I interviewed Tyriel Wood of the Tyriel Wood YouTube channel covering XR tech and Zimtok5, VR Streamer for last ten years, at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
Here’s Wood’s video on the Meta Quest 3S:
Here’s Zimtok5’s video on the Meta Quest 3S:
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Music: Fatality
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So in today's episode, we're going to be diving into a couple of content creators that were there at MetaConnect. Tyriel Wood, who has a YouTube channel covering a lot of the XR tech, and then Zimtok5, who does a lot of streaming of VR games for the past 10 years. So at MetaConnect this year on the Tuesday, a lot of content creators and press got early access to see the Quest 3S demo, some of the AI demos, and then the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. But really the biggest news was the Quest 3S, which is like a better version of the Quest 2 at the same price point. They're going to be discontinuing the Quest 2 as well as Ghost Pro. And then there's still the Quest 3, which is better in terms of the optics. It's got a headphone jack. It's got a depth sensor. So they're reducing a lot of the cost in order to bring out this Quest 3S at the same price as the Quest 2. So it's basically kind of like a little bit better than the Quest 2, but not quite as good as the Quest 3. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Tyriel and Zimtok5 happened on Wednesday, September 25th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:24.767] Tyriel Wood: So I'm Tyriel Wood. I make videos on YouTube about VR stuff, mostly tech stuff. I like that part of the equation. And yeah, I try to cover everything on more technicality standpoints for headsets and, you know, that stuff.
[00:01:41.361] Zimtok5: Hey, I'm Zimtok5. I've been streaming VR for the last 10 years, and I'm still going.
[00:01:48.146] Kent Bye: Maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:01:52.495] Tyriel Wood: my background in space. I started making YouTube videos because nobody was covering like mixed reality, Windows mixed reality, if you remember that. So I was like, why nobody's talking about this? It's a very interesting platform. And so I decided to start to dig into it and here we are.
[00:02:12.917] Zimtok5: My background is pretty simple. I started off in London with a terrible internet connection. And when I moved to Edinburgh in Scotland and I suddenly had 20 or 50 meg connection, I can't remember what it was, all of a sudden I had the opportunity to stream when I never had before. So I started playing around on Twitch, and then lo and behold, there was a QuakeCon that happened, and a little gentleman named Palmer Lucky was talking to a guy I'd been following for some years, being a Quake fan, which was John Carmack. And I saw this article, and I was like, what's he doing with this thing? There's this device, this gaming device, and that was the DK1. And then before long, Facebook bought Oculus, and I ordered a DK2 and had had a demo of the DK1 in 2013. And my wife was like, hey, why don't you share it with people? because I had just proven that I could stream and so I went straight into streaming and I've played basically everything I've been able to physically play since then. So that's my background.
[00:03:08.889] Kent Bye: Yeah, you may have a record set for playing the most games that are out there and certainly up there on that list. Well, I'd love to hear some of your early thoughts on how do you see what was announced fitting into the overall VR ecosystem from your perspective?
[00:03:22.543] Tyriel Wood: I think it would have been much more exciting if we didn't have so many leaks about everything. We kind of got into this knowing pretty much every single detail about Quest 3S. We knew the name either. I think it was a very interesting part about the glasses and the Orion. prototype there was something new that was expected we were all expecting to see something but it was a good scene good demo of it even if it wasn't an actual demo but seeing people using it and see the form factor very small going back to tech that is not used for a while like waveguide it seems a pretty interesting one there was a lot of AI that probably for the VR space is not the most interesting thing but I think that they bridged it pretty well with some things with the horizon worlds where you can actually create words and like things in the environments and everything just with AI with prompts and I think that it's a very good way to actually start to use AI and maybe they get to the VR bubble this way.
