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[Freshmaker]

I disagree. VR's a marketing nightmare. It's not like the Wii, or even the original iPhone where you see it and you immediately understand how intuitive it is. I see VR going the same way as the smart watch. Cool ideas for a new product category in an attempt to capture the lightning in a bottle success with smart phones but isn't nowhere near successful as people thought but will still have its uses, and its audience.

The difference here is the smart watch didn't offer any notable functionality over the smart phone it was trying to compliment and it did everything worse than the smart phone.

VR is at the very least an additive experience rather than a complimentary one.

 

[Biske]

I think anyone expecting VR to explode is in for some disappointment.

If it succeeds it's gonna be a long slow iterative process. Best not to pin your hopes on anyone VR system.

 

[Croatoan]

you sound angry

Huh? Not sure where you are picking that up from.

I think anyone expecting VR to explode is in for some disappointment.

If it succeeds it's gonna be a long slow iterative process. Best not to pin your hopes on anyone VR system.

This x100000

 

[fritolay]

Hope MS takes their lesson out of this for Scorpio VR.

They were very smart to partner with others and wait.

 

[Duckhuntdog]

As long as a headset is required it is going to be a damn hard-sell to a mainstream audience. People bristle at having to put on 3D glasses, they sure as heck aren't wont to strap on a HMD. To me the most practical litmus test of a product catching fire with the mainstream is if my mother can easily understand and comfortably use the software, hardware, device, gimmick, and or interface.

 

[wanderingprostheyltite]

Why are we trying to pretend these things never existed before?

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/11/virtual-reality-headset-review/

http://www.macworld.com/article/1059976/iwear.html

The device utilizes two LCD displays that show a native 640 x 480 pixel image in each of your eyes. With a 32-degree field of view, the VR920 offers a “virtual screen” equivalent to a 62-inch display viewed from 9 feet away, according to Vuzix.

Seems like a fairly liberal definition of VR applied to that

I think it's less pretending and more only enthusiasts knew those things existed, like I barely recall hearing people on mtbs3d discuss having those. For all intents and purposes this IS the first proper consumer hmd gen. Anything else is splitting hairs.

 

[old manatee]

I'm waiting on more games.

 

[Skenzin]

As an Oculus owner, people that frown upon VR have no idea what they are missing. I've grown up with the concept of VR and I still wasn't prepared for just how cool and strange it is. The closest experience I can relate it to, for myself, its like owning an amusement park with better immersion. It delivers a simulated but very real feeling experience. I can't see how this will be just a fad similar to wii sports. Its completely different experience from playing 2d games on a tv/monitor. It gets cheaper then FOV and clarity increases. It will be the rage, no doubt. There's a reason that two big console makers are putting out these higher powered speed bump consoles very quickly. Getting in on the ground floor for an eventual shift. THis feels very much like a radio to tv type of shift. Radio people that saw TV would be amazed they can actually see the people they previously heard talking. VR puts you where the people are talking. Even knowing this beforehand doesn't really prepare you for how odd and awesome it is. Forget the whole presence debate. It's for dump people. I feel immersion in everything I play on differing levels.

Anyway when i hear people say VR is just fad it reminds me of standing in Circuit City in 2004 hearing some dude tell a customer LCD televisions are never going to take off because their too expensive and they'll probably stop selling them soon. Eventually everyone gets tired of progressing technology and many jump off the train. I know a ton of people that stopped gaming at 8bit consoles, 16bit, 32bit, "online gaming will never be a thing", "too many buttons on the controllers". "3d cameras are awful, hand drawn!" BAH. Ludites! I'm riding this train to the end of the line!

 

[Marty Chinn]

http://www.macworld.com/article/1059976/iwear.html



Seems like a fairly liberal definition of VR applied to that

I think it's less pretending and more only enthusiasts knew those things existed, like I barely recall hearing people on mtbs3d discuss having those. For all intents and purposes this IS the first proper consumer hmd gen. Anything else is splitting hairs.

