I mean, in this case because it’s a standalone device, so… for the same reason you log in to your PlayStation. Also, you already had to log in to it when this was a Oculus thing, the “I don’t want a Facebook login” complaint only became a talking point after they transitioned from the Oculus login over to the Facebook login, so the intellectual honesty in moving the goalposts based on this argument seems dubious.
In any case, I could see you getting uppity about logging in to use it wired. Maybe. There are a ton of hardware settings and configuration that are handled within the Quest’s software directly, so I bet that would be way less trivial to deploy than people imagine. There is certainly no way I can envision where this thing would be usable wirelessly without a software login. You need to run an app to link to your PC, be it the Oculus or the Steam Link app. For security reasons alone you don’t want a logless device that streams what’s on your desktop monitor at will.
EDIT: Also, for the record, there are a bunch of monitor manufacturers that do ask for a login. Hi, ASUS Armoury Crate, you suck and have always sucked.
You didn’t have to log into PlayStations back in the day btw… It just worked. Idk how it is now. (I switched to playing free games on PC and use my gaming budget to gamble on the stock market instead.)
My point is: Login doesn’t need to be a requirement for standalone devices.
FYI, you can use a PSVR headset (at least the OG one) on a PC using third party software and not only do you not even need to log in to a Playstation account, you don’t even need a Playstation.
Hold on, the last time you didn’t have to log in to use a PS console was… what, 2005? And you are seriously claiming in public with a straight face that you don’t use any gaming services that need a log in on PC? So… you use none of them? Not Steam, not Gog, not Epic, not Xbox, not EA Play or whatever Origin is called… none of those.
Well, I mean, bully for you, but I’m gonna guess that Meta is after a different demographic than… you know, people who don’t buy videogames on their videogame systems. Login absolutely has been a requirement for standalone gaming devices for the past twenty years, with no meaningful exceptions.
Specifically, though, what VR device do you use with no login? Because last I checked, all the places that deliver VR software have their own. The Oculus app does. Steam does. PSVR does. Apple sure does.
So… what type of mythical beast are you to be using this rawdog VR device with no login involved? Are you just beaming I Love Lucy to an HMD using the power of imagination?
Yes, the old “standard practices for the past 20 years should probably not be the reason you stay away from one product over another if both products are doing the same thing”.
The bootlicking is off the charts.
For the record, I did buy one of their headsets. I also bought one of Valve’s and one of Sony’s. Turns out this VR thing has been going on for a while and I find it quite interesting.
I did make a login with all three of those companies.
I will just say that I don’t think Steam et al. are equivalent to logging onto your device. The account I use on my computer is… just that, a local account for my computer. So, if the Quest requires some sort of authentication, why can’t it be local too?
I have the same argument with consoles as well, but at least with the Xbox One, login still isn’t required unless you’re playing digital games. You can play all the disc games you like without any account.
This is not right. The Steam login is very much an online login, you can’t create an account offline or a local-only account. Your login status is used for DRM and rich presence, among other things. Steam does allow a temporary offline mode for travel and so on, but it’s not just a local account. This applies to the Steam Deck as well.
I’m pretty sure you do need an account on Xbox to play at all, including physical media. I don’t think a local account will do, but I could be wrong on that one, there’s been some argument about how to use consoles in Antarctica and whatnot, so the details are fuzzy.
Also, pretty sure the current Oculus account system works the exact same way. You can definitely play offline as well. You made me go check because at this point it’s borderline gaslighting and yeah, you can absolutely turn off the Quest’s Wi-fi and play offline.
The reason you kinda remember it working differently than the Xbox and all the others is probably the half-remembered outrage from the one year when it did work differently that everybody forgot to get over because Meta is Meta and dunking on Meta is never not fun.
Which is fair enough, but for Carmack’s sake, if you do want an affordable HMD you can use both standalone and with your PC don’t hesitate just because of a half-remembered grudge, it’s okay to at least research it and give it a fair shake.
Fair enough, substitute “the general consensus” there. I don’t mean you as an individual specifically. You all. English really needs an official plural for the second person pronoun.
Your computer having a local account is fair enough, although MS is trying to kill that too and I genuinely am not sure if it’s mandatory on Macs. In any case, the comparison here is with gaming consoles or, yeah, with Steam itself, in that the Quest isn’t a display device, it is a full-on integrated platform. There’s a store in there, it’s digital only, so you can’t really do much with it without a login, just like you can’t do much with a PSVR or an Index without a login.
Again, people are displacing the old rage about there being a unified Facebook login tied to your real name, which was fair, with there being a login at all, which was never the point. Oculus required a login before Facebook stepped in and there is currently a separate login for Quest devices.