[00:04:29.195] Zimtok5: Well, Kent, I'll just say, thank God Met have woken up. They woke up to their developers. I think it was really great to hear them re-baselining a lot of their operating system stack. That, to me, stood out as something that has been needed for many years now. The Quest 3S stands to be a successor to the Quest 2 in many ways, but I do view it as a potentially subsidized headset that's going to, again, reinforce their market share. Now that they are playing with... apple on the other side of the spectrum trying to come to the center of who's going to dominate the future of computing and i think that meta is making the smarter play they're going after youth they're going after the bottom of the pyramid it just means that they will have so much more momentum five years from now where i think apple will really need to play catch up so this year's kind of re-baselining is how i view it and i feel like what we saw there was advancement of the troops in five different armies and i think as a heavily invested meta shareholder i'm very pleased to finally see a meta connect where i feel proud of their decisions and i'm behind them on this one where normally i'm quite camaraderie and i would say oh you did this that and that wrong this time got their back i think they're making the right decisions
[00:05:50.370] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think there is a lot of positive things that they did announce, and I think there's also sometimes a gap between the rhetoric of what they're saying and their actions of what they're doing. You know, maybe I'm the thorn in Meta's side that's trying to bring that reality check, because they did say, you know, a lot of emphasis of now Horizon OS is now open. We have this open ecosystem. But yet at the same time, as they've added all the App Lab apps into the main store, they've also named instead of like the Quest app, now it's like Meta Horizon. And then you search and it's all like the Horizon world. So it seems like they're still pushing their own first party apps. So yes, they're open. But at the same time, they're pushing their own Horizon world stuff. So yes, and with these caveats for me.
[00:06:31.440] Zimtok5: Yeah, just to comment on that. So the naming convention ever since the Meta rebrand has been a bit of a nightmare. I still believe there was no reason to light a fire on Oculus. It could have been its own brand name for some time. And it's very clear to me that they're trying to establish that, this Meta Horizon concept, as an integral part of not just the app and the launcher, like you're saying, and push that to see if it works. I suspect two years from now, that'll have bitten them in a way, and maybe we'll be backing down from it. I do think that the experiment that they mentioned today about bringing in AI-created objects off of a prompt and then building worlds could really serve young wannabe devs. I can imagine a 12-year-old in there creating something, and then 10 years later, being 22 years old and presenting something on stage. Your next success story, like they shared with Gorilla Tag.
[00:07:23.558] Kent Bye: Yeah, if you have any thoughts.
[00:07:25.635] Tyriel Wood: Well, about the Horizon thing, I think we're very clear. We saw a lot of announcements earlier this year about opening to other manufacturers. That's what I was hoping to see today. think like right now because they didn't announce anything this like new platform doesn't get the old importance that it should have because like it's actually created to actually be shared with other manufacturers to make headsets that are not just meta headsets and we kind of missed that part of the puzzle i understand that it was also a good decision because they were announcing their own headset this time but it would have been nice to actually feature maybe some who is working on something that is actually using their software instead of just talking about how open it is without anyone using the openness board.
[00:08:17.031] Kent Bye: Yeah, I know Zuckerberg has said they want to become the Android of XR, but yet in order to do that, they actually have to have other OEMs and other hardware. So I'd love to hear some of your hot takes in terms of what you were trying to communicate in the videos that you were publishing today. I know that they have all these creators that were being brought out and did a bunch of demos yesterday at the same time that I was getting a lot of my demos. And then basically, less than 24 hours to put it all together into a coherent video that was Being published the next day, I know there's a lot of lack of sleep and a lot of long nights of trying to get it all together. But I'd love to hear, what were some of your big points that you were trying to make in your video?
[00:08:50.575] Tyriel Wood: All right, yeah, it was rough. It was very rough. I think I slept, like, three hours tonight, and I started to work on it, like, at 2 in the afternoon, so it was very rough. But I think, like, the point I made in the video is the fact that probably this should have been released before the Quest 3 to have a better reception. I think I would still recommend the Quest 3 to everyone that wants the real deal, the real experience, and this is, like... What the industry needs the most, they need to bring like people that now they're buying the Quest 2 that is still outselling the Quest 3 to the new platform, to the possibility to use the new games, to buy new games and like to don't create any divide in between like in their own platform. So I feel like this headset really serves a purpose on that regard. It might not be the most exciting one when it comes to specs because it's something that we had already. It's just they shuffled around some specs from different headsets. But what I say in the video mostly is like this headset just makes sense. It might not be the best, it might be not the one for you, but it makes sense. It needs to exist.
[00:10:05.185] Zimtok5: That's interesting. We got to put our boxing gloves on a little bit here. Because I'm really curious, I suppose, seeing the shuffle of parts and them kind of reconstituting this headset to go after that lower part of the market, what is it about Quest 3, Tyrell, that you think is enough of an advantage to cost $200 more?
