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Develop: PC VR sales has almost ground to a halt

Arulan

Member
This thread is little more than a place where the people who still believe VR is a fad can high-five each other at what they believe is damning news, but expected by everyone else. Others are using it to proclaim that the saviors of VR will be their console manufacturer of choice. Both groups, despite this supposedly being an enthusiast forum can only see as far as the mainstream.

The concept of a niche product for enthusiasts is alien to them, despite this being the expected result from the initial release of VR hardware. You saw the same thing with Valve's push for Linux and console-like hardware. Despite them creating the best controller on the market, a very affordable solution for in-home streaming to another screen, a good user-interface designed for controllers and a console-like setup, going from under 200 Linux supported games on Steam to 2000 in only a few years, and additional hardware that combines everything you need into one package, the popular opinion of these people is still that it was an abhorrent failure. Why? Because they expect it to follow the launch of a traditional console, products that cater to the mainstream, advertisement, hype, and all that surrounds such an event.

VR is a fantastic new medium. Consumer hardware can already deliver upon three of the most important features of VR: Presence, tracked controllers, and room-scale. It's not surprising the best experiences take advantage of all three. Despite whatever reasons Oculus claims to have, I still believe it was a mistake to launch before they could accomplish all three of those features. It is also currently expensive, hence the part of it currently being a niche product for enthusiasts. That will no doubt change. It will not be long before prices drop and/or less capable HMDs start entering the market, such as PSVR, OSVR, and additional mobile HMDs. The software is early as well, but not so that there aren't some great examples of it.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
Biggest problem with vr is putting on a helmet and being completely disconnected from your surroundings. Also using your head to aim or look around will destroy your neck playing for prolonged hours. Sony better include a list of chiropractors with each PSVR or your local news will have a plate full of reports from kids flooding the doctors from excessive neck repeated motions or exhaustion....

None of this is true. The headsets are not much heavier than ski goggles and i could play for hours with no neck pain.

Complete horse shit.
 

Hale-XF11

Member
Biggest problem with vr is putting on a helmet and being completely disconnected from your surroundings. Also using your head to aim or look around will destroy your neck playing for prolonged hours. Sony better include a list of chiropractors with each PSVR or your local news will have a plate full of reports from kids flooding the doctors from excessive neck repeated motions or exhaustion....

That's not a problem with VR. It just means that it's not for you.
 

SerratedX

Member
From who? What major developer is going to a AAA budget behind a project you have no chance of ever making money on? Let's assume a AAA game has a break even point at 3M units. What headset gets you to that point without a 1000% attach rate?

I can't figure out why people think that AAA developers are really going to spend the required capital to develop a VR only game? They are concerned with making money, not just lighting it on fire. Even Sony isn't pushing its internal major studios 100% VR.

A few studios, including Bethesda, have stated that they are bringing at least one major AAA title to VR. Fallout 4 will be coming to the Vive some time in 2017. There was a VR demo of the latest Doom game being presented at some conferences with people praising it's bullet-time locomotion mechanic. There has been a Resident Evil VR demo shown at shows as well. Justin Roland (sp?) and a few of his partners just opened up shop for a VR STUDIO so more higher-funded games may be produced.

While the list is short right now with no titles currently available, they ARE being worked on.

Care to elaborate on how Fallout, Doom, and Resident evil are NOT AAA titles?

P.S. Also, to clarify, these are current AAA games being ported to VR, I don't expect a native VR AAA title until after the Rick and Morty game at the least.

P.P.S. Elite Dangerous is fairly native in VR, so I will allow that one.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
VR has no future until we get a standard. As for PSVR, this is the next PS Move.

I don't know about that. I think that there will be "standards" - think about the common features on capacitive touch screens, for example, but it's more like an input device than a display device, and people will be just as interested in experiences and IPs as they are the tech.

But I don't think there needs to be "one" single standard, even as control methods and solutions organically standardize via common agreements and common sense.

I think Sony will show what a simple, living room experience looks like, both positives and negatives.

I've played some great games on VR, and can see amazing potential in it, but ultimately I don't think games are going to be the most predominant or important use of the tech. And maybe it's not a "tech" but a "media." A way of experiencing things.
 

harSon

Banned
Pretty much what I expected to happen, although it wasn't quite as popular at its inception as I had expected.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
Back in the day, consoles and pcs were both niche devices that were too expensive to realistically own. Obviously, each was a fad that didn't evolve ever or hit the mainstream.
 
