Oculus security update backfires - software piracy is now easier

[HEXUS]

Only six months ago the Oculus founder touted an open approach to software.

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[shaithis]

Brilliant. I hope they all get pirated to hell.

We are at the beginning of a new phase in gaming and we have the first-to-market trying to stifle competition before the competition had even shipped anything.......talk about giving a technology it's least likely chance to succeed.

This whole VR vendor business is keeping me well away from the tech for the foreseeable future.

[Corky34]

If one things going to kill of VR before it even gets started it would be locking down the software to only run on one device.

[jag272]

While opening up routes to piracy is never a good thing, and while I'm sure Facebook as we speak are phoning up their legal team, they kinda deserved that.

No surprise ofcourse that on the brink of new technology, they want to keep as much of the new lucrative market as possible, but for an emerging technology thats really the last thing we probably want as consumers.

Whether piracy is the right way to send that message is questionable, but its been proven in the past, for better or worse, that it atleast gets attention. Whether it will receive the right kind of attention though, we'll have to wait and see.

[amdavies]

As much as I dislike Facebook and this whole idea of walling off their product means that I won't be buying an Oculus, I can understand why they're doing it. If people are complaining that a company is tying software to hardware and not allowing anyone else to play then why is no-one accusing Microsoft of doing the same thing ? With the two best selling current gen consoles running on PC hardware, where are the pitchforks and torches over them not allowing PC owners to run XBox One games ? Hypothetically you could even get PS4 games running on a PC, both consoles should only have software issues. Of course there might be hardware security built-in to consoles to prevent this, but is that any better than what Oculus is doing in software ?
Sony, Microsoft and Oculus have all put large amounts of money into hardware and all three almost certainly also did the same with software before launch so that the hardware would sell. The difference with Oculus seems to be that it's creator made promises that he couldn't keep and selling out to Facebook compounded the problem.

I'm now looking at buying a Vive, Oculus was the plan but the acquisition by Facebook made that unlikely as long as there was any sort of half-decent competition. From reports, the Vive is at least as good as the Oculus, so that's what I'm looking at going forward.

[qasdfdsaq]

While opening up routes to piracy is never a good thing, and while I'm sure Facebook as we speak are phoning up their legal team, they kinda deserved that.

No surprise ofcourse that on the brink of new technology, they want to keep as much of the new lucrative market as possible, but for an emerging technology thats really the last thing we probably want as consumers.

Indeed. The only thing vendor lock-in and exclusives are good for are milking more money out of consumers who have no choice. It does nothing for the end user.

Whether piracy is the right way to send that message is questionable, but its been proven in the past, for better or worse, that it atleast gets attention. Whether it will receive the right kind of attention though, we'll have to wait and see.

Maybe if it shows them that arbitrarily locking down your product to extract sponsorship from hardware sales actually reduces their income (due to piracy) but being open with the product increases income (due to more users being able to buy it) they'll get the message...

[qasdfdsaq]

As much as I dislike Facebook and this whole idea of walling off their product means that I won't be buying an Oculus, I can understand why they're doing it. If people are complaining that a company is tying software to hardware and not allowing anyone else to play then why is no-one accusing Microsoft of doing the same thing ? With the two best selling current gen consoles running on PC hardware, where are the pitchforks and torches over them not allowing PC owners to run XBox One games ? Hypothetically you could even get PS4 games running on a PC, both consoles should only have software issues. Of course there might be hardware security built-in to consoles to prevent this, but is that any better than what Oculus is doing in software ?

Completely different kettle of fish. VR headsets are output devices that use a completely standard (USB + HDMI) input and can work with any standard HDMI port.

Xbox and PS4 games are physically incapable of running on different OS platforms. The VR games in question have been shown to be almost completely inter-compatible (as the Revive patch demonstrates).

A better analogy would be a TV or monitor that only allows you to play PS4 games and you need to buy a second TV in order to connect to an Xbox One or a PC. And then they sent out an update to make sure Dell monitors only work when connected to a Dell PC. Because that's what they are - TVs, monitors, VR headsets - all just a bunch of HDMI display devices.

[bridges009]

It's almost as if Facebook doesn't understand or care about gamers and technology enthusiasts...

