I always hope for the best but expect the worse when it comes to Pimax.
Last year was the mystery Tent with the Wigig module that never came to anything.
I’m most excited for the Dream Air - May 2025 is not that far away so Pimax need to show at least a finished prototype.
The wigig module that is still coming out? Sure it has taken a while but literally no one else is offering a modern wireless PCVR solution. Personally I don’t want the compression artifacts and latency that comes with Quest/Pico wireless solutions, not to say they aren’t great for many.
The dream air won’t be on show, this is confirmed.
Pimax have no Dream Air prototype to show lets be real because its another paper launch to go along with the 12k.
I’m not confident Shiftall can mass produce the Megane X either with 30 employees.
It just feels everyone is fighting over 300 OLED panels on a 102FoV headset I dont want to buy. Storm in a T-Cup?
When you look at 2025 Samsung could very well trounce every one if their HMD is Micro-OLED and has wireless PCVR support. But lets not get ahead of our selves just yet.
Meta v Samsung v Apple. This is the year we’ve been waiting for and I’m not even going to mention Valve.
I can remember many years ago the futere of VR will be fought by Mobile phone giants and I stick by that. I think Meta knew this too which is why they needed a big head start but Meta are tied by Qualcomm as they’re not a true core manufacturer. Even Valve with the Steam Deck are ahead of Meta in that respect. Meta are locked to the same outlet as HTC, Pimax, Bytedance and anyone else who jumps on the Qualcomm wagon. But the true future of VR is held by deep manufacturers including Sony.
Meta can’t win the VR war with mobile alone. Valve are going to be PCVR and Steamdeck, Sony the PS and a Qualcomm HMD. Meta can’t go back to PCVR as Valve are more dug in with Big Screen Beyond, Megane X, Pimax and Somnium.
I can see Metas reign on standalone VR slowing disappear over the next 5 years as Samsung gets cheaper HMDs down the line and 4k displays become the norm.
What makes you think that? Geniunely curious. I don’t see how PCVR factors into it at all, asides from enterprise stuff.
Meta still dominate PCVR even without a dedicated PCVR headset, so the point about them going back to PCVR doesn’t make much sense. It makes sense somewhat against Valve because valve have the storefront people primarily use which is what really matters but meta doesn’t care about PCVR because honestly, why would they? It’s a tiny market compared to standalone and standalone is the war. Even if valve comes out with the deckard and it’s everything we ever hoped for and is super cheap, it still will just remain in its niche.
That said, I don’t see what is wrong with sustainable niches. People often dismiss them for some reason but if you have a smaller market that is dedicated then you can be very successful even if it’s not mass market saturation levels etc, not everything needs to be.
The problem with Pimax is it survives on investments and it’s been that way since day one. It’s an unsustainable business model and you’ve probably heard me say the same thing over the years. Which means unless Pimax start making a profit there’s going to come a time when they run out.
Pimax have had the money, the time and a market relatively free of competition. But 2025 things change. The market is going through a huge change. Pimaxes USPs has been FOV, Resolution or price. We see several competitors now fight it out over 4k OLEDs before Pimax have reached that goal. Megane X is cheaper than the Dream Air and Pimax are now on the back foot for the first time.
Resolution battle lost.
FOV is the second battle in contention and Somniums VR-1 is now ahead of Pimax Crystal. And it’s hard to see how Somnium won’t stay ahead after purchasing Hypervision with a proven optical design using pancake lenses.
FOV battle lost.
Standalone was a battle Pimax bought into with the Crystal but I argued at the time no Devs would spend the time releasing their games for the headset. Turns out I was right and Pirgal was a disaster and Pimax turned its back on standalone and released Crystal Super.
Standalone battle lost.
So Pimaxes future is still on a headset beyond Dream Air but what will come first the 12k Super FOV or lack of money to keep the dream alive?
As for Meta. They’re all in on Standalone abandoning tethered PCVR altogether making their headsets restricted to XR2 resolutions. They have no PCVR game store that can rival SteamVR and we’ve seen in the past most people given the choice will buy cheap subsidised headsets from Meta to only buy VR games on Steam making GabeN a happy man.
So if Valve release Index 2 this year then they will IMO have PCVR and a standalone Steamdeck 2 HMD rolled into one. That is a headset I would be more interested in. If Steamdeck is open to third party headsets less people would be inclined to buy Meta because why be restricted to Standalone when Valve offer both?
So Metas unrivalled Steam share will drop as Valves combination takes hold. The Steam VR market will explode while Meta remain restricted to Qualcomms XR2 platform.
Flight Simmers, FPS and standalone will all be catered for on the Steam platform.
