I saw a news story today that they were accepting preorders for the Oculus Go. I have never used a VR headset, and didn’t think I ever would because at $400+ to get my foot in the door, it was too steep just to try something. But I’ve been curious for a while, so when then the opportunity came up, I decided to order on the spur of the moment. After ordering, it occurred to me that I have no effing clue what it actually is. I’m assuming it’s basically the The Samsung Phone VR but that’s just a guess.

Did anyone else get one? I am a fool who’s wasted $200 on a fad?

Occulus makes the gear vr so i dont think it's that. Personally i wouldn't spend any amount of money on anything if i didnt know exactly what it was, but to each his own.

Well, if you have 20 hours of fun with it, then you're only spending $10 an hour on fun. That's a pretty reasonable price for 20 hours of fun in my book.

I don't personally think VR is a fad; I just think it's too impractical to be of widespread appeal. I think there will continue to be new and fun things to do in VR for the foreseeable future, just less often than new games for consoles.

Reading up on it, its basically gear vr without the phone. You cant connect it to a pc but at least you no longer need your phone.

At 199 i would just wait for another sale and get the rift for 299. I have the gear vr and have no reason to use it. I found the few games i played boring past the novelty factor.

@oursin_360: I think this is the only sort of setup for VR that appeals to me. No wires, no extra setup, and no PC. I just want to push buttons and look at stuff. That has really been one of the reasons I’ve scoffed at VR thus far - I just don’t think most people want the extra hassle of connecting to a pc or setting up cameras or any other BS. If VR is ever going to catch on, I think it has to be something like this that you just put on and go with no muss or fuss.

Anyway, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually excited about VR.

@ltcolumbo: i mean its novel at first but without cool games and content it got old to me. Hope you enjoy it though.

@oursin_360: Oh, totally. I expect after a week I’ll shrug and say “well, that’s VR.” Even with the understanding that this maybe isn’t the best version of VR the world has to offer, at least I’ll know what it’s like.

Since it is basically a gear VR, you might as well save some money and buy a cheap shell that holds a phone and try it out there if you can, or try one out at a phone store and get your feet wet that way. My first time trying VR was looking for a new cellphone, and i tried the phone VR on display at the store. You get the immersion of VR, but the lack of real tracking limits its use case, which if your intent is for it to be for gaming it might be disappointing. You wont be able to lean around and look at something, nor move your hand to pick something up like the Rift, Vive or PSVR. Just know its going to be fairly limited in terms of games, and probably better as a VR media viewer.

For me personally i don't see the benefit of the Go over the cheap phone shells stores have for $20, other then the general build quality. Having bought a PSVR for $200, i enjoy it and don't regret the purchase, but that has just made me want something with better tracking like a Rift or Vive. And having a PSVR and seen my brother set up his Rift, it is super simple and fast to setup, but i get not wanting all those wires and desktop space being taken up. You also need some room if you want to move around.

I would recommend trying out the other options with a cellphone if you have one capable, or do like @oursin_360 said and wait for a sale on the Rift. But that's just my input on the matter

The battery life being only 2.5 hours kills this from being an impulse buy for me. will wait for gen 2 or 3

@mrfluke: after playing with this the past four days or so, I will say battery life is my major complaint. 2.5-3 hours seems accurate. Honestly, after the initial “VR IS COOL!” Period wears off it probably won’t be a problem, but I have had to use it with the power cable plugged in a couple times now. Anyway, here are a few thoughts, bearing in mind that Oculus Go is my first and only VR experience:

-VR is neat! I did not understand the idea of “you have to try it to understand why it’s neat.” Now I do. I had been concentrating on now much I didn’t want take part in motion controls to appreciate there was more to it than just motion controls. The visual aspect has to be seen to be appreciated.

-The Well is a genuinely good game, and I think I would like it VR or no VR. I’ve already put more time into that than Evolve, so Turtle Rock is back in my good graces. It’s simple but it’s kept me engaged.

