially for blockbuster games.
On balance, I don't think graphics is a (commercially) limiting factor for VR anymore. This makes a rift/tethered device kind of questionable. If it doesn't get mass adoption, and I don't think it can), it can't support the high end games that really need these graphics. The oculus product line strategy (whether accidentally or deliberately) seems clever. The rift is what you develop new games for. They will (hopefully) be portable to the next gen Quest.
Overall, I think the current game is all about weight/comfort and content. The current devices are heavy & sweaty. This one weighs just 10% less. Every gram counts, but I don't think this is a breakthrough. Content is the other factor. IMO, exercise apps still need to breakthrough. I'm surprised ankle controllers and heart rate monitors aren't a thing yet. I really think the right game & controllers with the current gen quest could become a breakthrough workout thing. A lot of current games are pretty physical, but I suspect you can get to a point where a 6 week game addiction makes you look visibly fitter... on par with a daily gym routine.
It’s clearly dead and as someone who owned one it’s been clear FB hasn’t cared about it for some time.