Sony will make a oculus-like hmd for ps4

[che]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/469030 ... ty-headset

[MSat]

Very interesting. They have a source for displays, and the core technology for tracking in the form of the new and improved PS Move. They have all the pieces in the right place so there's no reason they shouldn't do it. Even if it turns out to be a flop, their investment would have been minimal.

[colocolo]

although surprising, not very surprising
Sony was always one of the first companies when a new standard electronic device came to market.
camera, Walkman, CD player,DVD, TV.......................................................................................
In fact i have only to look around, so many Sony devices already at home.
Sony is the all-round tech company since a very long time which always has set the trends, although in this case OCulus was the first.
Also, it may sound like a clichee: A VR revolution without a Japanese? Unimaginable.

[colocolo]

ahhh....apropos superior displays. The new xperia z ultra has a 6.4 inch 1080p Triluminous LCD display (quantum dot technology) that has basically the same quality as an OLED.
Would it be too for Oculus VR or good in the end? in some way its good promotion for VR in general...

[yoshithedog]

Cool that they are supporting VR. Uncool that I will have to buy a second HMD.

[mattyeatsmatts]

I can see it being wireless using the ps vita swap screen feature(like the wiiU has) and a Light on the HMD for PS Move functionality for positional tracking. This could be pretty cool but will make my rift angry

[android78]

I can see it being wireless using the ps vita swap screen feature(like the wiiU has) and a Light on the HMD for PS Move functionality for positional tracking. This could be pretty cool but will make my rift angry

I hope it's not wireless... I'd vomit after 2min with the extra lag introduced.

[whelanweb]

Always knew they would get into VR soon but wonder if they had talks with Oculus about a buy out that failed.

30 to 50 mill to Sony would have been nothing and they would be getting John Cormack thrown in for good measure.

Good news for VR in general but SO / SO news for Oculus.

Bad in one way as Sony will likely have the stronger hardware

Good in another way as im sure Oculus Stock price has just shot up because VR is going to be main stream and im sure Microsoft will have taken notice and no doubt be knocking on Oculus's door shortly to try match what Sony is doing.

Who succeeds depends on the following:

Price
Sony not charging 1000 dollars for their Headset ( needs to be 300 - 400 or less ) Just look at their HMZ. Oculus have already stated the Rift will be around 300- 400 dollars.


Release date
Oculus plan to release sometime 2014 but Sony have yet to give a planed release year. I think that this announcement may have pushed the release date of the Consumer Rift forward by a few months as if Sony VR and the Rift come out within the same price range and same couple of months this will really hurt sales of the Rift with the ( non gamer ) general public.

Software Software Software
This is probably the most important part. Sony have some of the best software developers in the world working directly for them. I have no doubt that they will have a decent line up of Games and will likely stream Movie releases directly into their VR headset through their Gaikai service and will also probably have a Netflix APP for the same ( Similar to Cinema VR ). We have to remember that Sony pictures publishes quite a lot of the major Block Busters through out the year and your own personal Cinema will be one of the major selling points of this technology.

Oculus at the moment are relying on 3rd party developers and indie to create content for the rift. Their have been some promising demos and I know this is very early days but they are going to need the likes of VALVE to step in and announce some big titles exclusive to PC with Rift support to challenge. People keep saying ( O but PC is better, the graphics on console will be terrible, etc, etc ) and yes while I agree to some points most people wont care. You just have to look at Half Life 2 on the Rift. Graphics are so dated but it doesn't matter. You feel like your their. I prefer playing HL2 in my rift then Battlefield on Ultra on a 23inch monitor.

Software really is going to be key. I keep seeing post after post here about Hardware ( The screen, The screen , The Screeeeeeeeeen ) . This is a non issue. Oculus already have a plan to fix it and im sure we will all be pleasantly surprised once the consumer version is out at how clear it will be.

This race is going to be about Software and Price.

Last thoughts on Price ( Just thought of it now )

To run proper HD rift games ( when the consumer rift comes out ) will require a PC. To get a decent mid range gaming rig next year will at the very least cost 500 euros if you know what your doing and building it yourself. Add this to the price of the rift and your talking around 800euros.

