The hardware companies investing in VR understand that this is the beginning of a new market, and success will take a long time (e.g., see Zuckerberg's statements during investor calls). They also recognize that initial efforts like today's headsets are required V1's to begin the technical evolution that will result in a mass-market product.
To look at today's initial products and call the industry dead, or disappointing, is like looking at an MVP app release and deciding that an entire market does not exist because the initial solution is not perfect.
This type of contrarianism is seductive, and often results in many clicks for the media and the reinforcement of curmudgeonly opinions by those with unrealistic expectations for short-term change (and often who underestimate long-term impacts).
But it's important to evaluate today's VR with the same eyes as when looking at an MVP: does it meet its goals? Does it provide value? Does it show potential if developed further? Is there a product-market fit?
The answer to all of the above is a resounding "yes." Try it if you haven't. VR and AR have the potential to be truly revolutionary technologies. Yes, there is some distance to the goal, but it's eminently achievable - if the tech is not killed off by mis-set expectations, tribalism, paranoia, pessimism, and negativity.
The problem with this rebuttal is there's no argument you can't apply it to. Try making it falsifiable. The first Rift Dev Kits landed in 2013. At what point can we look at uptake of these products and conclude that they're not catching on? I have no trouble with the argument that 2017 is too early. But what year won't be too early? 2020?
As for investors, it's important to remember that when you're swinging at a pitch, it's no more productive to swing too early than to swing too late. They're both strikes.
>To look at today's initial products and call the industry dead, or disappointing, is like looking at an MVP app release and deciding that an entire market does not exist because the initial solution is not perfect.
Maybe, but most MVPs also don't go anywhere, and lots of markets are fads and die. The question is why this is different for VR?
(And I've lived the previous VR fad, when it was going to revolutionize stuff back in early/mid 90s. What we have left from that era is the Lawnmower Man).
I've said all along that vr is closer to soundcards and 3D video cards than a new gaming platform. They're going to be toys for the rich and hobbyists until pcs just start being shipped with vr headsets out of the box.
no matter how well you improve the headset, it will still be a headset.
it is not like a futuristic product that for now is too big or battery doesn't last, etc. it is by definition something nobody wants because it is exclusive, in the sense that only one person at a time can experience it and be completely cut off from the surroundings. and there is no way to solve that even in infinite interactions.
it migth work for teenager gamers and porn. who knows. but definitely will never see a huge adoption because it is inherently anti-social.
I was at Facebook's F8 conference this year and to say they are pushing hard on VR is an understatement. Personally, I find VR and its potential applications very intriguing and I welcome this, but it all still feels.. I don't know.. very much top down and too early. I'm not sure if it's consumers driving demand for this, or the industry desperately looking for the 'next' platform 10 years on from the iPhone.
In contrast, it feels like the whole mobile app paradigm was a more emergent trend that rose from the hardware getting better and it being an 'obvious' thing to do with software on that hardware. Like, smartphones weren't designed specifically with apps in mind, but they emerged as a phenomenon naturally, in response to demand. But maybe that's just hindsight talking, maybe it too was ultimately pushed from the top down by companies building apps and promoting them. Hard to say I guess.
If any company can push VR into the mainstream, or at least accelerate the process, Facebook has to be one of the best positioned, and I hope it works. I just wonder if the hardware doesn't need to get dramatically (5 years) better before it becomes obvious that ordinary people will want to incorporate it into their daiy routine (and then, possibly more in AR form than VR form) - indeed, to be fair, at F8 a very similar message was delivered in some talks.
The chicken-and-egg problem with VR is numbers and quality content. So far the sales numbers of VR headsets to consumers did not convince major developers to make a major push. As a result, 95% of Steam VR titles are versions "My First Unity VR Project".
I've been saying for some time that VR is the next 3D TV. I've tried VR systems from Jaron Lanier's original rig with two SGI workstations in the 1980s to the HTC Vibe. Technically, there's been plenty of progress. The lag problem has been fixed. The resolution is better. The headgear is still clunky.
There's still no killer app. You can play FPS games. Works fine, for people who like shooters. You can run roller coaster sims. Works fine, gets boring fast. You can visit Second Life. Kind of cool, if you like SL. You can visit High Fidelity, which is a higher-res Second Life where nothing is going on. Boring. (Worse, the High Fidelity CEO is now talking about "sovereign identity on the blockchain". If one branch of hype isn't working, pivot to another.)