A few studios, including Bethesda, have stated that they are bringing at least one major AAA title to VR. Fallout 4 will be coming to the Vive some time in 2017. There was a VR demo of the latest Doom game being presented at some conferences with people praising it's bullet-time locomotion mechanic. There has been a Resident Evil VR demo shown at shows as well. Justin Roland (sp?) and a few of his partners just opened up shop for a VR STUDIO so more higher-funded games may be produced.

While the list is short right now with no titles currently available, they ARE being worked on.

Care to elaborate on how Fallout, Doom, and Resident evil are NOT AAA titles?

FO4 was not built from the ground up to be a VR game and thus it will be head tracking just as if you were using a controller. The input will not be real VR controllers. Same with Doom.

Adding head tracking to an existing game is not a real VR experience.

Also, didn't people get Motion Sickness from the RE VR segment. From what I remember, it looked great on stage, but people realized they only developed that small bit in VR. The actual game they were announcing with a standard game.
 
Biggest problem with vr is putting on a helmet and being completely disconnected from your surroundings. Also using your head to aim or look around will destroy your neck playing for prolonged hours. Sony better include a list of chiropractors with each PSVR or your local news will have a plate full of reports from kids flooding the doctors from excessive neck repeated motions or exhaustion....


Like you would walking around........ Head aiming seems to be more of a GearVR and its ports thing thus far.
 

novabolt

Member
I'm guessing that Oculus is waiting for the Scorpio if its powerful enough to add as a compatible machine. I wonder what Sony, MS and Nintendo are thinking about VR at its current state?
 

SerratedX

Member
FO4 was not built from the ground up to be a VR game and thus it will be head tracking just as if you were using a controller. The input will not be real VR controllers. Same with Doom.

Adding head tracking to an existing game is not a real VR experience.

I will concede to that argument. The only exception to that I feel would be Elite Dangerous as it feels very fluid in VR to me.

I also don't expect there to be a true native VR AAA title (built for VR) outside of PSVR until after the Rick and Morty game gets it's release.

I will also need to find a source for this when I'm not at work, but I believe that Todd Howard stated that a lot of items had to be created or re-built to allow for VR to work properly. The input is native to the Vive Motion Controllers.
 
FO4 was not built from the ground up to be a VR game and thus it will be head tracking just as if you were using a controller. The input will not be real VR controllers. Same with Doom.

Adding head tracking to an existing game is not a real VR experience.

Both the demos for Fallout 4 and Doom VR were on Vive and used the Vive controllers. For F4 you brought up your arm to look at your Pip Boy. Both of these are being built/rethought or at least experimented with from the ground up for VR. That's why they won't be out any time soon.
 
There was a super horny day that I tried furiously to rationalize ordering a rift just so I can watch vr porn! I didn't do it though...

On the other hand I couldn't care less about vr games atm.
 
Of course it will, it's cheap and it's Playstation.

I still don't see it setting the world on fire though. VR is too damn early.

Is it really cheap though? Because when the guy at Best Buy explained to people that they had to drop $800+ for PSVR it no longer seemed appealing to the casual shopper.
 
Vr is in its infancy. I have said multiple times we are ten years away from a mainstream device.

That said, its not a fad, its just not ready yet, and i am a VR developer.

Not all devices hit the market and change everything with gen 1.

I would say a cross between Microsoft hololens and VR could be a good mix
 
Products like Gear VR stand the best chance. Has to be low investment. Even PSVR is a hard sell. You can show it to your friends and they'll be amazed by it, but they'll probably just come over to your house to use it when they have the inclination to instead of buying one for themselves.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Nobody should be surprised by this, it was painfully obvious the second they announced a. The prices of the headset, and b. The required specs.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
VR has no future until we get a standard. As for PSVR, this is the next PS Move.

It's already effectively a standard. Screen with pre-warping (different headsets have different warping but that is easily handled); rotational and positional tracking (abstracted to PC/console so effectively transparent to games); ideally motion controllers with similar rotational/positional tracking

Not a fixed spec but close enough that you should be able to develop to multiple headsets without too much overhead
 
I just upgraded my PC for 1080p 60 fps gaming. My processor, ram and GTX 1060 get a "very good" rating on the Steam VR bench. So now that I am upgraded I am waiting for some big companies to throw some serious games into the VR eco system before I buy an HMD.