Hey, I miss being young, too, but if I’m going to argue for the good old days of actually having friends over to play games I’m not gonna do it over the budget VR headset. People didn’t get mad when Xbox Live happened and now this is the world we have.
I read some of your other comments. Your mouse wants you to log in? I think part of the problem is you.
But I am worried about, for example, finding a TV that isn’t a piece of shit. It does seem to be creeping in more and more product categories.
I wish people would quit buying that shit. Collective refusal to log in to our monitors would eventually end the begging. Too bad some people are desperate for RGB lighting I guess.
The problem is indeed me in that I use an ergonomic Logitech mouse because RSI is a bitch.
And that mouse absolutely demands that you use Logitech’s annoying peripheral controller software, which also insists on updating with game button profiles every time you reboot your PC. Welcome to the future.
Hey, I agree that it’s bad and annoying and quite ridiculous for a mouse or just to use RGB lights. I really hope that MS’s centralized RGB management will replace most of it. My current keyboard already supports it and it’s great to have it right in the OS settings instead of being bloatware.
But my point isn’t that endless superfluous apps are a good thing, it’s that being big mad about a software and gaming platform requesting you to log in to it is at best anachronistic and at worst not a thing you want, given you are using your credit card and streaming your desktop through it.
It sucks that Logitech is one of the few competitors in that space, yeah. I’ve got a vertical mouse. I’m not going to install their garbage software, and luckily it behaves itself normally out of the box. I honestly should have returned it though.
I have a Steam account, sure, having a login to associate purchases with makes sense. A peripheral, though, absolutely not. I’m viewing the VR headsets in more of the monitor category. It shouldn’t be connected to the wifi on its own to be able to forward the desktop. It should be like a GPU, drivers in the kernel and a software layer that exposes a more uniform API for developers.
It’s exhausting. I just bought a monitor and there were all sorts of “smart” monitors I had to filter out. Even then I had to look all inputs to make sure it had a regular C14 power connector so I don’t have dumb power brick garbage all over.
FWIW, I use a Logitech G502 Hero mouse and a G512 Carbon keyboard and I do indeed use their “G Hub” applet to reconfigure the buttons and RGB shit, and all. I have never, not once, ever created or signed into an account to use it and this has not precluded me from using any feature I’ve ever wanted to. I have no idea why Logitech even offers the option to create an account to use for their app other than probably some idiot with an MBA at Logitech read about it and got the idea from his 2014 copy of “Techbro for dummies.”
Yeah, but that’s my point. People rage at Meta for requiring a Facebook login out of pure reflex. The Quest isn’t a peripheral, it’s a standalone computing device. It boots into an OS when you turn it on, using it with a PC is an added feature.
Nobody complained about this specifically when Apple did it with the Vision. Nobody complains about needing to log in to use the PSVR headset on a PlayStation.
If you are more than superficially interested in this space you may remember that the reason why there’s all this residual rage is that when Oculus got acquired they already had a login system and there was a lot of back and forth and backtracking from Meta, first saying the Oculus login would stay in place and then enraging people by putting the Quest under their unified “login with Facebook” login manager.
That was legitimate. They were doing things they said they wouldn’t do, it was impractical to sync to an account bearing your real name as a demand of the EULA, and this wasn’t the first time Oculus had reneged on promises.
At this point, though, a couple of hardware generations down the line, years after they reversed that policy and with a well established ecosystem that works pretty much exactly the same way an Xbox does? This is purely reflexive “Meta bad” stuff that is disconnected to whether the login requirement makes sense, is convenient, does anything untoward or any other practical consideration.
I’m just sitting here with my WMR headset which works perfectly well for all my games and software without needing an account from anybody. The only bugbear is that it’s tied to Windows (for now), but what else is new?
Cause I know this is a huge mess of a thread, but the point was whether the Quest is a good entry level headset. Last I checked the Quest 2 starts at 250 bucks. Is there a WMR device for under twice that?
Also, do you have a Steam account or are those games and software being delivered by mail?
I don’t think the Quest is the only option that makes sense, but it’s certainly the entry point no-brainer, even if that’s relying on Meta spending a ton of money to keep people within their ecosystem.
I mean, in this case because it’s a standalone device, so… for the same reason you log in to your PlayStation. Also, you already had to log in to it when this was a Oculus thing, the “I don’t want a Facebook login” complaint only became a talking point after they transitioned from the Oculus login over to the Facebook login, so the intellectual honesty in moving the goalposts based on this argument seems dubious.