I've tried one before and at the time it was pretty good with the head tracking used in Microsoft Flight Simulator. It was one of many headsets released over a long period of time. Each iteration getting better and better just like the current forms are even better. Guess what? We'll have headsets that make the Vive feel archaic, rudimentary and barely qualifying as VR compared to future breakthroughs. The point is what we have now is not first generation. We've had consumer headsets before. These are just much improved and better than what has come before.

 

[Drazgul]

Why would I buy an HMD when I could use that same money to buy a new monitor or GPU instead? ALL games will benefit from those, rather than just a tiny subset of them.

 

[casiopao]

Guess, Nintendo is correct? For saying that it is still too early for VR?O_O

 

[ItsTheNew]

As someone who was a super big VR Skeptic (hater?), I had the opportunity to try out VR for the first time this weekend at PAX in the following order:

Oculus - Gun Jack
Vive - Nvidia VR Funhouse
Sony VR - Resident Evil 7 and Farpoint

I was like most people: Vr is too expensive, the games aren't there, and it will never replace tv. Using the Oculus and Vive (with touch controllers) were proving my point, the technology is being let down by shitty games. I'm willing to say ALL VR games right now are shitty and gimmicky.

But... I tried RE7 and Far Point and holy shit VR can elevate some games and make you feel much more immersed. Yes, Far Point on a regular tv wouldn't be anything write home about, however the sound design, the ability to aim with the gun controller and the ability to move using a thumbstick made me super excited for GOOD VR GAMES TO COME OUT. Seriously, when real games come out that aren't cock pit and warping from point to point bullshit, I think most people are going to come around and be excited. Take it from me, a former super skeptic turned believer.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Why would I buy an HMD when I could use that same money to buy a new monitor or GPU instead? ALL games will benefit from those, rather than just a tiny subset of them.

One makes the games you already play or will play look marginally better (Your mileage varying depending on what you already have). The other lets you play games that you otherwise wouldn't be able to play at all. Not rocket science.

 

[Muzicfreq]

Dunno if anyone posted this already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0JTkBZdyw

 

[Chakan]

Pre-order is a success, of course it is. People that got the cash and motivation will buy the VR things straight away.

All VR is gonna fail on the long run due to price. Even the PS VR option is quite expensive for the regular customer.

Not to mention the games. I've played some on oculus and PS VR and none of them had me saying something like "wow this is def. a title that'd make me buy this". They all look like very simple...even the good ones like Wayward Sky or RIGS.

 

[Biske]

Dunno if anyone posted this already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0JTkBZdyw

"Too much money for how slight they are"

That sums it all up nicely. Got a long long way to go.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Guess, Nintendo is correct? For saying that it is still too early for VR?O_O

A year ago, half of GAF thought Nintendo was absolutely insane for thinking this way.

 

[Blam]

Not surprised, there's a drought of quality games that can appeal to the mainstream market.

You mean just games in general. Everything is a bunch of experiences which are from what I've played just vertical slices.

PSVR has a couple of major advantages cp. to PC sets:
- A mass market compatble price
- Plug & Play
- No high-end rig required
- Killer-apps

So, it's not only a price issue.

PSVR will be fine for now, on the long run? That remains to be seen.

Eh I dunno about the apps. I also don't know about the mass market compatible price, are more mass market price would be 200/299.

 

[Biske]

The more I watch that Giant Bomb video... wow just brutal as hell. No way I'm being an early adopter for any of this stuff. Call me back in a couple years at least.

 

[Zalusithix]

I've tried one before and at the time it was pretty good with the head tracking used in Microsoft Flight Simulator. It was one of many headsets released over a long period of time. Each iteration getting better and better just like the current forms are even better. Guess what? We'll have headsets that make the Vive feel archaic, rudimentary and barely qualifying as VR compared to future breakthroughs. The point is what we have now is not first generation. We've had consumer headsets before. These are just much improved and better than what has come before.