VR conferencing? Working in High Fidelity and Second Life now. HF even has gaze tracking and facial gesture capture.
In the early days of VR, there was hope that VR would provide a more natural interface to CAD programs. Autodesk put effort into VR to try to make that work. Turned out that trying to do precision work in VR is not only difficult, but really tiring.
It's all been built, and nobody came. Best Buy is removing the Oculus Rift demo stations from stores due to lack of interest.
For now the apps that aim for a kill are games. I've tried many VR games and I've only really liked one, Elite: Dangerous. I don't know if it's the killer app VR needs, probably not, but it's impressive and I truly felt transported to another world and that the technology has value, flaws too but value. I've never watched a 3D movie that made me feel the same.
I think VR and AR will be very big in the future. I don't know how long it will take. The current generation might fail for some understanding of the word but I think they are on to something.
Are you considering AR as a separate concern, or do you consider that one doomed to mediocrity as well?
Personally I think that features like virtual workspaces (e.g. multi-monitor displays / overlays) and HUDs (e.g. vehicle navigation) are going to be game-changing outside of the entertainment industry, when the headset tech gets to where it needs to be; this will probably be better implemented as an AR overlay (a la Hololens) than full VR.
I like the comparison with 3D movies. Since (almost) the inception of moving pictures, there has been ways to do 3D movies. And every 20-30 years there has been a push toward 3D movies. It never really caught on.
Perspective[0] is a fabulous capacity (and Renaissance "invention" for artworks). Our eyes need 3D, but our brain is just fine with a bit of fake perspective.
PS: slightly tangential but, the only personal interest I have for VR is watching movies alone as if I were in an empty theater. I find it very cool.
I think it's better to compare VR to Ham Radio in that there's a hobbyist or niche interest but not enough to spawn a mainstream adoption of the technology. Even AR I think has a similar problem since it's all about making a market where no real demand exists. VR is cool in my opinion but it really isn't something I can see even my nieces and nephew using beyond once or twice in their lives. The games they play tend to be focused on the relaxation they bring with the ability to just lounge in the living room which VR breaks from that format of leisure. VR seems to take effort to consume and if you don't find that kind of effort relaxing then you're not likely to do it for a pass time or hobby. Frankly, I think too many in Silicon Valley assume their interests mirror the interests of non-Valley and non-technically-minded people.
All those uses you mention don't make exclusive use of VR features. Try some game like Climbey. It is the killer app for me and the only reason I reboot to windows almost every day, to play with a friend or alone.
I still remember when the original Nintendo came out in 1988. It was $149 for the system, the light gun + Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. ($320 in today's dollars).
I don't think the NES would have succeeded as much as it did were it not for the Mario Brothers + Duck Hunt bundle. The light gun turned out to be a gimmick, but at the time it felt like such a huge technological leap over Atari, and Duck Hunt was the way to show it off.
VR needs a Duck Hunt + Mario Brothers.
I think Nintendo gets this. Wii had Wii Sports, the Nintendo Switch has Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
They're more than just games, they're brands that through their ubiquity generate cultural capital for the platform.
Maybe vr will turn out to be more like analog flight sticks than the NES.
Today, a vr rig, hotas controller setup and elite:dangerous already is a killer combination for vr. Put the price is steep and the appeal is much more narrow than Mario Bros.
[ed: personally I think vr will be more of a paradigm shift, than a game gimmick though. I think creative tools like tilt brush will combine with multi-user world's a la second life or croquet/open cobalt. And I think it'll grow a bit "top down" first: with early adopters and creators / developers.
But one thing that has to go are the wires - probably first by higher performance/watt and a move to "backpack pcs" to run the software.
Before that, Sony has the right idea: lower ambitions and let players sit in a sofa. Works fine for driving/simulators etc. ]
> I still remember when the original Nintendo came out in 1988. It was $149 for the system, the light gun + Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt.
The system came out in the US in 1985; the Action Set bundle you described came out in 1988. The Japanese release of the system was in 1983. It was a huge leap in technology, as you would expect with 6 years between the release of the 2600 and the Famicom; the NES graphics chip is much more capable, and the system has much more ram and address space, but the cpu is only clocked 50% higher (and is essentially the same, but with a larger address bus, and interrupts in the NES), the sound chip is better too. None of this detracts from your main point -- packing in the right software sells the hardware.
It's always fun to watch media before a thing explodes in popularity and becomes part of everyday life; during that period when the thing still sucks, but a lot of smart people are working on it because they see some incredible potential. I'm not sure that VR will be one of those things, but I'm pretty confident of it. I recently got a VR headset, one of the cheapo kind that you stick your phone in, just to try it out. It's pretty much amazing.
I mean, it's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing.
That tells me something really big is going to happen; the Internet started out the same way. It was stupid. You could watch a video, if it was 1/10th the screen size, buffered for several minutes, and you didn't need it to look very good. Regular old television was a million times better. I feel like we're at that same point right now with VR. It all sucks right now (probably because I have a cheapo VR headset that uses my phone and my phone isn't well-supported by the VR players, but it was cheap), but we're only a year or so into the "anyone can afford it" phase.
Think how many years it took for the tech to use the full potential of the Internet took to make it into the majority of homes. I think we're still way too early to tell how VR is gonna play out, but when I use it, I feel a bit of that old "OMG, this is gonna be huge in ways I can't predict" feeling the Internet gave me the first time I logged on.
I mean, it's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing.
Keep in mind that these are all 1st generation products. When an immersive VR system comes with a wireless headset, costs less than $500 and doesn't require 30 square feet of space, then it will begin to take off.
Remember the first iPod? We are going to be in this early adopter phase until the technology matures.
VR is not 3D TV. People who use immersive VR actually like it. 3D TV was annoying to most people after the novelty wore off.
I tried a VR demo a few months ago. It was fantastic!
This stuff has come a long way. It tracks every slightest movement of your head and controllers. The graphics and sound will immerse you in a world you will believe is real.
Very nice gaming is possible, as well as recreation. People could visit fantastic virtual worlds just to be somewhere else and feel good; a kind of therapy, if you will.
I don't understand what these insipid nay-saying wankers are blabbing about.
I don't know. I tried the PSVR, found it very cool (significantly better and more immersible than I thought), yet I wouldn't buy one. A good demo doesn't make for a good product.
Mr Williams, a 32-year-old former marine, was playing “Sprint Vector”, a VR running game: players swing hand-held controllers to simulate motion. Though he has been standing in one place, his brain believes he has just run for several miles.
I wonder if anyone has tried using this tech to somehow trick the body into activating what happens when one actually goes running? Can I get a workout by just watching myself run in this VR world???
There are some weird results in exercise science related to this. For example, if you perform exercises only on one side, unilateral strength on the other side improves (something that seems like a pointless novelty until you consider training while injured). There's a huge amount of strength that relates to 'neural' factors.
Conversely, apparently elevated heart rate due to gaming does not improve aerobic fitness.
So I'm thinking that, broadly, there will be no such thing as a free lunch here (as per usual).
I'm on the "will flop like 3D TV" bandwagon, but for another reason than just the lack of killer app and high price. I think a lot of faithful are just trying to wish away a significant barrier to entry: motion sickness.
I know lowering the lag reduces this issue, but it does not completely solve it.
I have a friend who has an interest in VR so he tried the various models being demoed in shopping malls when he could find them in the US and the EU. Always the same problem: motion sickness. So he would ask the people managing the demo kits and would usually get the same answer, a bit more than 50% of the people who try have that same problem. Then a few months ago I came across an article that was essentially raising the same point (can't source it, sorry. The number they gave was closer to 40%).
So basically it seems about half of the target audience asked to shell out a small fortune will have "puking on the carpet" as their most memorable VR moment... Not really a recipe for success.
I'm guessing your friend tried the PSVR or Oculus Rift with heavy use of a controller while seated.
Having tracked hands, moving around (instead of turning with a controller) and using teleport (or just room scale 1:1 movement) reduces the percent of dizzy people to zero. If you use slow artificial locomotion with comfort features (e.g. FoV reduction), that number is about 5%.
That's not a separate point from "lack of a killer app" -- most motion sickness is a result of bad content, that violates rules of good perceptual design.
VR might take a while to become a viable mainstream entertainment medium but there are sizeable niches that can sustain businesses as development catches up with the hype. Location-based entertainment, hardcore home VR games and enterprise products all seem to be reasonably solid markets, even if they don't scale up to the dizzying heights some expect them to reach.
We have a design meeting and visualisation tool for engineers and desginers to discuss projects with their management, clients and other domain experts. This has significant benefit for our customers and it will not go away anytime soon.