-VR porn is weird (I hope it’s okay to mention this, I won’t say anything graphic or lascivious). Not to share too much but I’m an old man by video game standards (41) and lost my wife a few years ago after a long battle with a bad illness. It left me in a really weird place and I have not pursued anything romantic since then. With that in mind, there were a couple VR videos that created a genuine sense of intimacy I was not prepared for. I don’t mean nekkidness, and I don’t even mean the sex or sexy parts, I mean an actual connection with a fake person I don’t know, including eye-contact, heartbeat increasing, sweaty-palms, and high-school-prom stomach butterflies. I don’t know where this technology is headed, but for people in long-distance relationships or facing the possibility of losing someone they care for, this could simultaneously create both the great and most debilitating aid ever.

-The most popular roller coaster app on the Oculus Store made me feel nauseated in less than 30 seconds. I don’t know if that’s me or the device, but I felt like puking almost immediately.

- I don’t know how many games I’ll play all the way through on it (although I suspect I’ll finish The Well and have a game by the Koneument Valley folks I plan to try this weekend), but as a media device, I’m sold. Being inside videos and pictures is great. I wish something like Hearthstone was available in VR.

For what it’s worth, those are my thoughts so far. I have not yet regretted the purchase at all.

Getting sick from a game is partially you (its normal and nothing you can fix really), and partially the game. Its your visual sense conflicting with your sense of motion, and apparently we have evolved to assume that means we are hallucinating because we are poisoned, and to throw up. Most games have a lot of comfort settings and tricks to help stop it from happening, like letting you see a good portion of the vehicle so you can focus on that and "ground" your sense of motion to the vehicle, vignetting the screen, or teleporting you rather then let you "walk", but none of them are guaranteed to work for every person. You would assume something like Wipeout would be a hundred times worse then a roller coaster in VR, but the way the developer did it made me perfectly comfortable flying around the track.

Skyrim is a nice example of a developer giving the user a lot of options when it comes to comfort, because everyone has there own limitations. Some people hate teleporting around the world for movement, so they let them have smooth walking. Others absolutely need teleporting to not throw up. Even something as simple as rotating your view has options so you don't get sick doing it. What sets it off is something that changes from person to person, and game to game. But roller coaster games from what i hear are some of the worst, and are probably best avoided.

Got this for the weekend to mess around with. The novelty may wear out eventually but everytime it's fully charged (battery life is a problem) I find something to interest me for a few hours till the battery is at 10% or I need to take off the goggles and tend to something in the real world.

I still have a handful of games to try out, some of which have been on other platforms but so far games like LandsEnd, Please Don't touch anything and/or any game which puts me in a cockpit of a plane or spaceship have been pretty fun. Trying out the vr "experiences" have alarmingly done a good job at conveying fear, tension and a sense of place. Been showing this to friends and family with positive results.

Ultimately my experiences are my own and I can not quantify if this is worth the money to others but it has been a painless and easy means of using VR and if it's battery life were better I can easily see myself using it several hours at a time

Thought about getting one of these but I couldn't decide on how much storage. John Carmack tweeted that support for external storage is coming, and those Micro USB to Micro SD adapters can get crazy tiny. On the other hand, you probably wouldn't be able to install games to it (not unless you root the device, anyway).

Spending 270 euros for the extra 32GB seems a bit much, not to mention that would put it in PSVR territory. But there still isn't much in the way of games out there (I'd play Skyrim VR and that's about it, I think), and the Go is supposed to have a much better viewing experience (not to mention portability), so I think I should go with that.

On the other hand, with PSVR I could just buy a 3D Blu-Ray of Blade Runner 2049, pop that into my PS4, and have it go. Getting 3D movies on the Go is a hassle...

Yeah, I can't decide what to get now. But the whole appeal for me was the 220 euro price point, so maybe I should just get this over with and buy the thing.

@axersia: PSVR Skyrim Bundle is down to $249.99 US during e3. I know this because I just bought one. Oh Lord what have done.

I’m apparently totally in on VR if I can do it for a couple hundred bucks.

the PSVR doom vfr bundle is only $200

@breq: Also true! I didn’t own the Move controllers so I wanted the bundle that had everything.