VR is more than a headset. You need to factor in the input mechanism for one thing. VR needs accurate, low latency 6DoF controllers or hand tracking to truly show its potential - something no previous consumer attempt has done adequately. You also need the computational power to make worthwhile experiences possible at the rendering speeds VR requires for not making people sick. The tech on the previous attempts just wasn't there. They were all critically deficient in certain aspects.

It's only now that we're getting options that, while still flawed, can at least show an accurate preview of what to expect in the future. The FoV will get larger, the sets will get smaller, the cables will go away, resolution higher, eye tracking will be implemented, more points of the body will be tracked, and so forth... The experience itself though won't be radically different. That's why most of us are setting this as a baseline gen one for consumer VR. It's the first time all the comprising pieces are "good enough" to have a complete functional experience.

 

[LOLCats]

Im excited for VR but not at 600-800$ per headset.

Ill buy one at 200$

 

[Corine]

People want AAA titles that are open world shooters/rpgs. Those won't exist until Fallout 4 and likely won't be the norm for a decade.

Most people who try my vive get bored quickly of wave games. The locomotion problem has to be solved and teleportation has to die.

It doesn't help that Valve won't support its own hardware with an AAA title...

I didn't list any wave games. Sounds like you're not using your Vive to play all the full fledged games that are available to play with it.

 

[Fredrik]

Pre-order is a success, of course it is. People that got the cash and motivation will buy the VR things straight away.

All VR is gonna fail on the long run due to price. Even the PS VR option is quite expensive for the regular customer.

Not to mention the games. I've played some on oculus and PS VR and none of them had me saying something like "wow this is def. a title that'd make me buy this". They all look like very simple...even the good ones like Wayward Sky or RIGS.

It's all about being an accessory and a secondary platform, you can't sell a $500+ accessory to the mainstream and think it'll sell like PS4 and I guess proof is still in the pudding but I doubt that anyone can have VR as a secondary platform and keep on delivering software fast and important enough to make a VR device into a great platform on it's own. PSVR will probably get the Vita treatment from Sony within 1 or 2 years since they still have PS4/Neo to think about, in the end PSVR will likely get the shorter stick when it comes to pushing out great games. I don't even think PSVR would succeed if it was included in every PS5 box unless there were no regular controllers and it was impossible to play regular games on PS5.

 

[DarkLordMalik]

High entry price for a VR + cost of the PC involved already make it much more expensive than PSVR.

I don't think that PSVR will be a breakout success but it will definitely do good numbers if it can tap into the casual market.

 

[Marty Chinn]

VR is more than a headset. You need to factor in the input mechanism for one thing. VR needs accurate, low latency 6DoF controllers or hand tracking to truly show its potential - something no previous consumer attempt has done adequately. You also need the computational power to make worthwhile experiences possible at the rendering speeds VR requires for not making people sick. The tech on the previous attempts just wasn't there. They were all critically deficient in certain aspects.

It's only now that we're getting options that, while still flawed, can at least show an accurate preview of what to expect in the future. The FoV will get larger, the sets will get smaller, the cables will go away, resolution higher, eye tracking will be implemented, more points of the body will be tracked, and so forth... The experience itself though won't be radically different. That's why most of us are setting this as a baseline gen one for consumer VR. It's the first time all the comprising pieces are "good enough" to have a complete functional experience.

This feels like trying to move the goal posts and redfine so it fits what we have now while dismissing what came before. I'd say input methods are still rudimentary and best and have a long way to go, not to mention other things like eye tracking and other technology that hasn't been implemented yet. With the way you arbitrarily define what qualifies as VR, you could easily dismiss what we have now since we don't have all the other components that will make it even more compelling. What we have now is simply an interation in the the development of VR and they're just as much VR as the previous headsets that came before it; it's just better now.

 

[Forever Changes]

Dunno if anyone posted this already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0JTkBZdyw

Yup.