[00:10:24.392] Tyriel Wood: the lenses. I feel like there's a big problem in getting into VR and I think it's the fact that many people just try it once, they say it's blurry and they stop using it because it just doesn't look as good as it should. with the pancake lenses that we have on the Quest 3, started to have a better option where people didn't need to actually move the IPD to get the lenses in the right spot. We didn't need to talk about sweet spots, to talk about god rays, to think about chromatic aberration, to think about all this stuff where I had to make videos about how to have good visuals on the Quest 2 without being blurry. With the Quest 3, we didn't need to do that. It's just so much easier to use and so much easier to introduce people to VR with something like that. How many times did you give a demo to somebody and it was like, I can't see anything? I'm pretty sure that's many times. And with the Quest 3, that doesn't happen. So I feel like for adoption, if you want to have more adoption, yes, the price is vital. And that's why we're seeing a Quest 3S that costs $299. But I feel like visually, being comfortable visually is even more important. And I wish they went for a cheaper version of the Quest 3, cutting on something else, but keeping those lenses, even with a lower resolution, but at least those lenses.
[00:11:49.990] Zimtok5: That's a really sound point, I would say. I suppose for me, having been that 16-year-old who's scraping together pennies, price is king, right? I mean, a $500 headset is unreachable to that kid. So it's kind of like, what can I scramble together with $250 or $300? And at the moment, Meta is really the only one with a useful combination that's leading that market. And I do see them kind of... We're going back to where we were with Quest 2, where... There's almost no other competitors that can beat at that price. It's very difficult given the software stack that they've developed for themselves with all the hand tracking and all of the other fidelity and even the processor that they've got in there to be able to punch as high as Quest 3 can support. So, like, I just view there's such a big price gap between $300 and $500 that to be able to say to somebody, hey, you can have two headsets for the price of one... Even with what you're saying, I would still be like... I would almost say, like, get over it. Not you, but the new user. I get the point about clarity, though, because you're right. People don't complain when you throw them into Quest 3. They just go, oh, wow. And mixed reality is gorgeous. So with mixed reality being, I think, such an important connector between Meta's AR and VR... kind of plow share, I think that the Connecting Fiber here is a low-priced headset that can do great mixed reality pass-through, which this seems to be able to do. Now, this is on the basis of me with 20 minutes in that headset, and I'm very aware that Terry across the table here is a through-the-lens expert. So you have a forensic level of detail that you apply to these situations and know that science better than I do. But I would say if I was to... What was the original question there, Ken? Oh,
[00:13:33.123] Kent Bye: So yeah, I was getting your hot takes of what you were saying in your video. And I want to just jump in and share one other thought that hasn't been articulated, which is that for people who don't have an IPD that matches exactly with what the quantized IPDs are with this lower cost version, my IPD doesn't match up exactly. So I get a little bit of a headache, or at least my eyes have to adjust. I see in cross vision. And at least for the Quest 3, where it has a variable IPD where I can get it just right into what my eyes are, for me, that's a huge difference. So for you, you may be right in the sweet spot for whatever those things are. And so for people who aren't, though, it's a pretty big degradation of the experience.
[00:14:10.211] Zimtok5: I remember, for example, when the Oculus Go, we ran a competition on the channel to give one away, right? Gave it to a guy, and he was like 72 on IPD. And he's like, I can't even use this. I had to give it away. So I hear you. I am unfortunately, or fortunately, perfect for VR. I'm like a 64, so I'm right in the middle. But in terms of my own video and the kind of message, it was, as my job is normally as a streamer, is just to share and communicate. What's it like on campus? you know, wandering around, what's the mood? And so I kind of gave quite a relaxed mood while at the same time sharing what I typically do, which is a critical opinion on what's Quest 3? What can it do? What does it look like? I mean, to me, like what Tyrael's saying, it's a bundle of kind of reused parts. You like looked at your machine shop and you put a few of them together and said, oh yeah, price is right, ship it. But I do find it to be a really exciting time for Beta because I do feel like they seem to be punching firmly on all fronts that matter to them right now. So I feel very good about this keynote, whereas normally there's a sour spot or there's a piece where you're like feeling not enough energy from Meta and then you have to wait a whole nother year typically before you hear anything kind of more. Or to your point, Ken, earlier, it's like sometimes they make a promise that's wild and it's like you go a year and a half without seeing any proof that it's actually going to happen or maybe it won't happen. And so we'll see where this goes. But it felt good today.
