Emzorino Pico is not just some random small chinese brand. It's a subsidiary of ByteDance, known for their social network TikTok. They should have more than enough ressources to expand VR and get developers into the Pico-ecosystem. There are already many high caliber games available in the Pico Store with more to follow (from what I've heard). After the pricing for Meta Quest Pro was announced, Pico tweeted: 'Due to unprecedented global demand, there will unfortunately be delays in fulfilling some customer pre-orders in the EU region' Twitter. Quest 2 is also currently not being sold in China. Thats a big market for Pico and VR game developers to grab a share of.
I have currently preordered a Pico 4 although I own a Quest 2 (and Quest 1) already. Don't get me wrong. Quest 2 is a great device, but I have a few issues with it:
- Quest 2's FOV of around 90 degrees sucks big time. You'll feel like wearing diving goggles all the time. The small FOV is also a big disadvantage in fast multiplayer games. Pico 4 has a significantly higher FOV of 105 degrees.
- Quest 2 uses fresnel lenses. They have a lot of visual imperfections like godrays, reflections and are very blurry at the edges. Pico 4 uses pancake lenses, which are a big improvement over the fresnel lenses.
- Having only three options for IPD adjustment is not enough. I can't get the Quest 2 to the right IDP for my eyes and that increases my motion sickness.
- I really hate the front-heavy weight distribution with all the weight resting on my forehead. I can't play longer than 30 minutes until my neck starts to hurt real bad.
That's why I'm giving the new Pico 4 a try. I have a Pico account ready and so far most of my games and apps are already available on the Pico Store.
The only apps currently missing from my old Quest 2 library are cough Skybox VR, Saints & Sinners (coming soon), The Climb and Golf+. Since Virtual Desktop is already available for Pico 4, I can at least play some SteamVR games on the new headset. 😃
Personally I don't believe in Metas vision for the 'Metaverse'. Everything Zuckerberg has shown so far was a total letdown. All they did was to burn through billions of dollars without having anything to show off. Even if the 'Metaverse' will happen in a few years I'm very sure you won't be able to run the final Metaverse on a Quest 2 oder Quest 3. So why would you care about the 'Metaverse' at this point in time?