[jag272]

As much as I dislike Facebook and this whole idea of walling off their product means that I won't be buying an Oculus, I can understand why they're doing it. If people are complaining that a company is tying software to hardware and not allowing anyone else to play then why is no-one accusing Microsoft of doing the same thing ? With the two best selling current gen consoles running on PC hardware, where are the pitchforks and torches over them not allowing PC owners to run XBox One games ? Hypothetically you could even get PS4 games running on a PC, both consoles should only have software issues. Of course there might be hardware security built-in to consoles to prevent this, but is that any better than what Oculus is doing in software ?
Sony, Microsoft and Oculus have all put large amounts of money into hardware and all three almost certainly also did the same with software before launch so that the hardware would sell. The difference with Oculus seems to be that it's creator made promises that he couldn't keep and selling out to Facebook compounded the problem.

I'm now looking at buying a Vive, Oculus was the plan but the acquisition by Facebook made that unlikely as long as there was any sort of half-decent competition. From reports, the Vive is at least as good as the Oculus, so that's what I'm looking at going forward.

In fairness, I think this is still very much a problem, only the goal posts have shifted, on both ends of the playing field. On the one hand consumers are beginning to accept exclusives because they don't appear to be going away any time soon. And then on the other side of the field you have people who are still bothered by it, but at least in the PC corner we generally have alternatives. If you ask people about Destiny on PC for example, a fair few people will point you towards Warframe.

I think the console and PC game compatibility is still very much an issue, especially because, as you say, the consoles aren't even using their own base platforms or hardware anymore. They're using PC hardware based on x86. That's also arguably why were seeing slightly better pc ports recently, as the platforms are much easier to convert between.

[araczynski]

As much as I dislike Facebook and this whole idea of walling off their product means that I won't be buying an Oculus, I can understand why they're doing it. If people are complaining that a company is tying software to hardware and not allowing anyone else to play then why is no-one accusing Microsoft of doing the same thing ? With the two best selling current gen consoles running on PC hardware, where are the pitchforks and torches over them not allowing PC owners to run XBox One games ? Hypothetically you could even get PS4 games running on a PC, both consoles should only have software issues. Of course there might be hardware security built-in to consoles to prevent this, but is that any better than what Oculus is doing in software ?
Sony, Microsoft and Oculus have all put large amounts of money into hardware and all three almost certainly also did the same with software before launch so that the hardware would sell. The difference with Oculus seems to be that it's creator made promises that he couldn't keep and selling out to Facebook compounded the problem.

I'm now looking at buying a Vive, Oculus was the plan but the acquisition by Facebook made that unlikely as long as there was any sort of half-decent competition. From reports, the Vive is at least as good as the Oculus, so that's what I'm looking at going forward.

The issue here is (as far as I see it) the equivalent of EA telling us that their PC games can only run on monitors made by EA (if they made any). Or Microsoft telling us that they games can only run with Microsoft mice...

You need to see the VR headset as a dumb output device, not as a closed eco-system. If the manufacturers enforce anything else other than that, the technology will fail.

[shaithis]

In fairness, I think this is still very much a problem, only the goal posts have shifted, on both ends of the playing field. On the one hand consumers are beginning to accept exclusives because they don't appear to be going away any time soon. And then on the other side of the field you have people who are still bothered by it, but at least in the PC corner we generally have alternatives. If you ask people about Destiny on PC for example, a fair few people will point you towards Warframe.

I think the console and PC game compatibility is still very much an issue, especially because, as you say, the consoles aren't even using their own base platforms or hardware anymore. They're using PC hardware based on x86. That's also arguably why were seeing slightly better pc ports recently, as the platforms are much easier to convert between.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find non-console owners who accept exclusives. It's just something that console owners have had to deal with over the years. What hardware is inside a box is irrelevant as well, else I would want to know why iOS, Android and WinMob apps aren't cross-platform as they all run on ARM (might as well thrown most STBs and a variety of other devices in there as well!). As for decent console ports lately, I must have missed them. Most ports I have played recently have been total abortions.

But the PC Platform (bar a few extremely niche examples) has always been wide open....trust Facebook to try and change that. I wish my stance on FB was reflected by at least a decent percentage of people but alas, no matter what FB do (even the proof that they are reading your messages and posting likes on your behalf based on the content of your messages), nobody cares as there isn't another platform that allows them to scream "Look at me and my 50,000 friends" and get even close to the coverage


What makes it worse is that the Rift appears to be one of the worst headsets available this year, yet it's probably going to eclipse all the others in sales as well......further compounding this situation. I'd rather have a Vive at the moment or wait for the 1440p/2160p headsets to get here, which is the resolutions your going to want for a screen that is 2cm from your eyes!