My friend is getting on this xmas and I just can't understand why.

 

[wanderingprostheyltite]

This feels like trying to move the goal posts and redfine so it fits what we have now while dismissing what came before. I'd say input methods are still rudimentary and best and have a long way to go, not to mention other things like eye tracking and other technology that hasn't been implemented yet. With the way you arbitrarily define what qualifies as VR, you could easily dismiss what we have now since we don't have all the other components that will make it even more compelling. What we have now is simply an interation in the the development of VR and they're just as much VR as the previous headsets that came before it; it's just better now.

I think it's less moving goal posts and more recognizing the majority will see this as the first consumer gen due to the massive push it's getting in so many industries at the consumer level, not just the private sectors. Expecting people to think the vfx or Virtuality started it all at the consumer level is a bit inside your own bubble and a bit pedantic, no offense. The sheer ad dollars alone being thrown around now where most people, even my tech illiterate parents, know what an Oculus is should tell you something. Most people don't view those lunky briefcase phones as the first gen of cell phones either, so what? Mindshare is a valid metric for the relevancy of this particular iteration, especially due to how the mobile industry is largely responsible for the current sensor, optics, and display parts being cheap to produce on a larger scale.

 

[LOLCats]

"Thousands for a compatable pc" is totally exaggerated though.

 

[commedieu]

"Thousands for a compatable pc" is totally exaggerated though.

Yeah.

$1500.

 

[mrklaw]

As long as a headset is required it is going to be a damn hard-sell to a mainstream audience. People bristle at having to put on 3D glasses, they sure as heck aren't wont to strap on a HMD. To me the most practical litmus test of a product catching fire with the mainstream is if my mother can easily understand and comfortably use the software, hardware, device, gimmick, and or interface.

Out of all the odd arguments for why VR is a fad or won't catch on, this is possibly the most irritating to me. Putting 3D glasses on isn't difficult, but people have to buy (often expensive) 3D glasses, have a 3D TV and buy special versions of blurays. They just can't be bothered when the standard 2D version looks fine. Also the 3D effect on a TV is much less pronounced than on a big cinema screen.

Putting on a VR headset is more cumbersome than 3D glasses but it is jutting you in a completely different environment that can't be easily compared to 2D games on a flat monitor. The reward for the effort is hugely higher than with 3D glasses

Not a good comparison at all IMO

 

[Aztechnology]

Yeah.

$1500.

You can definitely build a sub $1000 system with a 1060/1070 and an I7 which is great for VR.

 

[Forever Changes]

Yeah.

$1500.

Isn't 970 considered the minimum? can easily make a $800 rig with one of those.

 

[DR2K]

Aside from being half the price.

Which is almost the price of the gaming system itself. It's unprecedented to release an accessory/peripheral to the mass market at the price of a console.

 

[Aztechnology]

Isn't 970 considered the minimum? can easily make a $800 rig with one of those.

And if we're considering PS4 VR ready you can get there for like 500. Or 600 with a solid I3 instead of a crappy AMD 6300 level CPU

 

[AgeEighty]

PSVR gonna swoop in and drink their milkshake

Success for PSVR would only be a good thing for Oculus and Vive.

 

[Paz]

Dunno if anyone posted this already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0JTkBZdyw

I died a little bit inside watching this, amazing video.

 

[Aztechnology]

Success for PSVR would only be a good thing for Oculus and Vive.

Absolutely. I'm not sure why there's people who don't want it to succeed there.

 

[Zalusithix]

This feels like trying to move the goal posts and redfine so it fits what we have now while dismissing what came before. I'd say input methods are still rudimentary and best and have a long way to go, not to mention other things like eye tracking and other technology that hasn't been implemented yet. With the way you arbitrarily define what qualifies as VR, you could easily dismiss what we have now since we don't have all the other components that will make it even more compelling. What we have now is simply an interation in the the development of VR and they're just as much VR as the previous headsets that came before it; it's just better now.

