Nah it wasn’t cheap at all since it didnt even have controllers. There are tons of way cheaper Chinese headsets. But now they have something that might change the VR scene totally, IF it works as advertised that is. They just need to get the basics right, the IPD mechanism, 90 hz, well written drivers and it would easily be THE best VR headset for people who are serious about VR. I think 300.000 units would be rather conservative in that case. But we’ll see, it’s Pimax so I wouldn’t be surprised if they f*ck it up somehow 
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There is no market for 300.000 units of an $500(just headset) to $800(package) headset! And these are the Kickstarter prices! Retail will be even more expensive!?! And then add the taxation!
There was a market for 30.000 Sub $400.- (incl. tax and headphones) HMD, yes. But now, with the Rift and Vive adjusting to PSVR prices no way that they sell any more of the 4k. Unless they bring out a new 4k with updated panels and positional tracking and real 4k-dp-connection for sub $400. And pimax already talked about an updated 4k…
So i am pretty certain pimax will suprise us and release along with the 8k the new 4k model, which is easiest to upgrade. Take the old 4k, swap panels and motherboard to same than 8k, adding led housing for tracking and ready. Could be sold below the 8k for cheap. But as they said their reservation of the panels is limited they would release it after Kickstarter is fulfilled together with the retail 8k. With the real 4k resolution they could even name it 4kX and would have a good marketing buzzword, finaly delivering what their 4k was promising…
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With 6.3 million headsets sold in 2016 alone (!) there is easily a market for 300k Pimax if it makes the competition look like old tech from the previous era. Everybody who is serious about VR will want one. Again, they will only be able to do that if they fix all problems.
EDIT and it’s growing, 2.3 million in Q1 2017 already, that would be over 10 million for 2017, it’s probably even (way) more due to exponential growth.
I’m certain there are tons of users on the sidelines who just skipped the first gen of VR because, well, it basically s*cked hard with that huge SDE. The pimax 8k might become the first really enjoyable HMD out there.
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Real 4k is actually more pixels than 2*1440p, that HMD would have a lot clearer picture compared to the 8k ( given the lower FOV )
To the contrary 300.000 units is quite optimistic 
HTC shipped about 100.000 headset by quarter in 2017 according to IDC. People like @mr.uu said we are in a niche market! Pimax is filling a market Gap that will probably close in mid 2018-2019. I’ve just tried a new Microsoft mixed reality headset and yes the image is better than my Vive for the resolution. This increase of the low mid/end market VR is good for us also! The mean more and better games and applications. I like my Vive very much be a can’t say content is overwhelming good these days, AAA games are coming (aka Fallout 4) but slowly.
@Sjef most those 6.1M sales were PhoneVr Headsets
This said we are a little off topic here
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Not sure where you got that but it’s 191.000 in Q1: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS42707617
The Pimax 8k would be SO much better than the Vive (if they manage to fix the problems), so I’m sure they could even sell more (191k per Q is already 764.000 per year)
Sony + HTC + FB alone were 720k headsets in just 1 quarter, that’s almost 3 million a year. I really think Pimax could take over 300k at least of this yearly 3 million, IF they manage to fix the problems and stop doing stupid things. And it’s probably going to be more than 3 million due to growth
Yes I saw those figures but the Vive had just been introduced in 4Q2016 (nov-dec), make sense that sales decline a little in Q22017. Now RIFT and Vive are head to head according to steam
My point is also that Pimax to sell 300K unit per year must have a better distribution outlets than banggood not only a great tech product
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Agreed on that.
And about growth, I think the market is waiting for next gen headset, which Pimax is going to be the first to offer. We’ll see, I see a very bright future for the first company to deliver a 200 FoV headset with very low SDE, if it works without any problems.
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Do not forget the price! A >$800.- HMD plays in a totally different league than a <$400.- HMD. For the pimax 8k you need also a beefy pc or it is half the fun…
Do not get me wrong: i do hope pimax is selling like crazy!
@squngy until release they should already use a dp1.4 chip which can do 4k@120Hz afaik. But even dp 1.3 supports 4k@>60Hz with compression…
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mr.uu you bring up a valid point with the key word being VR optimised but utilising a proprietary format to do such is not the way forward. This we are seeing with Vulcan vs DirectX 12, both achieve the same result but one is open and it is doing its task much more effectively than the other and that is not DirectX12.
One thing I admire with PIMAX is they are adhering to open standards and keeping their design modular as well. Quite the opposite of companies like Oculus, Microsoft or Nvidia.
I never said Pimax has an advantage over FB, Microsoft, or anyone. Nor did I give the reason they all decided to go the “cheap” route and take the experience a step backwards, I assumed that was common knowledge that it was a business decision. And that was my point: Pimax has taken VR to the next level, whereas all the big dogs intentionally choose not to. They are all focusing on making it more appealing to the console peasants. Which is fine, that should attract the attention of more AAA studios.
But my whole point was you said Pimax can’t compete at their level. That is a misleading statement. Pimax isn’t trying to compete at that level because they are playing on a whole nother level altogether.
And you seriously think a 4.2M kickstarter hasn’t been noticed by larger companies? I would not be surprised if Pimax gets bought by a major player at some point, if not at least partnered with one.
