Oculus Rift vs HTC Vive - The current state of VR
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,778 words · ~13 min read
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Oculus Rift versus HTC Vive this is a
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battle that I have been following very closely and up until recently the whole
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scene has felt rather dominated by the Oculus Rift then Oculus launched
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pre-orders at a few hundred More Than People expected right around the same
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time that HTC decided to show off their HTC pre their newest prototype which was
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a tremendous improvement over their previously shown off headset so where do
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both teams stand now well if you asked a month ago I swear the public opinion
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would have been with oculus but I ran a Twitter poll very recently that received
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over 3,000 votes and left them at
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5050 so the battle's close let's take a
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deeper
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look the simitar RGB from Corsair features 17 programmable buttons a
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12,000 DPI Optical sensor and a shape designed for comfort in MMO and mobile
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gaming more in the video description down below now like I said things have
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changed relatively recently for both teams mainly on the HTC Vive side so
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let's start with a refresher this is going to be a long video hold tight the
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consumer version of the Oculus Rift will be running a resolution of 2160 by 1200
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split between two OLED displays running at 90 htz which are oriented in portrait
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not landscape which is an interesting decision these screens and their new
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lenses that make things look a little bit more clear when looking at them
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directly and a little bit more distorted when looking near the edges will be able
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to move independent of the headset which will allow them to accommodate ipd
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ranges of anyone between the 5ifth and 95th percentile your fov will be above
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100° but will depend on how close the screen is to your face the fit and
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finish of the new Rift has been very impressively improved not only is it
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very surprisingly light but it feels like quality when you hold it which is
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uncommon in a light device a lot more fabric was added to the design which
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first sounds kind of horrible because absorbing oils and sweat from your skin
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but Palmer has said that while you won't be able to throw the fabric in a washing
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machine it will be washable the foam part that touches your face can be
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completely taken off of the headset and replaced if you so wish the side straps
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now have Springs built into them which pulls the triangle like plate for the
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back of your head in so that it's nice and snug while you're trying to fit it
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on it also comes with a pair of on ear headphones these are mounted on the
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headset and have been the source of a ton of controversy audio files are
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complaining that they're paying for junk on your headphones when they already have awesome cans and average consumers
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are complaining that they don't really see the point or the value the benefits
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that these do have is that they naturally won't fall off the headset so
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if you're whipping your head around in something like EV Valkyrie you're safe
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and it's also been claimed that it's a benefit to the developer to know exactly
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the performance capabilities of what headset you will be using they know the
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volume they can push out they know the quality of the sound Etc ET profiles for
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these included headphones are set within the SDK and whether or not anyone will
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notice these benefits is yet to be seen but I'm not writing them off quite yet
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the sensors have also had a significant Improvement you can really tell when
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trying out the device because the bounds are much wider and you don't hit them
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nearly as much the LED layout on the headset should make it so that you can
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be facing any direction and still be tracked by the sensor which you can tilt
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just in case you want to stand if you're playing a game like bullet train which
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by the way is super freaking fun an improvement to the overall accuracy of
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the sensor design will come later on down the line when you add the Oculus
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touch this will happen not because the sensor will get better but because
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you'll add an additional sensor the touch is Oculus is approach to VR input
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and it's two independent controllers one per hand which is meant to make it feel
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like your VR hands are well your real hands not like you're just holding a
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tool punching things throwing things flicking things all of this should feel
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natural they even have a grip button so when you're holding something you'll
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naturally be holding the controller more tightly they even have you covered if
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you want to make obscene hand gestures or just give a thumbs up because the
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thumb stick and the trigger buttons both have capacitive tops and can feel if
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you've lifted off of them or not next up the Vive HTC has been a lot more tight
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lipped in regards to their headsets but I'll cover everything I can Hardware
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spec-wise when looking at the inside of the headset may seem a little bit like
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deja vu 21x 60x 1200 split across two
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screens OLED panel 90 HZ refresh rate and over 100° of fov depending on how
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you wear it easily one of the biggest improvements that HTC brought to the
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table at CES was improvements to the linen or dirty window feel that their
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previous panels had it was pretty rough with their earlier prototypes much like
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it was with the rift but I'm happy to say that it's almost entirely gone now
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and looks great the fit and finish has improved dramatically for the Vive and
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while they're claiming that it actually isn't any lighter than their previous prototypes it definitely feels lighter
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due to their improved weight distribution by optimizing their head
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straps no news on the interchangeability of the foam or how easy it will be to
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clean however HTC has now mounted a camera on the front because someone
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forgot to tell them it was a phone which actually adds some pretty major
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improvements to be honest their shapon system which previously just displayed
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the wall boundaries that you set within the program is now able to make a cool
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blue outlined grid model of any objects that are in the room so you don't have
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to worry so much about moving around and bumping something or breaking it or
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falling over yourself one of the most notable improvements with this is what's
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being called the cat detection system there isn't actually a specific system
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for this but it does allow you to not worry so much about stepping on
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something like your cat or other small animal or really anything while in VR
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which is admittedly been a pretty huge issue the addition of the camera was a
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serious step in the right direction previous prototypes also had big issues
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with occlusion or essentially the blocking of various uh sensors their
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Lighthouse system sensors either with your own body or something else in the
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room or say one of the controllers could be overlapping the other one which would
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totally screw things up resulting in controllers teleporting all over the
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place and major disconnects in terms of player positioning HTC has made their