Buying a PS4 is 400 euros ( launch price ) and it will probably get a price drop after its first year. If the headset is similar price to Rift its a cheap way of getting into VR and would require no technical knowledge for the public as all they will have to do is plug it in. Where as with PC gaming you have to check if you have enough RAM, Is your graphics card powerful enough, etc, etc.

Everybody here is technically minded but the vast majority of people have trouble setting their Alarm in the morning never mind reading a spec sheet for a PC. Convenience is going to be a big issue also.

At the end of the day its good for us as a consumer as competition will push the technology forward faster and end up giving us a better and cheaper VR experience in the long run. Anything is possible in the future you just have to look at the past...... The last great competition between the USA and USSR got people to the moon and back. VR has only made a come back this past 12 months and Im already after taking a trip to the outer solar system and back in my RIFT

VR is the wild west of Technology at the moment. Exciting times coming and im just happy to be around to see it.

[ss248]

...

Good post, whelanweb.
I agree.

Btw, I'm pretty sure Sony HMD will have PC support (see PlanetSide and EQN).
Anyway it's win/win situation for consumers.

[Attreyu]

The Rift will never launch, and this HMD by Sony will be a bust.

[whelanweb]

The Rift will never launch, and this HMD by Sony will be a bust.

Thanks SS248

Attreyu can you elaborate on your comments. One line comments in a forum on such a big statement needs a bit of clarification. Can you tell us why you think its going to be a fail ?

Oculus have 16 million reasons why they have to release a product and im sure Sony will likely spend more then double that on their VR HMD.

Can you also let us know if you have tried a Rift yet. I'd find it hard that you would make such a statement thinking that VR is going to fail this time around if you have tried a Rift.

[Attreyu]

The Rift will never launch, and this HMD by Sony will be a bust.

Thanks SS248

Attreyu can you elaborate on your comments. One line comments in a forum on such a big statement needs a bit of clarification. Can you tell us why you think its going to be a fail ?

Oculus have 16 million reasons why they have to release a product and im sure Sony will likely spend more then double that on their VR HMD.

Can you also let us know if you have tried a Rift yet. I'd find it hard that you would make such a statement thinking that VR is going to fail this time around if you have tried a Rift.

I've expressed my arguments in this other thread: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=18573

I think it will never launch because much more cheaper alternatives are beginning to reach the market. I am talking about the smartphone/tablet adapters which offer better conditions and quality for a 10th of the price.

A smartphone/tablet has incredible resolution and all the necessary sensors integrated.

Oculus will never be able to compete with those and by September 2014 you will have dozens of adapters on the market.

[virror]

You obviously don't have any insight if you say that the smartphone versions have the same "same conditions and quality" as the rift.
Smartphones don't have nearly the same power as a PC to drive great graphics and the built in trackers have lot of latency compared and will probably make for a inferior experience just to mention two obvious examples.

[TheHolyChicken]

The Rift will never launch, and this HMD by Sony will be a bust.

If they're not complete idiots, [Oculus] won't launch [the consumer Rift]. By the time we're in September 2014, there will be a dozen different adapter type products out there, all using phones and tablets with 4K resolution for 50$ (injection molding + 10$ profit). If I were Palmer and the gang, I'd switch to software development pronto, with Carmack on board. Not games, but analog positional tracking (with acceleration and at least 20 contact sensors) and implementation. And I'm really worried that even that it's not necessary, with products like the Kinect at the doorstep for around 100$.

(from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 00#p142500)

Your recent comments in various threads here lead me to believe you have a misunderstanding of the state of the industry today, which makes me dubious of your ability to create a successful business in this industry (based around your 'Viiwok Deva' and HMD adapter that you seem to have in the works). If I were planning to purchase a Viiwok Deva, I would be feeling rather nervous right now. I am not trying to be negative, but cautioning that how you present yourself and what you publicly communicate can easily drive away potential buyers.

[Attreyu]

You obviously don't have any insight if you say that the smartphone versions have the same "same conditions and quality" as the rift.

Sorry, but I don't think you know how all this works.

Smartphones don't have nearly the same power as a PC to drive great graphics

Oculus Rift is just a sink display. It doesn't render or drive the graphics, it just acts as a secondary display which clones the PC. It receives the video feed. It's just an LCD screen with added sensors.

In fact, a phablet could do it much better, since apart from the PC which acts as a transmitter/encoder, it can ease the task on the smartphone end due to the integrated GPU.

and the built in trackers have lot of latency compared and will probably make for a inferior experience just to mention two obvious examples.

