It did not intend to imply you get a Rift if you want something cheaper, but a Samsung phone or a Nexus 6p.
Chaperone is important as a further colleague used all his 3x3m (of available 2x2m - and constantly ignoring the grid) when fighting and scream coz of those zombies ^^. But I’m not talking about the camera (even if I remember I read already something that is was used addionally for chaperone) but light-house and the room-scaled tracking for the HMD and the controllers. You would need further stuff for the Rift while it works already pretty much perfect with the Vive like it should be. So I’m not sure what I would miss if I get the Vive instead of the Rift but I know I would miss the controllers (for now) and my quality room-scale VR with the Rift. The Vive was made for that purpose the Rift was created to sit down. For me it seems Occulus is currently a bit too busy with closing it’s store and world and what not here and there. Good for them, for sure. But that is nothing which causes my love from the sight of a developer.
I agree on the Vive being better if you want it all and got room for proper room scale. I got access to both and what I miss on the Vive is the comfort, polish and simplicity of the Rift. It may make the Rift the over all better package when Touch is released.
But for now a developer should definitely get a Vive, unless you got a specific reason to choose the Rift.
(The Rift was not made for sitting down, that changed a long time ago. Even some Oculus made experiences explicitly instructs you to stand up.)
Comparing just the headset, with nothing else, the Oculus Rift is 10x more comfortable. And the headphones are amazing on the Rift, you completely forget they are there and they sound great (and less weigh/cords if you use your own headphones with the Vive). The Rift feels like it’s half or third of the weight. The screen looks better and is sharper, and it’s easier to get the Rift into the sweet spot and keep it there.
If you aren’t in any rush and can wait until Touch, I’d consider the Rift route. The 360 controller does feel lacking with the Rift, definitely makes me want to have a racing wheel or flight stick. Also if you want to use one for development, you’ll probably pick what one you want to develop for first, if you want to develop for both, you could get by just picking one for now and getting the other later since they are similar, and pick the Vive if you want to make a room experience, or the Rift if it’s standing or sitting.
Route? There is no technical limit but only a commercial. The point that there is a Rift route and a Else route is caused by Occulus that broke their “we don’t care” statement already. It feels like Occulus takes the evil path that MS went for years until MS bad wolf eat tons of chalk and get cool the last few years. Why did they do that finally? To be honest …I don’t trust MS 100% and wait for the day they get sick of eating all that chalk and show their true face but until then I would join them. Yep… yep… But I’m not going to join Occulus for now. I had no “comfortable” issues with the Vive so far. Occulus did not make a step into my direction. And I’m not going to move my chair to roll into their direction.
Picking up a headset isn’t choosing an alliance, it’s a piece of hardware. This mentality of Rift vs Vive is the same type of toxic battle around Xbox vs PS4. I get if you don’t want to support Facebook or uncompetitive behavior, I get that. But honestly as a developer, you shouldn’t get too caught up in consumer wars. You should be trying to cast a wide net and not hitch yourself to one boat. Consumers are going to choose which company stays afloat. There’s some lessons that Vive could learn from the Rift, and having 2 options is always going to be best for the consumers and developers.