I can't rationalize a $600-800 purchase over some exclusive AA games on Oculus store front, nor the heavily indie focused VR "experiences" on Steam.
I am very disappointed in Valve for not having some major games available at launch.

The least they could do is integrate VR into all their online games for an awesome spectator mode. Valve, also started selling movies on there storefront...so where's the VR theatre mode for these where you can be in the same room as your friends while watching movies? Or how about VR powered AAA movies for the ultimate immersive movie watching experience?

There is a serious lack of vision on Valve's part to get the VR ball rolling. There idea seemed to be...get as many indie devs on board as fast as possible and beat Oculus to release...well, congratulations Valve you did it...now what?
 

Fredrik

Member
Are they good enough? (I remember the Wii U game pad actually being better than expected but it's distance wasn't that great)

VR NEEDS low latency as much as possible.
PC monitors are like 1ms but I think DF showed that WiiU GamePad streaming at least had lower latency than many TVs. So it should be possible to get console-level latency. Not sure if that's enough for VR though. Distance is no problem though unless you plan to run around your whole house, room scale wireless VR should be no problem at all.
 
"Hmmmm... How can we make the menus in Fallout 4 even clunkier and less convenient to navigate?"

Lol. To be fair:

1. The most mundane interactions like menu navigation in VR become cooler/more interesting/more immersive when they're contextualized like that.
2. Everything they've shown of both demos has been experimental and subject to change.

I just upgraded my PC for 1080p 60 fps gaming. My processor, ram and GTX 1060 get a "very good" rating on the Steam VR bench. So now that I am upgraded I am waiting for some big companies to throw some serious games into the VR eco system before I buy an HMD.

I can't rationalize a $600-800 purchase over some exclusive AA games on Oculus store front, nor the heavily indie focused VR "experiences" on Steam.
I am very disappointed in Valve for not having some major games available at launch.

The least they could do is integrate VR into all their online games for an awesome spectator mode. Valve, also started selling movies on there storefront...so where's the VR theatre mode for these where you can be in the same room as your friends while watching movies? Or how about VR powered AAA movies for the ultimate immersive movie watching experience?

There is a serious lack of vision on Valve's part to get the VR ball rolling. There idea seemed to be...get as many indie devs on board as fast as possible and beat Oculus to release...well, congratulations Valve you did it...now what?

Some of this is already here. DOTA 2 has a really great VR spectating mode now. Big Screen Beta (not a Valve thing) let's you watch movies or play games or whatever in a multiplayer setting and it's free.

Not totally sure what you mean by VR powered AAA movies.
 

spekkeh

Banned
I like how the VR fanboys suddenly all expected this to happen. Maybe they should post their walls of shame, I should be on at least six for saying this would happen.
 

kinggroin

Banned
My only VR experiences have been the Rift DSK2, PSVR Demo at Bestbuy, and the Gear VR on Galaxy S7 Edge. All of them were super cool in their own way, but nothing I'd invest significantly in. (Like not even the ludicrous $150 figure someone was throwing around earlier.)

My biggest concern about VR is that despite having an amount and variety of early-gen content development that is basically unprecedented for a new technology, thus far nobody has been able to even give us a taste of what a killer app looks like.

People routinely dump dozens of hours into traditional and mobile games. When well-designed they just naturally pull you in and make you want to play them more and more. But thus far I haven't come across a single person in the games media who's "gotten way into" *any* of the VR stuff that's out there.

The guys at Giant Bomb have noted a few times that they have a Vive and a Rift in the office that people can use whenever, and nobody ever really uses them outside of doing their VRodeos. Dan went from "I'm going to buy all the VR headsets" to "I don't think I'm going to buy any of the VR headsets." It's pretty damning that the people with the most access and exposure are some of the least enthusiastic about it.

The weird thing is that it seems like it should be so simple. The immersion works. I literally can't play the horror games in VR because it's just too much for me. The dream for me is to be able to play Fallout or Far Cry or GTA in VR. Or Alien Isolation. Or Bioshock. Just any of these games where so much time and care has been put into creating these vast open worlds.

But I guess the issue is that we can't do that because people get sick?

That's kinda shitty, because I'm not sure that the killer app for VR is going to come in the form of one of those "teleport around the world" games or from slow-moving Gone Home-style walking simulators and Witness-style puzzle games.

I mean, those can be cool and all. I just think that, with the technology being as it stands right now and in the immediate future, even with those games I'm not willing to trade image quality for immersion.

(My best current idea of what might constitute a VR killer app is something along the lines of a cross between Hitman and Clue. Like, create a Hitman style interactive world that you have to observe and sneak around it, and use your observations to solve mysteries. I think this might work in terms of being able to slow down the movement enough that you don't get sick, while also being able to be immersed and interact with something that's not a dead world. Of course, the slow movement and large areas might make it boring to traverse over and over again. This is such a hard problem.)

You literally described the upcoming Budget Cuts
 

xJavonta

Banned
Lol PSVR doesn't hold a candle to the Vive or even Oculus.

It's just too expensive right now. Headsets need to be $300 to fly off shelves
 
I like how the VR fanboys suddenly all expected this to happen. Maybe they should post their walls of shame, I should be on at least six for saying this would happen.
A fair number of people expected VR to be successful long term mostly, because VR is very compelling.
A lot of people expected it to have a slow start.
-High price
-Few games
-High spec machines required (relative to what the mass market expects)
Biggest problem with vr is putting on a helmet and being completely disconnected from your surroundings. Also using your head to aim or look around will destroy your neck playing for prolonged hours. Sony better include a list of chiropractors with each PSVR or your local news will have a plate full of reports from kids flooding the doctors from excessive neck repeated motions or exhaustion....
These always seem like weird complaints.
Completely disconnected from your surroundings: How do you sleep? You still are more aware of the environment than when you are sleeping. Besides that, the headsets do let in light. I'm able to text with the Rift without taking it off.
Destroy your neck: Just like how ski goggles, bike helmets do.
The least they could do is integrate VR into all their online games for an awesome spectator mode. Valve, also started selling movies on there storefront...so where's the VR theatre mode for these where you can be in the same room as your friends while watching movies? Or how about VR powered AAA movies for the ultimate immersive movie watching experience?
Pretty sure there's a few apps that would let you do that VR theatre thing.
There are some VR movie shorts currently, so we very likely will see more. They are also very compelling experiences. (At least some of them are, others have serious issues with scaling.)
 
The big one is Chronos. That game on Hard difficulty hit all the right buttons for me, and while I can't just assume others will love it to the same degree I did, it does check those boxes that you'd expect for "GOTY" discussions: it's a long (took me somewhere around 25 hours) and polished single-player game with a decent budget behind it.

Its an amazing game, I bought a rift because of this game and was surprised that it surpassed even my very high expectations. Shows what they SHOULD have done with Resident Evil VII on VR.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
I like how the VR fanboys suddenly all expected this to happen. Maybe they should post their walls of shame, I should be on at least six for saying this would happen.

From mainstream appeal? I'd say 5 years or so away from reaching mass consumption on the technological adoption curve. From, like, actually being here and usable? It already is here for enthusiasts and early adopters.

Or it'll follow the slow-burn technology adoption curve that every transformative technology follows. Very few things either storm out the gate or crash immediately.

Well first up, no, Oculus doesn't need mass market adoption right out of the gate. They expect sales of about 1 million within the first year or so. I don't really think you have a realistic expectation for how this technology will proliferate, this is going to follow the same sort of adoption curve that 3D accelerators followed, which is to say that it'll be a slow burn.

But my point would be that such a bundle would satisfy your call for an easy all-in-one package.

Let's put it this way - if 100% of PS4 users bought any technology, I would not consider it a mass market medium. If, world wide, only 30 million people see a movie, no, I don't consider it a mass market success.

The reason it's piquing market interest is because people are thinking 10 years down the line, when the technology is ubiquitous. The very companies you are talking about - if you listen to their rhetoric - all of them (facebook, sony, valve, HTC, apple, nvidia, AMD, etc) are talking long haul. None of them see 30 million users as a goal.

PSVR will not be mass market. You are thinking too limited on the adoption curve. VR will become mass market over an entire decade, not within the span of 1-2 years. With regards to VR's adoption curve, we are here:

44CRqzK.png


PSVR will not push us even into the early majority segment of the adoption curve. VR is not a platform limited to a console. Your comparison to the iphone isn't correct - VR isn't an iphone, it's more like the concept of the touchscreen itself.

It will undoubtedly happen for some. There won't be a glut of content in the beginning, and the content that will come within the next year will not be of the same quality as the content that will come 5 years from now. This is because the language of VR gameplay is not well understood yet.