So Meta will be forced to start releasing big exclusive titles on PCVR once more or their store or there will be no need to buy Meta headsets at all. That’s the way I see things going over the next 5-6 years or 2 generations of headsets.
Sony also look more and more invested in Steam compatibility and the Steam market will be the only one big enough ti sustain multi manufacturers.
This very well could be true but ultimately it’s speculation on your part and you state it as fact. Unless you know information that isn’t publicly available, in which case that’s very interesting to hear and I’ll take your word for it.
Good points and I agree, this is the most competition Pimax has faced but I think that’s a good thing as it will be strong motivation to improve and ultimately for ourselves as consumers competition is great. Personally, I think Pimax will survive just fine. Bigscreen beyond didn’t kill the crystal and I don’t think Meganex will kill the Super/Dream Air. I do think they will prove to be good competition though.
Crystal super has the highest resolution of all, more than the meganex. I don’t understand how you can say resolution battle lost, like the crystal wasn’t the first to market with that resolution even. It’s not been about winning or losing on specs in that way, it’s and ebb and flow between these headsets and compnaies and a balancing of the miriad of trade offs, pros and cons etc. Also the Megane X is only cheaper than the dream air if you already have base stations and controllers. I think for the most part they are relatively evenly priced, especially when you consider the feature set of the dream air (eye tracking is a must imo).
Crystal super seems to be matching that FOV, with 2x the resolution. Also the VR-1 seems to have shipped like 10 headsets and it was announced in the same way as the dream air (just a render) back in Feb 2021. If anything the progress of the VR-1 is a testament to how much more capable Pimax are than people give them credit for. The VR-1 seems amazing but it’s 2500 before tax (the 1899 model without eye tracking has been dropped), so I would hope that a headset that costs 2x the Crystal, and like near 4x the Crystal light, would be better in some way.
Somnium didn’t buy Hypervision btw, the CEO invested in hypervision. They also have managed to paper lauch 1 headset in 5 years. I don’t have much hopes of them getting a hypervision headset out anytime soon tbh. I would wager 2027 at the earliest.
Again, literally not true lol. Super is higher FOV and if FOV is the only concern then 8KX is still totally valid and beats everything in the consumer market.
Completely agree, and I never saw how that could go any other way. The fact that they didn’t even support OpenXR was really the most baffling part. People might have quickly ported their existing openXR games as it would be pretty trivial but expecting them to support a unique runtime was madness.
I have no idea how you’re getting to this conclusion but I’m guessing it’s just something we likely have a different fundamental view and opinion on (and nothing wrong with that of course).
The overwhelming majority of users are standalone, meta doesn’t care about PCVR and it makes sense for them to not care. I personally hate that that is how it is, but it is.
I would love that too and completely agree. I am skeptical that they will have a standalone VR store etc but fingers crossed they do and I will be thrilled for some real competition to meta. I really don’t see it happening but honestly, I am really really hoping they do. I would much rather valve be the leader in PCVR and standalone, although I would be happiest with multiple competitors fighting it out and no one dominating at all.
I completely disagree. They would abandon VR entirely before doing that. Unless you mean they release the big Quest games on PC in which case…they already do? As in devs do anyway. They only hold back a handful of exclusives, like 2 or 3 a year. Metro awakening for example was crossbuy so you could buy on standalone and have the PCVR version also so that already exists. But hell yeah if they start having to release exclusives like Batman on PCVR also then that would be awesome. I don’t see it happening but it would be great.
Anyway, I think we both want the same things overall and are on the same page for the most part. I’ll pop on here during CES and let folks know what I think of the 60gig airlink and the Crystal super.
I’m sure I’ve posted several times over the years. Pimax run 200 employees and when you work it out accumulates $6 million in operation costs per year not including R&D. So over 3 years we see $18 million to keep the lights on.
Pimax have had several rounds of investments the last being in 2023 for $30 million.
How much did Portal cost to develop? $5 million? That was a complete write off.
If a company has money then they don’t need to sell anything they can be in an endless cycle of innovation.
But look on Stesm VR. Bigscreen Beyond has released one headset and beats Pimax. That’s how poor Pimax performs in the marketplace.
So what headset will save Pimax and push them into a business model that does not rely on investments?
The Super? A headset still far too big and expensive that needs a 5090?
Dream Air? A headset that goes head to head with Megan X which is smaller and a lot cheaper?
12k? A headset not even scheduled for 2025?
Are Pimax praying Valve don’t release Index2, Samsung don’t release a headset under $2000?
Or will Pimax against all odds, against their previous history do the unthinkable and deliver in May?
First impressions on the Crystal Super.
Here’s the Pimax booth on day 1. Plus some Megane X
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