[Nifl]

Games shouldn't require a specific peripheral and vice versa. PC is not a damn console.

[jag272]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find non-console owners who accept exclusives. It's just something that console owners have had to deal with over the years. What hardware is inside a box is irrelevant as well, else I would want to know why iOS, Android and WinMob apps aren't cross-platform as they all run on ARM (might as well thrown most STBs and a variety of other devices in there as well!). As for decent console ports lately, I must have missed them. Most ports I have played recently have been total abortions.

But the PC Platform (bar a few extremely niche examples) has always been wide open....trust Facebook to try and change that. I wish my stance on FB was reflected by at least a decent percentage of people but alas, no matter what FB do (even the proof that they are reading your messages and posting likes on your behalf based on the content of your messages), nobody cares as there isn't another platform that allows them to scream "Look at me and my 50,000 friends" and get even close to the coverage


What makes it worse is that the Rift appears to be one of the worst headsets available this year, yet it's probably going to eclipse all the others in sales as well......further compounding this situation. I'd rather have a Vive at the moment or wait for the 1440p/2160p headsets to get here, which is the resolutions your going to want for a screen that is 2cm from your eyes!

Ye agreed, I saw quite recently a website that claimed to be able to download and install iOS as a launchable app on your android device, given enough space to install it, and a partner site that offered the same in reverse. Didn't actually try them so I can't say whether it worked, but it was interesting to see. That aside, we also have the situation now where, to the best of my knowledge, the PS4 is running standard OpenGL as opposed to the PS3's PSGL and while the Xbox 360 was running DirectX anyway, they're running a version more in line with your average PC, so in that regard the APIs are much more similar now than they were in past generations, so it should be somewhat easier for devs to port between the consoles and PC. Some engines in particular are supposed to be particularly good at this, the Id Tech engine for example is supposedly very easy to convert OpenGL calls to DirectX calls and while I think they would've probably done a good job with Doom anyway, that probably helped towards the good (though from what I hear, barely affected by your graphics settings) performance people are reporting.

As for recent console ports, I probably used the incorrect terminology there, what I mean is more so that recently were seeing a trend back towards either developing proper versions for each, or building a PC build and then making it play ball with consoles (which you'd think would be the most logical from the outset). That said, it certainly isn't all developers, but at least for now we seem to be shifting back that way. Whether because its easier to do now, or just because the media started talking about the "resurgence of pc" a few years back and they realised they should probably stop doing such a bad job of it, who knows.

As for the Rift doing so well, theres this perception I think that you need a whole lot of space to use the Vive, whereas a lot of the footage from Rift users on the test models on youtube and such were done sitting down. I don't pay that much attention to VR, but from what I've read about the Vive's room scaling this isn't actually the case, but I don't think they've communicated that particularly well.

[Corky34]

Games shouldn't require a specific peripheral and vice versa. PC is not a damn console.

A long time ago in a galaxy, oops i mean computer, there used to be competing standards all over the place, in the early days if you wanted to play games and do business stuff you'd need two graphics cards and two monitors (CGA & MDA)

[Percy1983]

Games shouldn't require a specific peripheral and vice versa. PC is not a damn console.

You do know that its only store specific and Oculus want to support Vive on there store and Valve are blocking it (why would they want people buying from another store).

As for being store exclusive, if you don't like it get a petition going to get half life on origin, uplay and gog.

[LtSkitzo]

Brilliant. I hope they all get pirated to hell. *snip* This whole VR vendor business is keeping me well away from the tech for the foreseeable future.

So because you don't like that there's more than one standard (ATM), you hope that any developer that invests time in supporting a VR platform loses their income?

"Oh yeah, well I would have bought a VR system but because there's two different VR systems to choose from I won't, and I hope that every developer that writes games for them get's their software stolen. That'll learn 'em!"

Well aren't we all glad you're not in charge. Oculus' DRM checks are crappy, and having two systems that aren't universally compatible is crappy, but wishing financial harm to befall those who support said systems isn't helping.

I disagree, I actually think boycotting and pirating (a product of frustration) will force Oculus/facebook to rethink the way they are doing things. Let's be honest, Luckey seemed genuine when he said the things he said, so I can imagine he is being overruled on these matters... facebook is stomping over the product/idea he conceived and developed.

Right now, I see no reason to support a lesser product, that is only really lesser because of their business model.