There were something like at least 10 different new VR HMDs on display, not all of them public yet, so you will not immediately see coverage of them, and then think of accessoires like haptics and general component tech which may be on display too. So limited time for the journalists to allocate to one company, and Pimax is not (yet) one of the big ones.
Interviews are nice, but when the message is “here is our final prototype (save for 90 Hz), we plan to ship the HMD pretty soon” then the main focus of a valuable article simply has to be the state of the product as experienced first hand by the journalist. Full stop. So how does that match with your comment about “nothing we could not have learnt from the internet” ? That dude was there, put his own hands on the 8K, he did not read another users review in the internet, if you perhaps misunderstood that ? If anything, I expect them to get an own impression of what the device really delivers, and not just rely on what other users or the company tells them. Exactly that he did here.
If such a near final prototype shows some serious shortcomings, what do you expect a journalist to do ?! If the Vive Pro had tracking issues et al while being slated for release in Q1, would you not expect the journalists to also tell the world about that in clear words and not just trust that these will be gone next month when it’s released only because Dan O’Brien tells them in an interview that all flaws will be resolved within the coming 4-8 weeks, just please ignore them and don’t tell anybody ?
RoadtoVR know about the evolution of the 8K - it was already impressive when shown at CES 2017, but had some issues back then. Now, one year on and almost reaching production phase, as a journalist you have to wonder if you are not left with the same feeling your team had one year ago - promising device but still some serious flaws to address. How does that affect the belief in such issues being resolved by this company within a few weeks/months till release ?
As you may have noticed, I am generally positive about the 8K, and still believe Pimax will eventually sort it out, but I do not think we should try to pressure any reviewers to not dare to speak out what they see, experience.
From all I can see on Reddit and other media, the Vive Pro is in a better shape today than the 8K V5. This is the current status, I certainly am not happy about it, but have to accept it. We all share the hope that Pimax will overcome the last hurdles, and hopefully rather sooner than later, and if it does, the 8K will make the Vive Pro look a bit like a previous gen HMD. But this week it did not happen. That was a calculated risk Pimax took when appearing on the grandest stage with a prototype which was not really ready for the show - we know the V3 would have fared better than the V5.
Don’t blame the messenger for the message you did not like.
Well, I still believe in them, after my first “venting” reaction. I would just like them to:
Don’t level themselves by the worst on kickstarter as far as communication goes. They haven’t been, as of my experience, worse than average. They should really improve this, and should do it fast!
About the product delivering, we will need to wait and see. But I would like to be kept on the loop. I guess there’s no one here that disagree with me on this.
The display itself has been said can do 90hz fine as its used in a Qualcomm running at 90hz. Which has suggested the Bridge chip is not perfirming at manufacturer’s optimal specs.
Yes I agree they should have been more open about where the 90hz was at. But everytime they have come forward with something ppl don’t want to hear there has been overreaction.
The extra leds are to increase brightness for those whom need it.
@heliosurge, @deletedpimaxrep1:
" But everytime they have come forward with something ppl don’t want to hear there has been overreaction."
But be noted that the reaction is even greater when the backers are so surprised, I’m backing another kickstarter and we are 6 months late, but everyone month the creator send an update on kickstarter tell us were the project is going… frustrations arise but it’s managed and after some bad news good news are coming in…
And like I said before this does even need to be public the kickstart update bulletin is made for that. I really don’t understand why Pimax don’t proceed this way.
it was one thing when they had 4 million, but after 15 million in investor funding surely they could hire someone to handle their backer communication strategy.
They were covering alot of things( call it lies or what ever u like )
1- What games do you like to show at CES backers ??
PIMAX Screw you backers…i made up my mind
2- We will update you backers V4( Video )…and details about V5 before CES ??
PIMAX Screw you backers…i made up my mind
3- Backers what sort of setup could be at CES boot ??
PIMAX Screw you backers…i made up my mind
4- No problem with V5 almost CV1 just the 80Hz issue … we only need feeds back about it ??
PIMAX Screw you backers…i made up my mind
I have tons of issues to be solved…do not dream about Q2 …not before H2 or even 2019( from the early days before the kickstarter …i said not before H2 2018
5- The list goes on and on…Just have PIMAX words on it !!!
Are we treated like a child ???
Anyway…am not a backer my self ( shoot me ) but i wish them all the successes
(forgive my English)
No, they don’t need to waste money on pleasing a few impatient children who can’t just wait for the product they invested in. They need to spend their money on completing the headset and manufacturing it.