Perhaps the hype cycle will cause the current HMD manufacturers to exit the market and VR will retreat to these niches but it's definitely not going away.
VR needs good software and the reality is that it is just not there yet. If it does not come by the end of this year there will be a problem.
I think it will happen though for the one reason that Bethesda is delivering Doom, Fallout 4 and Skyrim for Sony PS4 VR for this Christmas. That will give Sony a big reason to keep yelling about PS4 VR and will restore the faith of people like me who bought a VR headset early that is now just sitting there waiting for good software to use it with.
The next challenge facing vR beyond that point is whether the three titles mentioned above deliver on the promise of VR - if they do not then VR is finished, at least for this round of enthusiasm about the idea.
Doom, Fallout and Skyrim seem like precisely the wrong games to target for VR, unless they remake them completely to use instant teleportation instead of walking.
FPS in VR only works from a static standing point, otherwise the VR sickness kicks in really fast.
I don't see this mentioned too often in the critique of vr, but I wonder if the isolation of putting on a headset is another barrier for adoption. While the isolation could be an advantage on something like an airplane or even an open office, I just don't feel like disconnecting that much from reality when in the comfort of my own home.
15 years ago, the foreseen path was adoption of 3D TV then replacement of TV by headsets. 3D TV does not exist anymore and people are watching movies on their phone.
IMHO, the future is the replacement of the screen of smartphones by glasses with AR. The phone will be in my pocket with my hand and the glasses will be near my eye, ear and mouth.
I wonder how far would screen/projection technology had to go. I'd love to have an AR headset that would allow me to summon a huge screen in front of me, however I want that screen to have the same DPI as my computer.
I read, when they were pushing 3D TV, that some 10-15% of the population don't have 3D perception for one reason or another, and therefore don't get the immersive experience. Personally, being in that category, I don't get much from these headsets beyond feeling that there is an image in front of my eye that moves with my head, which is more annoying than anything. The AR thing sounds potentially useful though.
[+] [-] agar|8 years ago|reply
To look at today's initial products and call the industry dead, or disappointing, is like looking at an MVP app release and deciding that an entire market does not exist because the initial solution is not perfect.
This type of contrarianism is seductive, and often results in many clicks for the media and the reinforcement of curmudgeonly opinions by those with unrealistic expectations for short-term change (and often who underestimate long-term impacts).
But it's important to evaluate today's VR with the same eyes as when looking at an MVP: does it meet its goals? Does it provide value? Does it show potential if developed further? Is there a product-market fit?
The answer to all of the above is a resounding "yes." Try it if you haven't. VR and AR have the potential to be truly revolutionary technologies. Yes, there is some distance to the goal, but it's eminently achievable - if the tech is not killed off by mis-set expectations, tribalism, paranoia, pessimism, and negativity.
[+] [-] tptacek|8 years ago|reply
As for investors, it's important to remember that when you're swinging at a pitch, it's no more productive to swing too early than to swing too late. They're both strikes.
[+] [-] coldtea|8 years ago|reply
Maybe, but most MVPs also don't go anywhere, and lots of markets are fads and die. The question is why this is different for VR?
(And I've lived the previous VR fad, when it was going to revolutionize stuff back in early/mid 90s. What we have left from that era is the Lawnmower Man).
[+] [-] empath75|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|8 years ago|reply
it is not like a futuristic product that for now is too big or battery doesn't last, etc. it is by definition something nobody wants because it is exclusive, in the sense that only one person at a time can experience it and be completely cut off from the surroundings. and there is no way to solve that even in infinite interactions.
it migth work for teenager gamers and porn. who knows. but definitely will never see a huge adoption because it is inherently anti-social.
[+] [-] davnicwil|8 years ago|reply
In contrast, it feels like the whole mobile app paradigm was a more emergent trend that rose from the hardware getting better and it being an 'obvious' thing to do with software on that hardware. Like, smartphones weren't designed specifically with apps in mind, but they emerged as a phenomenon naturally, in response to demand. But maybe that's just hindsight talking, maybe it too was ultimately pushed from the top down by companies building apps and promoting them. Hard to say I guess.
If any company can push VR into the mainstream, or at least accelerate the process, Facebook has to be one of the best positioned, and I hope it works. I just wonder if the hardware doesn't need to get dramatically (5 years) better before it becomes obvious that ordinary people will want to incorporate it into their daiy routine (and then, possibly more in AR form than VR form) - indeed, to be fair, at F8 a very similar message was delivered in some talks.
[+] [-] prostoalex|8 years ago|reply
You'd think that device manufacturers would then subsidize content development to differentiate, but that didn't seem to pan out either http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/oculus-story-studio-shu...
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] aracari|8 years ago|reply
Well they do own Oculus, so they have a vested interest in making sure VR succeeds, whether it is a demand or not.
[+] [-] pishpash|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
There's still no killer app. You can play FPS games. Works fine, for people who like shooters. You can run roller coaster sims. Works fine, gets boring fast. You can visit Second Life. Kind of cool, if you like SL. You can visit High Fidelity, which is a higher-res Second Life where nothing is going on. Boring. (Worse, the High Fidelity CEO is now talking about "sovereign identity on the blockchain". If one branch of hype isn't working, pivot to another.)
VR conferencing? Working in High Fidelity and Second Life now. HF even has gaze tracking and facial gesture capture.
In the early days of VR, there was hope that VR would provide a more natural interface to CAD programs. Autodesk put effort into VR to try to make that work. Turned out that trying to do precision work in VR is not only difficult, but really tiring.
It's all been built, and nobody came. Best Buy is removing the Oculus Rift demo stations from stores due to lack of interest.
[+] [-] lz400|8 years ago|reply
I think VR and AR will be very big in the future. I don't know how long it will take. The current generation might fail for some understanding of the word but I think they are on to something.
[+] [-] theptip|8 years ago|reply
Personally I think that features like virtual workspaces (e.g. multi-monitor displays / overlays) and HUDs (e.g. vehicle navigation) are going to be game-changing outside of the entertainment industry, when the headset tech gets to where it needs to be; this will probably be better implemented as an AR overlay (a la Hololens) than full VR.
[+] [-] jrimbault|8 years ago|reply
Perspective[0] is a fabulous capacity (and Renaissance "invention" for artworks). Our eyes need 3D, but our brain is just fine with a bit of fake perspective.
PS: slightly tangential but, the only personal interest I have for VR is watching movies alone as if I were in an empty theater. I find it very cool.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)
[+] [-] norea-armozel|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TwoBit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DiThi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JauntTrooper|8 years ago|reply
I don't think the NES would have succeeded as much as it did were it not for the Mario Brothers + Duck Hunt bundle. The light gun turned out to be a gimmick, but at the time it felt like such a huge technological leap over Atari, and Duck Hunt was the way to show it off.
VR needs a Duck Hunt + Mario Brothers.
I think Nintendo gets this. Wii had Wii Sports, the Nintendo Switch has Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
They're more than just games, they're brands that through their ubiquity generate cultural capital for the platform.
[+] [-] e12e|8 years ago|reply
Today, a vr rig, hotas controller setup and elite:dangerous already is a killer combination for vr. Put the price is steep and the appeal is much more narrow than Mario Bros.
[ed: personally I think vr will be more of a paradigm shift, than a game gimmick though. I think creative tools like tilt brush will combine with multi-user world's a la second life or croquet/open cobalt. And I think it'll grow a bit "top down" first: with early adopters and creators / developers.
But one thing that has to go are the wires - probably first by higher performance/watt and a move to "backpack pcs" to run the software.
Before that, Sony has the right idea: lower ambitions and let players sit in a sofa. Works fine for driving/simulators etc. ]
[+] [-] deweller|8 years ago|reply
I can only use a Vive if I have a high powered gaming computer in a place conducive to gaming.
[+] [-] zappo2938|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toast0|8 years ago|reply
The system came out in the US in 1985; the Action Set bundle you described came out in 1988. The Japanese release of the system was in 1983. It was a huge leap in technology, as you would expect with 6 years between the release of the 2600 and the Famicom; the NES graphics chip is much more capable, and the system has much more ram and address space, but the cpu is only clocked 50% higher (and is essentially the same, but with a larger address bus, and interrupts in the NES), the sound chip is better too. None of this detracts from your main point -- packing in the right software sells the hardware.
[+] [-] SwellJoe|8 years ago|reply
I mean, it's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing.
