Yeah, the evidence they cite for VR declining seems to be entirely within the space of 3DoF VR, like Google's Daydream and VR video:
> Many big name adopters have abandoned their VR projects. Google recently halted sales of Daydream, its VR headset, admitting that "there just hasn't been the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped".
> Meanwhile, the BBC has announced it is ending the funding for its VR hub, less than two years after it was founded.
6DoF VR with tracked controllers (Quest, Valve Index) is a whole different beast, and actually seems to be gaining momentum lately.
> Yeah, the evidence they cite for VR declining seems to be entirely within the space of 3DoF VR, like Google's Daydream and VR video:
If VR were such a hot market surely you would not see the Google Daydream news and Samsung killing off GearVR. You have to take in account all news, positive and negative, to get an actual view of how the market is doing. And also the investment. And investment in VR has been in the decline for a couple of years now after an initial peak.
Also, Valve will release Half-Life: Alyx [1] in March 2020. It's the first game in the much-loved HL series released since Portal 2 in 2011.
I don't own a VR headset and I don't intend to any time soon - it's too expensive and nothing looks enjoyable enough to justify the cost. But once enough big-name games like Alyx get released, gamers previously on the fence (like me) will start to purchase VR headsets, and VR will eventually become the new gaming platform that publishers wants to release on.
> and VR will eventually become the new gaming platform that publishers wants to release on.
I predict the opposite. It will sell a few headsets maybe (a peak), but that alone will not change the course of the technology at all in 2020. Plus, Half Life's popularity in 2020 has nothing to do with its popularity 20 years ago.
So they say, anyway. It's best to take any Valve announcements about actual games with a grain of salt.
Some YouTube streamers that I watch did a big run of VR games over the past year or so, and without exception they were gimmicky experiences that would have been better with a more conventional setup. Of course needing the equivalent of a GTX 1080 is a big barrier too.
My prediction is that when and if this new Half-Life game comes out, there won't be enough of a user-base actually using VR gear to sustain it; I hope that they have planned for that case and will release it as a normal PC shooter as well.
Yeah, I'm not even a gamer, but a relative got a Quest for Christmas, I tried it, and I was like "OK, this is pretty awesome." Without being too cliche it felt like the holodeck to me. Could easily imagine me playing games on it frequently, let alone a true gamer.
A first gen product has more than 10% of the sales of a eight gen product? That's absolutely amazing. I expected it to be a failure because it has limited performance.
Ajedi32|6 years ago
> Many big name adopters have abandoned their VR projects. Google recently halted sales of Daydream, its VR headset, admitting that "there just hasn't been the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped".
> Meanwhile, the BBC has announced it is ending the funding for its VR hub, less than two years after it was founded.
6DoF VR with tracked controllers (Quest, Valve Index) is a whole different beast, and actually seems to be gaining momentum lately.
ekianjo|6 years ago
If VR were such a hot market surely you would not see the Google Daydream news and Samsung killing off GearVR. You have to take in account all news, positive and negative, to get an actual view of how the market is doing. And also the investment. And investment in VR has been in the decline for a couple of years now after an initial peak.
degenerate|6 years ago
I don't own a VR headset and I don't intend to any time soon - it's too expensive and nothing looks enjoyable enough to justify the cost. But once enough big-name games like Alyx get released, gamers previously on the fence (like me) will start to purchase VR headsets, and VR will eventually become the new gaming platform that publishers wants to release on.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/546560/HalfLife_Alyx/
ekianjo|6 years ago
I predict the opposite. It will sell a few headsets maybe (a peak), but that alone will not change the course of the technology at all in 2020. Plus, Half Life's popularity in 2020 has nothing to do with its popularity 20 years ago.
baby|6 years ago
thrower123|6 years ago
Some YouTube streamers that I watch did a big run of VR games over the past year or so, and without exception they were gimmicky experiences that would have been better with a more conventional setup. Of course needing the equivalent of a GTX 1080 is a big barrier too.
My prediction is that when and if this new Half-Life game comes out, there won't be enough of a user-base actually using VR gear to sustain it; I hope that they have planned for that case and will release it as a normal PC shooter as well.
hn_throwaway_99|6 years ago
ekianjo|6 years ago
I hope it's a lot more than 400 000 units (see https://qz.com/1739575/strong-oculus-quest-sales-boost-faceb...) because that's not a large number at all compared to all other gadgets sold at the same time.
thatfrenchguy|6 years ago
imtringued|6 years ago
williamdclt|6 years ago