Tag: ThrillSeeker

EDITORIAL: Two Recent YouTube Videos Take Aim at Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, and Meta’s Virtual Reality Hardware and Software Development

Horizon Workrooms get savaged in a highly critical review video by The Verge, a sign of the growing antipathy toward’s Meta virtual reality hardware and software strategy

This is worth negative ten billion dollars. I would pay ten billion dollars to never use this again. I wanted to have hope that we could do this, and it would be fun, but I mean, you guys agree that this one of the most buggy software experiences, ever.

—Alex Heath, The Verge (transcribed audio excerpt from the video below)

I’m still percolating, alas, but I did want to share with my readers a couple of YouTube videos which caught my attention.

The first, a 15-minute editorial video by The Verge‘s Adi Robertson, discusses Meta’s new Quest Pro VR headset and its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms social VR experiences. She and her colleagues did not hold back in their criticisms of both, particularly the Horizon platforms (the quote at the top of this blogpost comes from another writer for The Verge, as a group was kicking the tires on Horizon Workrooms).

The Verge staff make it very clear that they are less than impressed with what is on offer from Meta, and that they do not believe that remote workteams will be using either the Quest Pro or Horizon Workrooms, over a Zoom call.

The popular virtual reality YouTuber ThrillSeeker goes even further in the following 15-minute video, which has already racked up over 400,000 views:

In it, he takes Mark Zuckerberg and his team at Meta to task for dropping the ball with their virtual reality hardware and software strategy to date:

How in the hell did it go so wrong that Meta and Horizon have become the laughingstock of hundreds of videos and publications, and that Quests, for the most part, are just sitting on shelves collecting dust?

Meta, I understand that you are a massive corporation…and that running a business like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus is probably incredibly difficult.

But you have somehow managed to turn one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life, into one of the lamest jokes in tech.

—ThrillSeeker

Among many other criticisms, he accuses Meta (rightfully) of focusing on wireless VR headsets to the exclusion of high-end PCVR (that is, headsets like his and my beloved Valve Index, which require a good desktop computer with a powerful graphics card, and can run a lot of applications which wireless headsets would struggle with.

What I find so fascinating about both these videos is that they are emblematic of a rising tide of antipathy against Meta, as it tries to repivot to become a metaverse company, sinking tens of billions of dollars a year into a VR/AR strategy that might take a decade or longer before it goes truly mainstream (that is, beyond the early adopters and the hardcore gamers). Both videos mention the recent massive layoffs at Meta, a further sign that all is not well with the company as it struggles to find the next big thing after social networking.

Mark Zuckerberg is placing a very expensive bet on virtual and augmented reality and the metaverse, but will that big bet pay off, and when? Stay tuned.

UPDATED! KAT Walk C: The First Consumer-Level VR Omnidirectional Treadmill

Yesterday, virtual reality vlogger ThrillSeeker reviewed the KAT Walk C (the world’s first VR omnidirectional treadmill intended for the consumer market) in the following 13-minute video, which is an absolute must-watch. The video is epic, mind-boggling, and at times absolutely hilarious!

ThrillSeeker reports that he was easily able to set up the device and get it to work with various VR apps and games. He doesn’t shy away from criticism in his review, about what he thinks are the weak parts of the system. While he says that most VR games probably wouldn’t greatly benefit from the US$1,399 treadmill, he found that adding the ability to use your legs to walk around in open world VR games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim VR and No Man’s Sky gives you a completely different sense of scale and realism, compared to using your thumbsticks to walk and/or teleport in virtual reality.

ThrillSeeker, wearing a Valve Index VR headset, walking on the KAT Walk C

For those of you, like Thrillseeker, who have to be on the absolute bleeding edge of virtual reality, you might well want to add to the body-tracking pucks, the Vive Facial Tracker, the FeelReal Multisensory VR Mask, and any haptic vests or any other haptic equipment may you already have, and open your wallets for this device! (Yes, they’re even having s sale!)

I leave you with a 3-minute promotional video for the product by the company behind this device, KAT VR (which also sells a version for business use):

UPDATE Oct. 3rd, 2021: VR vloggers Cas and Chary have also released their review of the KAT WALK C: