Personally, I would rather get wireless working if I had a Quest 3 for PC VR because it’s a nice trade off for the compression. I’ve seen quite a few comments complaining about the lack of display port on Quest 3 due to the compressed video but I don’t know if that’s a vocal minority or not.

I used to have a wireless Vive Pro and I do miss the wireless a bit.

I don’t think Valve will go as premium this time. I think they’ve learned their lesson. I think the reason the Index costs so much is simply the lighthouse tech. Look at how much the base stations cost and how much the vive tracking pucks cost. Based on leaks/speculation (so, grain of salt) their current prototypes are using camera based tracking - which in theory, tells me they’re price sensitive

Haha oops.I definitely meant to type “virtual desktop” and not “cordial desktop”.

/Facepalm

As far as I’m aware, your options for mid tier are Quest 3 or PSVR2 with the PC adaptor.

I haven’t used either.

Quest 3 - if you buy a wifi 6 router that’s dedicated to quest 3 streaming, you can supposedly do passable wireless using either the Steam app or Cordial Desktop on Quest. As the other commenter said, you might want to consider a third party headstrap.

PSVR2 - No wireless option but there’s a cable (display port or HDMI - I’m not sure which) you plugin to your PC so the picture won’t have artifacting etc. Unfortunately eye tracking isn’t supported on PC. Also you won’t get the passthrough stuff you were asking about.

Pico 4 - I dunno much about. It has a display port connector and can also do wireless but no idea what it’s like or if it’s still considered an option. Also, if you’re avoiding Meta, I’m not sure byte dance is any better. I don’t know what the future holds for their vr plans

Then I think we start going up in price.

There is supposed to be some Android VR headsets announced this year (like from Samsung) and there’s also the possibility of whatever Valve is doing with deckard at the end of the year (but that’s all rumour, leaks and speculation).

Personally, I’d really love to see what Valve are doing but maybe that’s just my copium

2 quite different puzzler games:

This one caught my eye because of the art (same artist as Braid) but the everything about this game is charming
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2596420/Arranger_A_RolePuzzling_Adventure/ Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure follows the story of Jemma, a small-town misfit on a journey of self-discovery. Venturing out beyond her stiflingly cozy confines, she finds an inspiring world - but also one ruled by fear, and a strange, immovable ‘static’ force. Can she disrupt a culture of stagnation, and find a place to fit into it?

This one I played because it’s by Game Maker’s Toolkit from YouTube so was keen to see what he’d built. Also enjoyed this one and it has a cute and polished presentation style.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2685900/Mind_Over_Magnet/ Mind Over Magnet: Escape a dangerous factory using the power of magnetism. You must team up with three different magnet friends and use their unique abilities to solve more than 60 tricky single-screen puzzles.

Battle group vr looks like that https://store.steampowered.com/app/1178780/BattleGroupVR/

As we continue to work toward regulatory approval of the Microsoft deal, we’ve been getting some questions whether our upcoming and recently launched games will be available via Game Pass," says the statement. “While we do not have plans to put Modern Warfare III or Diablo IV into Game Pass this year, once the deal closes, we expect to start working with Xbox to bring our titles to more players around the world. And we anticipate that we would begin adding games into Game Pass sometime in the course of next year.”

https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-shares-xbox-game-pass-plans-leaves-door-open-for-diablo-iv-on-game-pass-in-2024

Seems like they said it wouldn’t come to game pass in 2023. Are you referring to a different quote?

Plugging in to use a Windows Mixed Reality headset will not work starting with his[sic] build. Windows Mixed Reality is no longer available to users as Windows Mixed Reality has been announced as deprecated. This includes the Mixed Reality Portal app, and Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR and Steam VR Beta. Existing Windows Mixed Reality devices will continue to work with Steam through November 2026, if users remain on their current released version of Windows 11 (version 23H2) and do not upgrade to this year’s annual feature update for Windows 11 (version 24H2). This deprecation does not impact HoloLens.

No separate driver download at all. It sounds like it will stop working in 2026, even if you don’t update.