The latency doesn't come from the sensors, in fact any phone released this summer beats the sensors on the rift by far.

Not to mention the resolution of AMOLED displays.

[petersmc]

Respectfully, I disagree with the poster stating that Rift or Sony's HMD will not launch. The "strap your phone to your face" idea certainly may have its uses, but I cant see many consumers choosing that hardware over dedicated solutions. Even if tracking can be improved in a mobile device format, the small formfactor will not allow for quality graphics to be produced once the resolution gets up to that "sweet-spot". Mobile device parts may have allowed for an affordable dev kit, but once big investors are convinced that VR is a go, then more specialised components will be manufactured that make the experience that much better. Mobile devices wont be dedicated in that fashion.

[Attreyu]

Your recent comments in various threads here lead me to believe you have a misunderstanding of the state of the industry today

How is that exactly and what does it have to do with anything ? Please bring forward your arguments for the contrary ie. how in the world would someone buy a product which will be launched an year from now for 300$ when you already have alternatives on the market ?

And are you saying that because I don't think the Rift will be successful on the long term, this somehow means that my own product (which is not even in the same boat) would fail ?

I fail to understand your logic of thought.

[Attreyu]

Respectfully, I disagree with the poster stating that Rift or Sony's HMD will not launch. The "strap your phone to your face" idea certainly may have its uses, but I cant see many consumers choosing that hardware over dedicated solutions. Even if tracking can be improved in a mobile device format, the small formfactor will not allow for quality graphics to be produced once the resolution gets up to that "sweet-spot". Mobile device parts may have allowed for an affordable dev kit, but once big investors are convinced that VR is a go, then more specialised components will be manufactured that make the experience that much better. Mobile devices wont be dedicated in that fashion.

We have smartphone screens 2 times better than the one on the Rift and they'll get better and better. The hardware on a tablet is already ahead of the Rift. With the right adapters I don't really see what the Rift can bring on to justify the price difference.

[petersmc]

Respectfully, I disagree with the poster stating that Rift or Sony's HMD will not launch. The "strap your phone to your face" idea certainly may have its uses, but I cant see many consumers choosing that hardware over dedicated solutions. Even if tracking can be improved in a mobile device format, the small formfactor will not allow for quality graphics to be produced once the resolution gets up to that "sweet-spot". Mobile device parts may have allowed for an affordable dev kit, but once big investors are convinced that VR is a go, then more specialised components will be manufactured that make the experience that much better. Mobile devices wont be dedicated in that fashion.

We have smartphone screens 2 times better than the one on the Rift and they'll get better and better. The hardware on a tablet is already ahead of the Rift. With the right adapters I don't really see what the Rift can bring on to justify the price difference.

I see VR as a whole ecosystem. The potential add-on market is huge, and the display and head tracking is just one component. I accept that modern phone and tablets can produce interesting graphics given their size, but they dont match two GTX670's (which is a fairly common gaming rig). What I am really getting at, is that a console or PC will stay part of the VR ecosystem for quite some time.
Then we get to body tracking and haptic feedback devices. Some solutions will be home use, and others will be expensive and limited to themeparks. In any case, the integration of these parts of the VR experience will require computation beyond what mobile devices can provide.
In the end, I think the adapter concept and RIFT/the-new-Sony-HMD are actually aiming at different markets, albeit with limited overlap.

[colocolo]

that reminds of the strange assumption that tablets and smartphones are the future of gaming.
people tend to make assumptions too early.
Still people want to have superior graphical experiences and chiefly big game studios which are responsable for most games sold. (cant imagine that game developers suddenly throw their graphic research into the rubbish just to make smartphone games and forget about high end GPUs.)
i could imagine that smrtlets/phablets could take over the field, but not yet. Right now consumers are paying for better graphics and so am I.
At 5nm node (2022?) we can discuss again, but then probably we wont have to. It will be a very natural evolution of circuitry that they will consist of single electron transistors or tunnel FETs. Like i have read, there is now way around it.
We will reach there. Recently or yesterday a research group from university of Minnesota claimed a major breakthrough for making nodes 1nm wide and with atomic precision.
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-breakthrou ... aller.html

[Chriky]

Attreyu, you are thinking with a hacker's mentality, not a consumer's mentality.