It's not just input methods. Everything we have now is rudimentary, and that's the point. What came before in the consumer realm wasn't even acceptable at functional level. It's hard to call something a first generation of something when it doesn't meet the requirements for what that something is supposed to be. A virtual world with no meaningful way to interact with it is useless. A virtual world that lags and destroys all sense of presence is useless. Even more useless if said lagging makes the person sick. A virtual world with the FoV of a drinking straw is useless. (In the case of FoV, there's a huge difference between not having extended peripheral vision and something that doesn't even fill your central vision.)

Things will improve from what we have now, but the current gen is good enough to forget the limitations and feel presence within the virtual world. A world that you can interact with in a (mostly) natural way. It's good enough to not make you sick (with proper design). As such it meets, if just barely, the requirements for creating a virtual reality.

Edit: I suppose we could compromise and call this the first generation of viable VR. Relegate the previous attempts as just that - attempts. Failed attempts, and I don't mean that from a commercial success perspective.

 

[Duckhuntdog]

Out of all the odd arguments for why VR is a fad or won't catch on, this is possibly the most irritating to me. Putting 3D glasses on isn't difficult, but people have to buy (often expensive) 3D glasses, have a 3D TV and buy special versions of blurays. They just can't be bothered when the standard 2D version looks fine. Also the 3D effect on a TV is much less pronounced than on a big cinema screen.

Putting on a VR headset is more cumbersome than 3D glasses but it is jutting you in a completely different environment that can't be easily compared to 2D games on a flat monitor. The reward for the effort is hugely higher than with 3D glasses

Not a good comparison at all IMO

*shrug* People get irked at 3D glasses in movie theaters as well. It's about ease and convenience in some ways. Sure 3D glasses in a movie theater are easy and for some people somewhat convenient (those with glasses somewhat less so), they still get irked at the notion, so the comparison, on somewhat of a level is valid, though glasses are way easier and convenient to wear than a HMD. Essentially you are wearing something on your face/head to experience a form of content, seems fairly similar in that respect.

 

[jokingbird]

Dunno if anyone posted this already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0JTkBZdyw

How about something a little beyond the launch titles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxmsy28V3cM

Giant bomb too. I feel like people are judging things way too early with some of this stuff.

Edit: Should clarify the Raw Data portion.

 

[Fredrik]

Out of all the odd arguments for why VR is a fad or won't catch on, this is possibly the most irritating to me. Putting 3D glasses on isn't difficult, but people have to buy (often expensive) 3D glasses, have a 3D TV and buy special versions of blurays. They just can't be bothered when the standard 2D version looks fine. Also the 3D effect on a TV is much less pronounced than on a big cinema screen.

Putting on a VR headset is more cumbersome than 3D glasses but it is jutting you in a completely different environment that can't be easily compared to 2D games on a flat monitor. The reward for the effort is hugely higher than with 3D glasses

Not a good comparison at all IMO

Which is also why it will fail, because you won't see Naughty Dog, CDPR, Sony Santa Monica, Bioware, Bethesda, Square Enix etc go all in and have their best dev teams create VR-only games, they'll put the VR games in the hands of smaller teams or even outsource it to other teams and in the best case scenario have their best teams create smaller VR bonus modes in their non-VR AAA releases.
If VR is going to go mainstream with great success then everyone needs to be aboard, with no intention to ever go back to non-VR, kind of like when the 2D-3D trasition happened. I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

People who can afford BR and want it enough already have it.

Those who can't afford to spend over 700 on just the headset alone, won't.

Simple as.

Make the market accessible to consumers.

 

[Bitch Pudding]

They were very smart to partner with others and wait.

I know that sometimes it's clever to wait and let the first mover take the so-called market development costs. But the first mover has a big advantage as well, as VR on console is now heavily associated with the PlayStation brand. It's their USP in the upcoming years as well. Furthermore, Sony gained a lot of lessons learned during the process.