In any case, I could see you getting uppity about logging in to use it wired. Maybe. There are a ton of hardware settings and configuration that are handled within the Quest’s software directly, so I bet that would be way less trivial to deploy than people imagine. There is certainly no way I can envision where this thing would be usable wirelessly without a software login. You need to run an app to link to your PC, be it the Oculus or the Steam Link app. For security reasons alone you don’t want a logless device that streams what’s on your desktop monitor at will.
EDIT: Also, for the record, there are a bunch of monitor manufacturers that do ask for a login. Hi, ASUS Armoury Crate, you suck and have always sucked.
You didn’t have to log into PlayStations back in the day btw… It just worked. Idk how it is now. (I switched to playing free games on PC and use my gaming budget to gamble on the stock market instead.)
My point is: Login doesn’t need to be a requirement for standalone devices.
FYI, you can use a PSVR headset (at least the OG one) on a PC using third party software and not only do you not even need to log in to a Playstation account, you don’t even need a Playstation.
deleted by creator
Hold on, the last time you didn’t have to log in to use a PS console was… what, 2005? And you are seriously claiming in public with a straight face that you don’t use any gaming services that need a log in on PC? So… you use none of them? Not Steam, not Gog, not Epic, not Xbox, not EA Play or whatever Origin is called… none of those.
Well, I mean, bully for you, but I’m gonna guess that Meta is after a different demographic than… you know, people who don’t buy videogames on their videogame systems. Login absolutely has been a requirement for standalone gaming devices for the past twenty years, with no meaningful exceptions.
Specifically, though, what VR device do you use with no login? Because last I checked, all the places that deliver VR software have their own. The Oculus app does. Steam does. PSVR does. Apple sure does.
So… what type of mythical beast are you to be using this rawdog VR device with no login involved? Are you just beaming I Love Lucy to an HMD using the power of imagination?
Wow, the old “the others are doing it too!!” defence.
So lame.
You’re just a corporate bootlicker lol 😆, did you buy their VR set or what?
Yes, the old “standard practices for the past 20 years should probably not be the reason you stay away from one product over another if both products are doing the same thing”.
The bootlicking is off the charts.
For the record, I did buy one of their headsets. I also bought one of Valve’s and one of Sony’s. Turns out this VR thing has been going on for a while and I find it quite interesting.
I did make a login with all three of those companies.
I will just say that I don’t think Steam et al. are equivalent to logging onto your device. The account I use on my computer is… just that, a local account for my computer. So, if the Quest requires some sort of authentication, why can’t it be local too?
I have the same argument with consoles as well, but at least with the Xbox One, login still isn’t required unless you’re playing digital games. You can play all the disc games you like without any account.
This is not right. The Steam login is very much an online login, you can’t create an account offline or a local-only account. Your login status is used for DRM and rich presence, among other things. Steam does allow a temporary offline mode for travel and so on, but it’s not just a local account. This applies to the Steam Deck as well.
I’m pretty sure you do need an account on Xbox to play at all, including physical media. I don’t think a local account will do, but I could be wrong on that one, there’s been some argument about how to use consoles in Antarctica and whatnot, so the details are fuzzy.
Also, pretty sure the current Oculus account system works the exact same way. You can definitely play offline as well. You made me go check because at this point it’s borderline gaslighting and yeah, you can absolutely turn off the Quest’s Wi-fi and play offline.
The reason you kinda remember it working differently than the Xbox and all the others is probably the half-remembered outrage from the one year when it did work differently that everybody forgot to get over because Meta is Meta and dunking on Meta is never not fun.
Which is fair enough, but for Carmack’s sake, if you do want an affordable HMD you can use both standalone and with your PC don’t hesitate just because of a half-remembered grudge, it’s okay to at least research it and give it a fair shake.
No no, I was saying the account for my computer is local only. Steam, being a separate application, makes sense to have a separate login.
And I don’t remember anything differently… I don’t really have a horse in this race, just playing devil’s advocate.
Fair enough, substitute “the general consensus” there. I don’t mean you as an individual specifically. You all. English really needs an official plural for the second person pronoun.
Your computer having a local account is fair enough, although MS is trying to kill that too and I genuinely am not sure if it’s mandatory on Macs. In any case, the comparison here is with gaming consoles or, yeah, with Steam itself, in that the Quest isn’t a display device, it is a full-on integrated platform. There’s a store in there, it’s digital only, so you can’t really do much with it without a login, just like you can’t do much with a PSVR or an Index without a login.
Again, people are displacing the old rage about there being a unified Facebook login tied to your real name, which was fair, with there being a login at all, which was never the point. Oculus required a login before Facebook stepped in and there is currently a separate login for Quest devices.