People like things that they just buy and just work. Developers like having a simple, guaranteed platform to target. Your argument is equivalent to saying that Nintendo should have released the Wii as PS2 or PC peripheral.

This is not a theory. Mobile phone converter HMDs have existed for as long as the Rift has - developers like Epic, Valve and CCP simply haven't targeted them like they have with the Rift.

[Attreyu]

I see VR as a whole ecosystem. The potential add-on market is huge, and the display and head tracking is just one component. I accept that modern phone and tablets can produce interesting graphics given their size, but they dont match two GTX670's (which is a fairly common gaming rig). What I am really getting at, is that a console or PC will stay part of the VR ecosystem for quite some time.
Then we get to body tracking and haptic feedback devices. Some solutions will be home use, and others will be expensive and limited to themeparks. In any case, the integration of these parts of the VR experience will require computation beyond what mobile devices can provide.
In the end, I think the adapter concept and RIFT/the-new-Sony-HMD are actually aiming at different markets, albeit with limited overlap.

I don't think I've said anything different. I wasn't talking about adapters doing all the work inside (the smartphones that is). I was talking about adapters connected to the PC by cable (just like the Rift) or wirelessly.

[Attreyu]

that reminds of the strange assumption that tablets and smartphones are the future of gaming.
people tend to make assumptions too early.
Still people want to have superior graphical experiences and chiefly big game studios which are responsable for most games sold. (cant imagine that game developers suddenly throw their graphic research into the rubbish just to make smartphone games and forget about high end GPUs.)
i could imagine that smrtlets/phablets could take over the field, but not yet. Right now consumers are paying for better graphics and so am I.
At 5nm node (2022?) we can discuss again, but then probably we wont have to. It will be a very natural evolution of circuitry that they will consist of single electron transistors or tunnel FETs. Like i have read, there is now way around it.
We will reach there. Recently or yesterday a research group from university of Minnesota claimed a major breakthrough for making nodes 1nm wide and with atomic precision.
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-breakthrou ... aller.html

Again, I wasn't implying that the smartphones or tablets could bear the rendering weight. I was talking about adapters using the smartphones as in their display and sensors connected to the PC exactly how the Rift does now.

[colocolo]

that reminds of the strange assumption that tablets and smartphones are the future of gaming.
people tend to make assumptions too early.
Still people want to have superior graphical experiences and chiefly big game studios which are responsable for most games sold. (cant imagine that game developers suddenly throw their graphic research into the rubbish just to make smartphone games and forget about high end GPUs.)
i could imagine that smrtlets/phablets could take over the field, but not yet. Right now consumers are paying for better graphics and so am I.
At 5nm node (2022?) we can discuss again, but then probably we wont have to. It will be a very natural evolution of circuitry that they will consist of single electron transistors or tunnel FETs. Like i have read, there is now way around it.
We will reach there. Recently or yesterday a research group from university of Minnesota claimed a major breakthrough for making nodes 1nm wide and with atomic precision.
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-breakthrou ... aller.html

Again, I wasn't implying that the smartphones or tablets could bear the rendering weight. I was talking about adapters using the smartphones as in their display and sensors connected to the PC exactly how the Rift does now.

ah, i see. but how do you come to the conclusion that it will be only 1/10th of the price?
i still would need a new 600 $ smartphone and new PC hardware.
And of course people would have to accept humongous 5-6inch smartphones in their pockets as a standard.

[Attreyu]

People like things that they just buy and just work.

And adapters can't do this because...? The only thing making them mainstream at the moment is because the software component is lacking or is still immature. They'll do what the Rift does in 6 months tops. Wirelessly. For wired solutions, by Christmas we'll have a product or more which do exactly what the Rift does now, under 100$.

Developers like having a simple, guaranteed platform to target.

I think that's already sorted - the PC and the consoles. It has very little to do with the Rift itself - mainly to make sure you can display the side-by-side stereo views.

This is not a theory. Mobile phone converter HMDs have existed for as long as the Rift has - developers like Epic, Valve and CCP simply haven't targeted them like they have with the Rift.

And the reason was because of a lack of hi-res displays and integrated positional sensors + the video feed issue. We have those now.

The Rift was just the start of it and technology has started to catch-up with such a force it will leave behind the Rift. That's my personal guess.