This is a good reason that VR, the medium, is not ready to be a 100-million unit medium. Content is king, and content won't be here for a while.

Some random dude (or even many random dudes) getting bored because there isn't a lot to do right now means fuck-all for the medium, however. I remember when we got our first DVD player in 1998. We bought every single DVD we could find, and found ourselves without much to watch for months. It happens, this is part of being an early adopter.

How many are still playing pre-mario 64 3D games? For that matter, how many remember that only 2 N64 games shipped in the first 6 months of the life of the n64? The early adopter status of VR at the moment is natural and mitigates the feeling of boredom for many, because frankly not many will be bored by nature of its sales.

Rift, Vive, and PSVR represent platforms (Oculus Store, Steam, and PS Store respectively) but it is important to realize the difference between a platform an a medium. Virtual Reality is the medium, and those platforms provide a way to disseminate VR to the public. Looking at the history of technological progression, it is likely that one or more of those platforms will fail, but their failure is not the same as the failure of VR.

To put it in historic terms - did Atari and Sega's failures in the console realm equate the failure of video games as a whole? Did 3DFX's failure equate to the failure of hardware accelerated 3D graphics? Did Compuserve's failure equate to the failure of the internet?

Putting this out there because I promise there are people preparing their "I told you it was a gimmick!" posts right now when the shipping numbers inevitably release and they're below 1 million units each. Many of those posts read, to me, more like pleading that VR is not the future. Don't worry, your 2D screen isn't going anywhere, just like television didn't eradicate radio. But pinning the success of a medium on the sales of the very first consumer hardware out of the gate is silly. How many of the original television manufacturers still exist? VR, the medium? Here to stay. These particular players? Maybe not.

You were saying?
 

bj00rn_

Banned
Nobody should be surprised by this, it was painfully obvious the second they announced a. The prices of the headset, and b. The required specs.

Actually, it was obvious even ahead of that (perhaps even more than a year ago) when we, the VR enthusiasts, and Oculus/Valve/HTC told everyone that the first generation wasn't going to be for the masses but for the enthusiasts. Especially pricey high end VR. So you are exactly right; There's no surprise, nor even a hint of controversy.

The PCVR scene's success is not quantified it in top of the pops lists (PCVR was already a success with the DK1). This is a concept not always easily grasped if your world only rotates around front-loaded console charts.

As a VR enthusiast I believe that PSVR is introduced to the masses a generation or so too early. PCVR customers for the most part know what's coming (rapid iterations), but I have this feeling that there's going to be a lot of unhappy PSVR customers around when they realize that their brand new VR technology is going to be outdated almost faster than they can plug it in. I bet that it's not going to take much time now before we see one of the big players announcing HMDs with eyetracking and foveated rendering, and other stuff.

I like how the VR fanboys suddenly all expected this to happen. Maybe they should post their walls of shame, I should be on at least six for saying this would happen.

Preposterous. Either you haven't followed the discussion in the enthusiast scene, you have less than stellar reading capabilities, or you're simply being disingenuous.
 

KorrZ

Member
I mean, current VR head sets cost more than most average mainstream consumers are actually willing to spend on a whole PC period.

I don't see PSVR faring much better until we actually get some decent software out for these devices.
 
"Preposterous. Either you haven't followed the discussion in the enthusiast scene, you have less than stellar reading capabilities, or you're simply being disingenuous."

Why not all three?
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
I'd like to say I'm just waiting for good games but I would also need to upgrade my graphics card in addition to the headset cost so either something really fantastic comes out or a few years elapse and I evaluate it again when I replace my gtx 970
 
The prematurely smug, "I told you so" posts in this thread are really infuriating. Not sure why so many people seem invested in seeing VR fail. Does it offend you all in some way?

I'm not, and no.

I have my PSVR paid in full. I just have post traumatic stress from all the other hardware / peripherals Sony dropped support for. Move certainly comes to mind.
 
The big one is Chronos. That game on Hard difficulty hit all the right buttons for me, and while I can't just assume others will love it to the same degree I did, it does check those boxes that you'd expect for "GOTY" discussions: it's a long (took me somewhere around 25 hours) and polished single-player game with a decent budget behind it.

Ah, Chronos. It did look interesting, but I sort of forgot about it (probably due to Doom or Dark Souls 3). Thanks, I think I will buy it and see.
 
"Preposterous. Either you haven't followed the discussion in the enthusiast scene, you have less than stellar reading capabilities, or you're simply being disingenuous."