[00:15:32.682] Kent Bye: I know you're going to go have a discussion with the exec here, with all the creators that's a part of this trip. I've got two quick questions to see if we can get through before you have to go. First question is, I know that in the demos, they were showing a lot of mixed reality type of stuff. It really felt like with Apple Vision Pro, it was really changing the tone and tenor and what they were trying to highlight in the demos they were showing. But there's also a lot of content that I know as content creators, you're pretty much interested in the content that's coming down the pike. So I'd love to hear what you're excited about in terms of what's next with either the hardware or content ecosystem. And then we'll wrap up.
[00:16:06.479] Zimtok5: MARK MANDELBACHER- From my side, I am infatuated with MR. In fact, earlier this year, I redesigned my studio to make it good for MR. And I have been loving it every time a new MR app drops. And I've got the space for it now that I'm no longer in a small Scottish house. I'm over in Canada and got a big studio for myself. So for me, it's all the MR stuff. There isn't a specific title. But things like Starship Home and there's one where there's steampunk characters coming out of the wall. I forget the name of that one. But those games, it feels like room scale again. It's the promise of using your physical space. I really love the ease of comfort of booting up a game and being in my environment. Even if it's tidy or untidy, I don't have to be in a fantastical world. As much as I love to be immersed, I actually like better feeling like I know what's going on, I feel grounded in existence, and that just keeps getting better. So it feels like we're heading towards a dream state where you can't decipher the difference between what's real and what's virtual. And then you can just make anything happen. And it's like dreams come true. So for me right now, in terms of what demos are on, I mean, I played a little bit of Arkham, but generally I try to abstain and hold myself from playing games so I can play them live because people deserve the live reaction from me. And so I'm holding off, but MR is where it's at for me.
[00:17:19.622] Tyriel Wood: Are we talking about meta things right now?
[00:17:22.103] Kent Bye: Or just anything in the industry, yeah.
[00:17:23.624] Tyriel Wood: Okay. It's a tough question because about content, I usually use my stuff in a kind of a different way. Like I don't usually use many games, like standalone games and everything. I usually try them and then I get bored very fast. I tried Batman, for example, during the demo and that was very compelling. It was very fun. I feel like Camouflage, the studio behind it, is very good at making you feel like the hero. Little movements, little things like just moving your arm up to block things, it just worked. But yeah, I think we have to go. There's a lot happening this year about new hardware coming, more than ever. It's a very busy period, every company is coming up with something. We're seeing micro OLED displays, we're seeing new kind of lenses, bigger FOVs, stuff like that. We just need the price to be lower and I feel like we're gonna start to get in a very good age of VR for what it can offer because like we're back to square one when people were like just wowed by putting a headset on and it's some years that we're missing that part.
[00:18:36.041] Zimtok5: I need to chime in there, because Tyrell said the word OLED. And many years ago, when he was playing camera for us on a podcast setup, he said OLED to me. He was talking about those, I think it was the Odyssey at the time. And I didn't listen so closely. So to anyone listening to this, I must say, go find an OLED screen, and you're in Valhalla. It's heaven. And I need an OLED screen now in every device. So Ty, thanks for the recommendation all those years ago. You're welcome.
[00:19:02.291] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, I know you're going to be rallied up to go do this conversation with the exec, but thanks again for taking the time to help break down some of your different thoughts and impressions on all the latest news. So thank you.
[00:19:11.455] Zimtok5: Any time. Thanks, Kevin. Absolutely. It was great. Thank you.
[00:19:14.244] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to the voices of VR podcast. And I would like to invite you to join me on my Patreon. I've been doing the voices of VR for over 10 years, and it's always been a little bit more of like a weird art project. I think of myself as like a knowledge artist. So I'm much more of an artist than a business person. But at the end of the day, I need to make this more of a sustainable venture. Just five or $10 a month would make a really big difference. I'm trying to reach $2,000 a month or $3,000 a month right now. I'm at $1,000 a month, which means that's my primary income. And I just need to get it to a sustainable level just to even continue this oral history art project that I've been doing for the last decade. And if you find value in it, then please do consider joining me on the Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