I'm not a hater, I just can't see what exactly would the Rift manage to stay ahead one year from now, at that price. What would they offer that the smaller devs can't procure ? The lenses ? The display ? The sensors ? They're already here and they cost close to nothing.

[Attreyu]

ah, i see. but how do you come to the conclusion that it will be only 1/10th of the price?

The adapter would be close to 50$, maybe a bit more in order to ensure proffitability.

i still would need a new 600 $ smartphone.

I am presuming that almost everybody has a smartphone with sensors today, you'd be hard pressed to find someone without one. You don't need 600$ to buy one these days. You can already find 4.5-5" smartphones that cost half at that. Not to mention the chinese clones which sell for 150$.

And a Nexus 7 is 200$ or so.

What are we talking about ? Who doesn't have a PC ? How would you use a Rift in the first place without one ?

[STRZ]

'm not a hater, I just can't see what exactly would the Rift manage to stay ahead one year from now, at that price. What would they offer that the smaller devs can't procure ? The lenses ? The display ? The sensors ? They're already here and they cost close to nothing.

The Appz..

[Attreyu]

'm not a hater, I just can't see what exactly would the Rift manage to stay ahead one year from now, at that price. What would they offer that the smaller devs can't procure ? The lenses ? The display ? The sensors ? They're already here and they cost close to nothing.

The Appz..

Bingo. That's the last barrier standing. Give it 3-6 months (probably less, as in Christmas this year) and you'll begin to see why I've made such a bold statement.

[colocolo]

ah, i see. but how do you come to the conclusion that it will be only 1/10th of the price?

The adapter would be close to 50$, maybe a bit more in order to ensure proffitability.

i still would need a new 600 $ smartphone.

I am presuming that almost everybody has a smartphone with sensors today, you'd be hard pressed to find someone without one. You don't need 600$ to buy one these days. You can already find 4.5-5" smartphones that cost half at that. Not to mention the chinese clones which sell for 150$.

And a Nexus 7 is 200$ or so.

What are we talking about ? Who doesn't have a PC ? How would you use a Rift in the first place without one ?

you are right in all your points, but i wouldnt be too pessimistic and say that Oculus VR wont release a product There are some decent good arguments also for them.

[blazespinnaker]

I don't see a market for sending video to your smartphone. How do you even do that?

Anyways, that's a step back. I want to be wireless.

[Attreyu]

you are right in all your points, but i wouldnt be too pessimistic and say that Oculus VR wont release a product There are some decent good arguments also for them.

I think they'll continue to send developer kits into 2014, we can consider those dev-kits as the officially launched product itself. People will buy them as long as there is basically no alternative. This will continue until the competition will be able to offer the same specs cheapish and after that Oculus will concentrate on other VR aspects.

[petersmc]

that reminds of the strange assumption that tablets and smartphones are the future of gaming.
people tend to make assumptions too early.
Still people want to have superior graphical experiences and chiefly big game studios which are responsable for most games sold. (cant imagine that game developers suddenly throw their graphic research into the rubbish just to make smartphone games and forget about high end GPUs.)
i could imagine that smrtlets/phablets could take over the field, but not yet. Right now consumers are paying for better graphics and so am I.
At 5nm node (2022?) we can discuss again, but then probably we wont have to. It will be a very natural evolution of circuitry that they will consist of single electron transistors or tunnel FETs. Like i have read, there is now way around it.
We will reach there. Recently or yesterday a research group from university of Minnesota claimed a major breakthrough for making nodes 1nm wide and with atomic precision.
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-breakthrou ... aller.html

Again, I wasn't implying that the smartphones or tablets could bear the rendering weight. I was talking about adapters using the smartphones as in their display and sensors connected to the PC exactly how the Rift does now.

Fair enough. I stand corrected. I see a few IFs:
IF a consumer has a "good enough" phone/tablet (screen and sensors)
IF the phone software/hardware allows a quality (low latency) interface to the PC
IF the display of the screen via (adjustable?) optics can compete with consumer VR dedicated HMDs (chromatic aberration, distortion, etc)
Then it might be a go.
I believe the current sticking point is the PC to mobile device interface. Pushing lots of pixels directly on the phone is not available yet, at least as far as I know.
Having said that, the average consumer is a very fickle beast. They want something that works out-of-the-box, does not need plugging in, and with batteries included. It needs to look cool too.
So, given the lack of a direct mobile device display interface, and the average consumer mentality, I still think any adapter solution would have limited appeal as compared to a dedicated HMD.