Not to forget, VR as a whole is just a niche market in the console business. The "premium VR console market" which a Scorpio VR solution might target to differentiate itself from PSVR is even smaller. Much, much smaller. There is just not many profit to be made in the midterm for a corporation like Microsoft in this business. If they still enter it, then for strategic reasons.

 

[Reallink]

I generally get tired of gimmicks pretty fast, but have surprisingly been playing Vive and/or Rift every single day for nearly 6 months. Easily got several hundred hours in them. I fully expected and was resigned to play launch games for 2 or 3 weeks then drop it like a rock until maybe/hopefully a big new game came out months or years later (which was exactly what I did with DK1 and DK2). That didn't happen at all this time. Seemingly as the quality of the HMD's and experiences have increased (and will continue to do so), dropping them has become like trying to go back to an SDTV from HD. Actually I'd say it's even more so than that. It's now difficult for me to sit down in front of a dinky 2D TV and move some analog sticks around. All you can think about is how much better it would be if you could walk around this place in VR and interact with shit with your hands.

 

[jokingbird]

Which is also why it will fail, because you won't see Naughty Dog, CDPR, Sony Santa Monica, Bioware, Bethesda, Square Enix etc go all in and have their best dev teams create VR-only games, they'll put the VR games in the hands of smaller teams or even outsource it to other teams and in the best case scenario have their best teams create smaller VR bonus modes in their non-VR AAA releases.
If VR is going to go mainstream with great success then everyone needs to be aboard, with no intention to ever go back to non-VR, kind of like when the 2D-3D trasition happened. I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

I strongly disagree with this. I like 2D and 3D games. Same for VR. I think there is a place for all of it. People seem to have this feeling that only one can survive. But I think everyone prefers a variety of experiences. So all really can exist even if part of it is more niche than the others.

 

[Wag]

VR needs to be $299 complete (that means display and controllers ) or less regardless of the platform. It needs to be marketed the same was as any other system.

 

[Zelenogorsk]

I tried my roommates' Oculus but he said I should take off my glasses as to not scratch the lenses and then without the glasses everything looked like shit and there weren't even any good games just tech demos and such.

Basically i was not impressed and I won't be spending money on a new computer, headset, and contacts just to get one of these things.

That said I have yet to try Summer Lesson.

 

[klier]

It's a fad after all.

Very true

 

[Aztechnology]

I tried my roommates' Oculus but he said I should take off my glasses as to not scratch the lenses and then without the glasses everything looked like shit and there weren't even any good games just tech demos and such.

Basically i was not impressed and I won't be spending money on a new computer, headset, and contacts just to get one of these things.

That said I have yet to try Summer Lesson.

Did you try adjusting the focus on the goggles? I have really bad vision and at least for the Gear VR I have absolutely no issue with using without glasses. In fact it's far clearer.

Also anybody in Cherno?

 

[StudioTan]

I tried my roommates' Oculus but he said I should take off my glasses as to not scratch the lenses and then without the glasses everything looked like shit and there weren't even any good games just tech demos and such.

Basically i was not impressed and I won't be spending money on a new computer, headset, and contacts just to get one of these things.

That said I have yet to try Summer Lesson.

If you need glasses/contacts to see in real life you'd need them wearing the Rift too. That's like taking off your glasses and saying you weren't impressed with reality because it looked blurry.

Also, there are a lot of games on the Rift that are definitely not tech demos. Elite Dangerous, Dirt Rally, Chronos, Minecraft, Project Cars, Edge of Nowhere....the list goes on.

Did you try adjusting the focus on the goggles? I have really bad vision and at least for the Gear VR I have absolutely no issue with using without glasses. In fact it's far clearer.

Also anybody in Cherno?

With the Gear you can adjust the lenses in and out to compensate for no glasses (I can use that without glasses as well) but there is no such adjustment on the Rift.