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If competitors remain conservative, their next revision shift is probably to two 1440x1440 oled…at 110fov…If this is the case, those units should remain lower priced than 5k/8k mostly due to less hardware being needed. So I think 5k/8k/8kx will be at the upper range of the market for quite some time, probably limiting the uptake… Price and video card performance will probably keep things at an even pace over the next year or two…
We also need to remember that as people upgrade, they either resell or gift their old units…which increases the user pool…
In either case, if Pimax also updated their 4k model they can still directly compete at the lower end…whilst having a foothold at the mid to high end until video and competitors catch up.
My bet is that competitors next gen will be $500 or under for full package and a bigger improvement to res with maybe as much as 150° FoV.
But, I think it will be more than a year before they come.
( this is not counting whatever update Vive gets to support v2 lighthouses )
If you read my statement „Pimax can clearly not compete at that level.“ again you will see it was said in the context they can not compete on the DEVELOPMENT level as Oculus or Magic leap. I am talking about the next generation. And you are right with the point that their kickstarter got atention from the big players.
Exactly that attention brings me to the conclusion that the next generation premium HMDs from the big players have to be a revolution (new display tech, etc.) somehow because what they did want to give us (abrash talk about 4k and 140fov in 2-3 years) is not good enough anymore.
So pimax is now bringing us the best premium headset, right. Thumbs up for that! But i worry for the future of pimax, for the time of the next generation. Magic leap is doing really fancy stuff with projecting via piezo-controlled movable optical fibers, very cool. And Oculus is bringing this focus display tech. What will pimax develop until end of 2019? 8kx, which is then already old tech.
@squngy i hope this is the case. But i think that this has changed and (at least the premium market) has to offer much better or they will not sell because it is already occupied by pimax. And with better i mean it must be reasonable, so no 8k display, but focusing like real life (Oculus) or a hologram like picture (magic leap).
I am curious about valve/htc for their next generation hmd. Abrash was the one talking about 140fov and not even 4k for the next generation, so they have a bold statement from us backers that this is not what we want…
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[quote=“mr.uu, post:95, topic:3941”]
What will pimax develop until end of 2019? 8kx, which is then already old tech. [/quote]
While that may be “old tech”, it should be more than good enough for many people.
Assuming Pimax releases a 16K product, will there even be a video card (by 2019) which can drive such a beast? Not too many people will want to pay for an SLI rig with 2 “GTX 1280Ti” boards at ~$1000 US each. I think the current tech has a lot of life left in it. The first generation wasn’t really good enough for the VR enthusiast, but the 8KX should be fine for a few years yet.
Personally, I hope to get at least 3-5 years out of my 8K; my next purchase will be a better video card (than my GTX 980Ti). At that point, I hope I won’t need another upgrade for a few more years.
If you want to buy a premium HMD end 2019 and could choose between Oculus CV2 with that focus display tech or pimax „old tech“ (because they use normal diplays) i would know what to choose. Assuming the fov and ppd specs and (eye-) tracking is in a similar range.
Yes, i will be happy for years to come with my 8k and 8kx, especially while racing AC, Raceroom and iracing. I do use a rift cv1 in my simulator setup because the 4k is too blurry (no ghosting, i removed the shutters). The 4k i use for playing all the older gems with vorpx, where i do not feel that the blur is in any way distracting from the experience…
Therer are several reasons why the bigger players didn’t do what PiMax has.
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Htc & rift not a global success.
A) Oculus would have collapsed without fb support
B) Htc has or is considering selling vr department -
Waiting on oleds screens. Didn’t think lcd could be advanced to use for vr.
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Arrogance.
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- A. Considering that Oculus and Valve (with the Vive) were building the best that could be built as a complete package, I would not call either of these HMDs a failure in any way. They work well, and their cost is coming down. From a business perspective, they are doing good.
B. Oculus certainly wouldn’t have collapsed, we would have had A polished DK2 for $500 as the CV1, and that’s the only difference really.
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DK1 was LCD based, but persistence is not an easy solve, (unless you are based in a country where displays are manufactured for many companies…like…say…China.
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I dont think arrogance has much to do with it, its money and time. Its also a question of technological constraints, guarantee of quality, cost, and a host of other factors that are stopping the big guys from doing what Pimax is doing.
Oculus wants to work on variable focus displays. That is a different beast. As we have already seen with Pimax, they are running into technical walls. Getting a display manufacturer to provide you with displays that are mobile, display 4k, and are set to run at high refresh rates is not easy.
As we know, Pimax themselves is having difficulty getting higher than 80hz to work reliably. The Bridge chip is not good enough, also you need the display to be able to hit that reliably over the life cycle of the HMD.
A corporation like HTC or Facebook is not going to ship a product to mass market if they cannot guarantee the same quality bar for all units.
What i meant is simply the number of sales is small & was not a global success. Oculus without fb backing would have collapsed. Htc due to the vr not taking off as expected has or is considering selling off the vr division.
Sony sold more than both combined. Its only with Oculus’ massive price drop that helped pull them back.
FB new initiative is actually much better & requires all vr venders working together to provide quality vr experiences from the much more successful Cardboard to entry level low spec pc to highend beast.
MS knows to push vr it needs to be accessible to the masses & run on low end pcs.
Basically we need low end affordable vr & we need truly high end vr & the tier between. While vive & rift provided a decent experience at what high end gamers would call med quality. (the so called pcmaster race).
Yes PiMax is hitting unexpected boundaries or we could say expected. Theorectical specs vs actual. Manufacturer’s like posting theorectical as a selling point; Gigabyte even posts it. If the components work according to specs then it works at x.
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I am thinking that 2020 will be when 8k X starts to shine as video cards should be able to handle dual 4k resolution at decent high fps by then…