That tells me something really big is going to happen; the Internet started out the same way. It was stupid. You could watch a video, if it was 1/10th the screen size, buffered for several minutes, and you didn't need it to look very good. Regular old television was a million times better. I feel like we're at that same point right now with VR. It all sucks right now (probably because I have a cheapo VR headset that uses my phone and my phone isn't well-supported by the VR players, but it was cheap), but we're only a year or so into the "anyone can afford it" phase.
Think how many years it took for the tech to use the full potential of the Internet took to make it into the majority of homes. I think we're still way too early to tell how VR is gonna play out, but when I use it, I feel a bit of that old "OMG, this is gonna be huge in ways I can't predict" feeling the Internet gave me the first time I logged on.
[+] [-] Broken_Hippo|8 years ago|reply
This sums it up perfectly.
[+] [-] deweller|8 years ago|reply
Keep in mind that these are all 1st generation products. When an immersive VR system comes with a wireless headset, costs less than $500 and doesn't require 30 square feet of space, then it will begin to take off.
Remember the first iPod? We are going to be in this early adopter phase until the technology matures.
VR is not 3D TV. People who use immersive VR actually like it. 3D TV was annoying to most people after the novelty wore off.
[+] [-] tpeo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pishpash|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|8 years ago|reply
This stuff has come a long way. It tracks every slightest movement of your head and controllers. The graphics and sound will immerse you in a world you will believe is real.
Very nice gaming is possible, as well as recreation. People could visit fantastic virtual worlds just to be somewhere else and feel good; a kind of therapy, if you will.
I don't understand what these insipid nay-saying wankers are blabbing about.
[+] [-] icebraining|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tekism|8 years ago|reply
I wonder if anyone has tried using this tech to somehow trick the body into activating what happens when one actually goes running? Can I get a workout by just watching myself run in this VR world???
[+] [-] glangdale|8 years ago|reply
Conversely, apparently elevated heart rate due to gaming does not improve aerobic fitness.
So I'm thinking that, broadly, there will be no such thing as a free lunch here (as per usual).
[+] [-] recursive|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phinnaeus|8 years ago|reply
"The mind makes it real"
[+] [-] Hasknewbie|8 years ago|reply
I know lowering the lag reduces this issue, but it does not completely solve it.
I have a friend who has an interest in VR so he tried the various models being demoed in shopping malls when he could find them in the US and the EU. Always the same problem: motion sickness. So he would ask the people managing the demo kits and would usually get the same answer, a bit more than 50% of the people who try have that same problem. Then a few months ago I came across an article that was essentially raising the same point (can't source it, sorry. The number they gave was closer to 40%).
So basically it seems about half of the target audience asked to shell out a small fortune will have "puking on the carpet" as their most memorable VR moment... Not really a recipe for success.
[+] [-] DiThi|8 years ago|reply
Having tracked hands, moving around (instead of turning with a controller) and using teleport (or just room scale 1:1 movement) reduces the percent of dizzy people to zero. If you use slow artificial locomotion with comfort features (e.g. FoV reduction), that number is about 5%.
[+] [-] ryandamm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjvs|8 years ago|reply
We have a design meeting and visualisation tool for engineers and desginers to discuss projects with their management, clients and other domain experts. This has significant benefit for our customers and it will not go away anytime soon.
Perhaps the hype cycle will cause the current HMD manufacturers to exit the market and VR will retreat to these niches but it's definitely not going away.
[+] [-] hoodoof|8 years ago|reply
I think it will happen though for the one reason that Bethesda is delivering Doom, Fallout 4 and Skyrim for Sony PS4 VR for this Christmas. That will give Sony a big reason to keep yelling about PS4 VR and will restore the faith of people like me who bought a VR headset early that is now just sitting there waiting for good software to use it with.
The next challenge facing vR beyond that point is whether the three titles mentioned above deliver on the promise of VR - if they do not then VR is finished, at least for this round of enthusiasm about the idea.
[+] [-] TuringTest|8 years ago|reply
FPS in VR only works from a static standing point, otherwise the VR sickness kicks in really fast.
[+] [-] flavio81|8 years ago|reply
VR still doesn't have the three variables. But it's getting really close!
[+] [-] anton69|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reacweb|8 years ago|reply
IMHO, the future is the replacement of the screen of smartphones by glasses with AR. The phone will be in my pocket with my hand and the glasses will be near my eye, ear and mouth.
[+] [-] freekh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoz-y|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbmassey|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onetokeoverthe|8 years ago|reply
*Or anyone "authoritative".
[+] [-] cortexio|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]