Technically, I think it is going in the right direction.
Higher resolution screens, and wireless are the way to go. I don't mind the weak CPU. With clever coding and hacks, you can create some pretty high fidelity experiences. (Just like in the good old days ? of the beginning of 3D games).
What bothers me is the eco-system: Unlike the Rift, Oculus quest is blocking people from deploying non-professional apps to the quest. When I look at the Rift ecosystem, it is true that it is filled with a lot of shovelware. However I do not see alot of high budget AAA games either. I could probably count them on 2 hands...
Aside from this, as I bought the first oculus dev-kit I remember that for the first years there were *only* dev experiments to download, and nothing else. And it was glorious fun!
Google Daydream took a very similar "closed garden" approach to Quest, and unlike "Cardboard", they killed the dev community before it even had a chance to get started. ( I released games on both cardboard, and daydream, and daydream had 10% of the downloads that "cardboard" had ).
My feeling is that unlike Nintendos or iPhones, VR is much less accessible. By walling out developer prototypes, you are essentially strangeling the ecosystem. Also, since there is very little revenue to be had from VR, you have very little chance of attracting big name developers in the first place. Think of a great VR game like superhot. It is one on the most successful games on VR. It was made as an experiment from a small indie team. Would you think that the same team would develop such a game for the quest from scratch with all the bureaucracy involved? (I know they released one for the quest, but I no longer consider them an Indie, because they had previous success on the Rift).
For this reason I am sort of on the edge about buying an Oculus Quest: 50% of my fun with the Rift, and the GoogleVR, has been publishing games, and the other 50% has been playing other peoples stuff.
The fact that I cannot publish on Quest ( without a professional grade studio behind me), and the fact that there are so few experiences on Quest is sort of a big turn off for me.
Of course, I might be biased because I am hobby game-dev, but I think that despite the amazing H/W and great price, this closed eco-system will be the death of the Quest. I don't think that it is appropriate for VR at this stage.
What do you think?
