Meta Quest Pro has much of what the Apple device offers while providing controllers for a significantly better gaming experience for $2500 cheaper. Considering the strongest consistent use case of VR thus far has been gaming, Apple has a huge miss IMO.
Apple will never own the type of old-school, enthusiast gaming that VR gaming has roots in (of course they do quite well in mobile gamin, but that’s something you do with a device you already own; you don’t buy a device for it). If the former type of gaming is the only application, they didn’t really have a shot to miss with. So, they are adding a bunch of extra functionality that isn’t directly related to gaming. Of course their device will not provide the best bang-for-the-buck in gaming.
If you are going to claim that Apple’s VR system needs to use meta’s style if controller in order to be successful at gaming, I think that’s short sighted.
It's standard for gaming with a regular screen. Not having VR controllers is a huge detriment for VR gaming. Yes there are some games which can work just using hands, but most existing VR titles will not work, and any titles developed for it will lack input complexity of ones which do support it.
Will they? It seems like tracking hands and objects directly provides much more information than gripping the two sides of a broken in-half Xbox controller.
Controllers also provide haptics (beat saber makes it feel like you're slicing a block with a light saber), a thumb stick, trigger and two buttons. we've got 40+ years experience with gaming with joysticks and buttons, this is hard to undo.
Can you list some of these far cheaper products that have the same feature set?