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photo diode sensors more sensitive than before changed their layout on the
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headset itself and done a massive overhaul to the controller both in terms
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of how you hold it and the layout and design of the sensors the controller now
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sits in a more consistent position in your hand which is better for developers
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so they have a more accurate idea of the exact position and orientation of your
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hand these weote like wands also feature
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a ring at the end which seems to be solely there for tracking reasons as the
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ring has no specific function other than holding a large amount of those photo
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diodes distributed all around the ring this in combination with the improved
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lighthouse sensors made a significant and very noticeable Improvement to the
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tracking of the controllers now finally
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how do they compare this is not an easy thing to quantify even if they were
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released they're both very similar yet completely fundamentally different at
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the same time their screens sound very similar on paper yet they're
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implementing them differently their first-party controllers are wildly
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different and controller alone has been enough of a reason for gamers to decide
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differently between consoles in the past past their sensing and motion technology
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are very different implementations as well making the experience totally
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different on each version well you can stand and walk around with an Oculus
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Rift and you can sit in one place with an HTC Vive they're both targeting
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different experiences I have personally never gone through a Vive demo that was
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stationary in any way and I have personally never gone through an Oculus
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demo that had me move around a space that was any bigger than two yoga mats
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in games like bullet train Rift users can tell a short distance then fight
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from a pivot point instead of walking around which in theory allows you to
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travel through levels relatively naturally Vive has a leg up here however
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by having a larger walking area which would support the idea of teleporting
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and I haven't seen this at all implemented yet but considering they're
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partnered with a valve would allow you to do things like walking through a
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portal to get to your next area speaking of larger walking area both have issues
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with constantly tethered cables but it is much more of an issue with the Vive
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being mobile and having a cable near neck height isn't great the rift demos
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no one really worries about the cable because it's never really an issue in
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Vive demos it is very common for a dedicated person to be walking around
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just managing the cable that's crazy and not going to be an option for many
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people watching someone play a game is one thing being someone's cable boy is
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another there are people actively working on this like Gigabyte orus with
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their backpack which we checked out here or even Intel who's working with
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Partners like orus to deliver these types of backpacks which are great and
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Intel has some Amazing Ideas coming down the pipe which should make them even
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better which I can't talk about yet but
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this still requires you to have a super powerful laptop or super light computer
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capable of running games at 90 FPS minimums that's an expensive pill to
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swallow last but not least is the controller and this quite honestly is in
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your hands pun intended I'm sorry let's move on this like most controllers will
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come down to personal pref once all is said and done in my personal opinion
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which may not matter too much here I prefer the touch controllers the way you
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grip things the fact that they wrap around your hand and just how incredibly
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natural they felt within a minute or two of using them was a thing to behold no
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one needed to tell me what buttons did what I just naturally knew without ever
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using controllers like these before that's pretty freaking cool they didn't
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feel like a magical virtual reality enabling wand and honestly I quickly
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forgot they were even really there they became an extension of my movement a
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part of my body this potential level of immersion is very important for VR as a
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whole looking at the VR landscape altogether there are still many
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challenges that need to be overcome the uncanny valley of reproduced movement
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and reverse kinematics of your own bodies when looking at ourselves in a
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virtual mirror or just looking down at our virtual bodies will continue to be
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an issue for a while there are major differences between the controllers and
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while this is a good thing in terms of innovation competition and just in
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general pushing the limits of the platform there may need to be
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standardization at some point and at that point we will probably see a higher
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adoption of VR speaking of higher adoption VR hasn't had its Android
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butter moment yet virtual reality still lacks the Polish you find in most widely
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adopted products it will come but I don't think it's there yet then there's
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the price the rift announced at $600 an understandable price but still
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considerably higher than we were led to believe the Vive has been positioned as
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a premium VR headset this whole time so I don't expect it to be cheaper my guess
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is under 1,000 bucks probably closer to $899 or
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$9.99 although there's been some Rumor Mill sites that have said 1,500 I don't
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really know if that's going to happen I don't really think so while that may sound expensive on its own another thing
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to realize is that it's actually only part of the associated cost people
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haven't honestly had a good reason to build crazy badass computers for quite
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some time now other than just wanting a crazy badass computer which is totally
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fair but the lack of games that really push Gamers to upgrade their PC has left
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the PC market mostly saturated with slow
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old machines happily chugging along in World of Warcraft Counterstrike go and
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League of Legends that leaves the overall cost of the platform incredibly
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High because people are going to have to upgrade a whole bunch of stuff to get there and this will hurt the average
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consumer's ability to adopt early on which is probably fine actually I'd
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rather us hardcores tried it while the other people just waited because I'd
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rather that we fought with the rough edges now then have a massive amount of
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people trying it assuming it's not ready and dooming the platform but it does
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suck for the hardcores that can't afford it I've been waiting for this for a long
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time so I've been saving but some people haven't or are not able to and that
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really sucks Ting is the mobile carrier that's
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focused on customer service and customer satisfaction first first don't speak to
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a robot they put you directly through to a person and you only use or you only
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pay for what you use the average Ting bill is only $24 a month per device
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credit or $25 towards new device thanks for watching guys I know
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