Oh, SW RotS on PS2 with friends at summer, and SW BFII, and Gran Turismo
When PS meant something.
EDIT: 2007-2008 rather, but still
Hey, I miss being young, too, but if I’m going to argue for the good old days of actually having friends over to play games I’m not gonna do it over the budget VR headset. People didn’t get mad when Xbox Live happened and now this is the world we have.
If I ever encounter a monitor begging me to log in, that is going directly back where it came from the very same day.
Cool. Look after the ones you have now, then.
I read some of your other comments. Your mouse wants you to log in? I think part of the problem is you.
But I am worried about, for example, finding a TV that isn’t a piece of shit. It does seem to be creeping in more and more product categories.
I wish people would quit buying that shit. Collective refusal to log in to our monitors would eventually end the begging. Too bad some people are desperate for RGB lighting I guess.
The problem is indeed me in that I use an ergonomic Logitech mouse because RSI is a bitch.
And that mouse absolutely demands that you use Logitech’s annoying peripheral controller software, which also insists on updating with game button profiles every time you reboot your PC. Welcome to the future.
Hey, I agree that it’s bad and annoying and quite ridiculous for a mouse or just to use RGB lights. I really hope that MS’s centralized RGB management will replace most of it. My current keyboard already supports it and it’s great to have it right in the OS settings instead of being bloatware.
But my point isn’t that endless superfluous apps are a good thing, it’s that being big mad about a software and gaming platform requesting you to log in to it is at best anachronistic and at worst not a thing you want, given you are using your credit card and streaming your desktop through it.
It sucks that Logitech is one of the few competitors in that space, yeah. I’ve got a vertical mouse. I’m not going to install their garbage software, and luckily it behaves itself normally out of the box. I honestly should have returned it though.
I have a Steam account, sure, having a login to associate purchases with makes sense. A peripheral, though, absolutely not. I’m viewing the VR headsets in more of the monitor category. It shouldn’t be connected to the wifi on its own to be able to forward the desktop. It should be like a GPU, drivers in the kernel and a software layer that exposes a more uniform API for developers.
It’s exhausting. I just bought a monitor and there were all sorts of “smart” monitors I had to filter out. Even then I had to look all inputs to make sure it had a regular C14 power connector so I don’t have dumb power brick garbage all over.
?
FWIW, I use a Logitech G502 Hero mouse and a G512 Carbon keyboard and I do indeed use their “G Hub” applet to reconfigure the buttons and RGB shit, and all. I have never, not once, ever created or signed into an account to use it and this has not precluded me from using any feature I’ve ever wanted to. I have no idea why Logitech even offers the option to create an account to use for their app other than probably some idiot with an MBA at Logitech read about it and got the idea from his 2014 copy of “Techbro for dummies.”
Yeah, but that’s my point. People rage at Meta for requiring a Facebook login out of pure reflex. The Quest isn’t a peripheral, it’s a standalone computing device. It boots into an OS when you turn it on, using it with a PC is an added feature.
Nobody complained about this specifically when Apple did it with the Vision. Nobody complains about needing to log in to use the PSVR headset on a PlayStation.
If you are more than superficially interested in this space you may remember that the reason why there’s all this residual rage is that when Oculus got acquired they already had a login system and there was a lot of back and forth and backtracking from Meta, first saying the Oculus login would stay in place and then enraging people by putting the Quest under their unified “login with Facebook” login manager.
That was legitimate. They were doing things they said they wouldn’t do, it was impractical to sync to an account bearing your real name as a demand of the EULA, and this wasn’t the first time Oculus had reneged on promises.
At this point, though, a couple of hardware generations down the line, years after they reversed that policy and with a well established ecosystem that works pretty much exactly the same way an Xbox does? This is purely reflexive “Meta bad” stuff that is disconnected to whether the login requirement makes sense, is convenient, does anything untoward or any other practical consideration.
I’m just sitting here with my WMR headset which works perfectly well for all my games and software without needing an account from anybody. The only bugbear is that it’s tied to Windows (for now), but what else is new?
Yeeeeah, how much did that cost?
Cause I know this is a huge mess of a thread, but the point was whether the Quest is a good entry level headset. Last I checked the Quest 2 starts at 250 bucks. Is there a WMR device for under twice that?
Also, do you have a Steam account or are those games and software being delivered by mail?
I don’t think the Quest is the only option that makes sense, but it’s certainly the entry point no-brainer, even if that’s relying on Meta spending a ton of money to keep people within their ecosystem.