Edit: There are plenty of kickstarter projects who communicate regularly and have made their backers wait for YEARS with nothing but updates. Is that what you want? Do you want the Pimax 8k to become the next SpaceVR?
BUT LOOK HOW WELL THEY COMMUNICATED! THEY ARE SO GREAT!
Pimax should not have let the backers know about the problems through the press; if they had communicated the problem, the backers would not feel excluded and would have more adjusted expectations. Maybe they would have contributed real solutions. It has not been like that and has angered them much more.
I think it would have been better to also have a well-finished prototype to show, although incomplete, than let everybody see a prototype with so many failures; a bad international first impression: if all were fixed tomorrow, people would only remember how they saw it at CES: with many problems, nothing comparable to a product ready for the market like the Vive Pro.
I am confident that Pimax can fix all or most of the problems, but this has been a big mistake.
The Vive’s development was never public. They never had to give a date to anyone in the public for a release. They don’t have a forum where developers let them know where they are at, and they don’t have any public expectations on their development timeline. The public is full of people that have no experience in any of matters regarding software or hardware development of any kind, and have difficulties understanding the realities and honesty of statements made by Pimax.
Kickstarters are very unique situations and both sides are very awkward and inexperienced. This is the reason why there is so much confusion over what is happening.
If there were more tech journalists with hands-on experience on the software and firmware development end of the equation rather than as just consumers we may have more accurate understandings.
Your right but this is the way (Kickstarter) Pimax decide to go to finance the Pimax 8K so they must endorse the Kickstarter license agreement like it or not. And honest communication is one of the main point beside doing everything possible to delivering the goods
If Pimax made any meaningful changes to the demo I’m certain they would have contacted us to come back and try it again. In their response they acknowledged the issues which hopefully means they’ll fix them in due time. Both myself and my colleague used the headset on separate occasions this week prior to writing anything. I’m confident we’ll have a chance to try a newer prototype in the future.
To the people who act as if we’ve somehow harmed the product by reporting what we saw… I have to ask you to reconsider. If we simply said “it’s great!” the company would think that nobody cares about the current issues and wouldn’t have to spend time working on them (and instead move on to other things). Making it clear to Pimax that these issues are apparent and matter to users means they know that they need to hit a certain bar to meet what users want and expect.
Regarding the more positive impressions later in the week (any impressions from 10 minutes on a tradeshow floor being called a “review” should raise red flags), my feeling is that nothing has actually changed, but you’re seeing the impressions come out later from more general tech publications which don’t have much VR expertise (which is why they didn’t see and cover the headset early in the week – it wasn’t as high of a priority compared to other topics). A lot of these folks from general tech sites aren’t usually serious VR users, they spend 2 minutes in the headset and say it looks great because they don’t quite know what they’re looking for and they don’t have hundreds of hours in other headsets as a basis for comparison on things like tracking and display quality.
The veteran VR publications are going to know much more about what they’re looking at and talking about than a general tech site. And that’s fine, no one would should be expecting general tech sites to have specialist VR knowledge.
I agree that your article from initial setup is good even if it appears unfavourable.
One of the users who tried it during the initial setup had remarked he touched the gpu & said it was blazing hot.
With the team now showing other games other than the blu.
I would recommend a follow up. Is it posdible in your opinion that a combination of the issues you reported maybe a result of PiMax hardware changes & gpu maybe over stressed?
I ask this as DCS & other games should be more in tense than the blue and we are getting more favourable impressions.
And of course being an expert in the field with tgeir setup working smoother your input would definitely be a great asset.
It seems to me that what is fair and responsible is just what you have made: point out all the good things and problems, so that we all know them; I have used your review and what was happening at that time in this forum, to write an article (referencing your review, of course) for “Real o Virtual”, one of the sites pioneers of RV in Spanish.
Awesome nice follow up. Its unfortunate but as humans; that we often presume the worst. Glad to have you a part of the forums as it can be difficult to keep up with the various forums! Thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule.
I have no problem with you pointing our positives or negatives of the headset, this is to be expected and anything less would mean you aren’t performing your job correctly. However you set the tone of the review at the very beginning with this statement “The name “8K,” as we’ve explained, is a misnomer bordering on false advertisement”, and then the continued approach to quotation marks around “8k”. Completely unnecessary.
while disheartening your initial article was of great value, as it forced pimax into an official response. My hope is that next time they will try and know better any lay out any issues you may encounter in advance, so that their later statement does not come off as hand waving .
edit
i would say its time to stop busting their balls over calling it the 8k, when the vive pro is being branded as 3k on the same 3k in one direction basis.