[Attreyu]

I don't see a market for sending video to your smartphone. How do you even do that?

By cable ? Like the Rift does.

Anyways, that's a step back. I want to be wireless.

It will. It is actually but there are still some issues regarding bandwith, although WiDi protocols are increasingly better at it and are rapidly filling the dots.

[yautjacetanu]

Yeah this makes me sad, kinda. I was really really excited by the prospect of the ps4 supporting the occulus rift because I think it would have the potential to make VR ubiquitous. The problem now is if there are 2 competing standards.

However, it makes sense for sony to do their own thing not least for the fact that they can use the PS move to deal with their positional tracking. I just hope that the way you make a VR game for the PS4 won't be completely different to the pc and you'll be able to release your games easily on both platforms.

[Attreyu]

I believe the current sticking point is the PC to mobile device interface. Pushing lots of pixels directly on the phone is not available yet, at least as far as I know.
......
So, given the lack of a direct mobile device display interface, and the average consumer mentality, I still think any adapter solution would have limited appeal as compared to a dedicated HMD.

There are solutions to connect the PC to a smartphone. Wired and wirelessly. When talking wired, the smartphone basically becomes an immature Rift. With tweaks and settings, in a couple of months we'll have something extremely simmilar but with a much better display (depending on your smartphone/tablet choice) at a fraction of the price. I'm absolutely convinced of it.

[Chriky]

Sorry, I thought you were implying the phones would run the games themselves. Are there a lot of phones coming out that have HDMI *in* then?

If the phone has HDMI in (seems unusual feature to me), and can stream it's sensor data very fast out over USB, then I guess you could make a Rift replacement using one.

I still don't think that it would be as successful as a reasonably priced dedicated VR unit. It's just not how people spend money. You buy a phone you want, then you buy other things you want if you can afford them.

This is why people buy PS Vita's rather than buying analogue stick add-ons for their S3's, and why developers release games for Vita and don't release games for S3+gamepad add-on.

[colocolo]

Why is the new Nexus 7 with quadcore processor and 1080p display so cheap? half the price of a S4...
Just because its 2 inches bigger???

[STRZ]

Bingo. That's the last barrier standing. Give it 3-6 months (probably less, as in Christmas this year) and you'll begin to see why I've made such a bold statement.

That's a pretty big barrier if you ask me. Not having a comparable ecosystem is the major factor these days. A device or ecosystem from non VR enthusiasts will never be as good as a device coming from VR enthusiasts. Not only that, Oculus also employs the most respected man in the gaming industry.

Other competitors would be benefitial in such a situation i think, as catalysts or "entry drug", making people hungry for the real deal

[blazespinnaker]

Standards won't be an issue unless they use proprietary cables - but anyone who does that, won't be able sell any units. Is Sony going to lock their version of the Rift to their console? That'd be weird.

Oculus is about to be run over by a freight train. They'd better pivot and fast.

[Attreyu]

Sorry, I thought you were implying the phones would run the games themselves. Are there a lot of phones coming out that have HDMI *in* then?

If the phone has HDMI in (seems unusual feature to me), and can stream it's sensor data very fast out over USB, then I guess you could make a Rift replacement using one.

You don't necessarily need a HDMI in. It's what the guys over in the Nexus 7 thread can't get their head around, thus overcomplicating the matter with discrete displays and reverse engineering of the chips and adapters. I can't talk about it at large, since I'm using it for my own product, but you can have the video feed sorted without major hassle. Believe it or not, it's the video feed from the PC that gives the biggest latency issues, not the other way around (the sensor data from the smartphone towards the PC). That and the compression of the frames in realtime.

I still don't think that it would be as successful as a reasonably priced dedicated VR unit. It's just not how people spend money. You buy a phone you want, then you buy other things you want if you can afford them.

This is why people buy PS Vita's rather than buying analogue stick add-ons for their S3's, and why developers release games for Vita and don't release games for S3+gamepad add-on.

Time will tell I guess. So far there isn't anything out on the market that would justify the hassle, I'm talking about the adapters I've seen so far. So the Rift is still the king, for the time being. It would be hard not to be the king though, when you're the only one in the palace.