Why not all three?

I think the problem is that people were vague about their high praise of it. Stuff like, "this is where everything is going!" and "this is definitely going to be the future!" don't really define what that means. Is that 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? 100 years? And so we have a lot of people yelling loudly about how amazing this is going to be and how it's the future without really defining what they mean by it. Since many people don't define it, other people can wrongly interpret what they're implying by success.

I also hate the notion that people are treating this as a first generation iteration when we've had several generations of this already. VR has been tried a few times before and it's flopped, gone out of the spotlight, evolved and come back for another attempt again. Personally, I think this attempt/iteration is going to result in the same thing; it's not going to become mainstream at this phase. It's going to evolve the tech, most people will get over it after a brief period and then it'll be gone for the spotlight again from the mainstream until maybe the next real try will be the real deal. Some day VR has a possibility of being a mainstream device, or maybe it won't. It just won't be this generation/phase/iteration/attempt at it and that includes the next few iterations of Vive, Oculus, PSVR, etc.
 

Micael

Member
Would like to make a few points regarding VR:

1) This "Speculation suggests that we’re seeing the end of the early adoption for VR." is horse manure, even if the numbers prove that, which they don't, certainly not on the vive side as Stumpokapow pointed out.
Adding to that one just needs to look at the amount of countries that actually have the HTC vive or the oculus rift available at, to realize that well there is a significant issue there, I mean just on Europe alone the vive covers about half the countries there, now granted they are the biggest countries, it also doesn't have support for anything south of the USA, or Russia, or India and so on, but those countries that aren't covered also have people that would buy the headset.

2) They have failed significantly to showcase the hardware in stores, and for anyone that has tried something like the vive or has seen people try it, will know that this is a technology that leaves people very impressed, and from my experience non gamers are vastly more impressed by it than gamers, which does bode quite well for mainstream penetration of VR.
With Christmas coming around if HTC or oculus manage to actually put this in the hands of people so they can try it, it will increase the movement of units quite considerably.

3) Oculus touch will help a lot, there are plenty of Oculus users that probably haven't realized this yet, but motion controls are a game changing technology far more than the headset itself, it is once again also very good for mainstream penetration, since they are vastly more intuitive for non gamers than a mouse and keyboard or gamepad, within minutes I have had non gamers (people that really don't play games) be reasonably proficient at shooting, something which is really impossible with a mouse or a gamepad, where it takes days to months worth of playtime to get to.
This opens up more "hardcore" titles to non gamers, which once again will help increase mainstream penetration, since initial games will no doubt feature a lot more action oriented stuff, especially since that is when the immersion is stronger.

4) The amount of people with hardware that can run an oculus or an htc vive is a non issue, not for the amount of units a first gen version could ever realistically move, over 11% of the steam user base has a 970 or better, 1 year and half ago steam had 125 million active users, they have seen huge growth each year, so we can safely assume that that number is very significantly bigger now, but even at "just" 125 million that is around 14 million users with oculus/vive ready hardware.
200-300$ VR ready (better than the 970 for VR) have started to roll around relatively recently, so there is a very good chance that between that and second hand 900 cards we will see that number significantly increase, and once again this is assuming the steam user base hasn't increased, which it certainly has, at some point valve was seeing a 100% growth year after year, but even just a 20% growth would significantly change things.

5) Did anyone seriously expect the oculus rift and the htc vive to move millions of units with their first consumer version?
Because if so yeah that isn't really going to happen, it is both stupidly impressive (vive tracking is pure technological wizardry) but at the same time is also a "total piece of shit" that also happens to be crazy expensive, however it is for the most part relatively easily improved.

The resolution as mentioned is quite weak, but that is just a question of upping the screens, with shouldn't be too much of an issue as 4k screens on cellphones are becoming more and more prevalent, also as VR moves more units a better case presents itself for having screens made specifically for the VR headsets, instead of the ad hoc solution we currently have.

Cable management is a nuisance but not really an issue, but it is also already being worked on, although I don't expect true improvements here anytime soon, since it would require batteries which entails charging, and the batteries plus what ever wireless hardware would increase the price of the unit, which is non optimal at this point, and more importantly resolution is likely to get a significant bump soon, so what ever solution is invented would also have to work with what might be a couple of times increase in resolution.

Field of view is quite poor, this is already being worked on on the starVR which has 210º field of view, and it is just a question of time until it is adopted by future VR headsets, this brings some problems regarding resolution and so on, but once again resolution is also going to be improved.

Comfort, this is quite poor, but I hear PSVR is better, no idea haven't tried it, but it is also something that I suspect will improve significantly with each version as people make suggestions, try new things and so on.

Then there are some issues with each specific set, like htc vive strap system, or the lack of non destructive mounting options for the lightbase, or the rift lack of good support for people with glasses (I know you can use glasses, but I hear it is not great in comparison to the vive).

Basically it is really not what I would consider a true consumer version of the headset yet, it is an enthusiast edition so to speak, but if absolutely nothing else the potential for the tech justifies itself

6) Even if VR is a fad for gaming, it is not something that is going away it has significant potential for use outside of gaming, and the technology does work, so VR is here and it is staying, how much and how fast it improves is ofc something to be seen.

7) PSVR while it will almost certainly move more units than the first versions of htc vive or the oculus, does have what I consider a significant problem, which at least right now it is trying to go for traditional gaming with VR, and that is not at all where the potential of VR lies, once again HTC vive motion controllers and hopefully oculus touch are the true game changers of the VR technology, they are an entirely different way to interact with games, a far far more immersive one at that, which will truly allow for new experiences, something which I'm sure plenty of HTC vive users will agree, and can easily be seen by impressions on stuff like raw data and onward, which are more traditional games certainly, but done in a way that feels like nothing I have ever played, I am yet to see the person that doesn't instinctively try and dodge a shot in raw data as if they were in the game, regardless of how much traditional gaming experience they have.

To clarify that isn't to say I believe in room scale, room scale is a complicated beast

8) If you have simulation sickness of any kind on something like the htc vive, then you are playing a game that wasn't properly done for VR there is no ifs or buts, the htc vive when playing experiences truly made for it and made well will not cause simulation sickness of any kind ever, in room scale VR you move and you do in real life, and when space is insufficient you teleport which is not really something you see because there is a fading of the screen, so you can't possibly get sick.
There is ofc the question of what other movement systems can be implemented to avoid simulation sickness, which right now unfortunately is just the teleport, everything else can induce it depending on how sensitive you are, hopefully more solutions will present themselves with time, since stuff like cockpits while not an issue for most people are still an issue, have also personally tried doing a wheel chair kind of thing with instant acceleration and constant speed with a teleportation like fade, and it works really quite well for walking front to back, but it is not 100% without the strange simulation sickness feeling (even if it never manifests into actual discomfort or simulation sickness).

9) There is a very significant lack of good software for VR right now, that is ofc changing by the day, but it is absolutely a problem right now, as it tends to be with most new things, and to that point there is also a substantial amount of price gauging, with devs like crytek selling a 15 to 20 minute game for 50$, that doesn't help VR at all, PSVR unfortunately is unlikely to be any different with devs spinning crap VR adaptations and selling it, and without he consumer friendly refund policy of steam this is going to be a significant issue, that might poison the well a bit, I know that I for example don't accept anything less than 0 feeling of simulation sickness from my games, the you adapt while true is also totally unacceptable to me, and I suspect plenty of people that haven't bought into it yet.

Finally for my personal opinion on VR, I believe that room scale VR will not succeed all that well, I believe it will have a place in the future, and some games will support it, but think a "small room" aka standing experience will be the way VR will go all around, this is not because room scale VR isn't great, it is, but to actually benefit significantly from it, it requires more room than a significant amount of people are bound to be comfortable making or really have.
VR is definitely here to stay.
VR arcades will be able to provide experiences outside of what one can get at home, even a simple harness and some fans, and an extremely simplistic game can provide a wingsuit like experience which is something that most people will never experience, certainly not in safety (speaking of extreme wingsuit uses, not skydiving with a wingsuit).
VR isn't here to replace normal gaming, it is a new kind of experience, not really a new genre, but an entirely different way to interact with games far beyond the by comparison trivial difference between M&K and gamepad.
Oh yeah VR will probably be the first gaming thing to genuinely cause someone to die, either from tripping over trying to dodge something and hitting the head on something, or from an heart attack, because horror will be insanely good in VR, and if I had to bet the first true killer app, the kind of thing that makes people go crazy and talk about it non stop to friends and family will be an horror game.

Probably forgetting quite a few points to things people have brought up in this topic, but since no one is going to bother reading this, it is also not an issue.
 

Bookoo

Member
It's a fad after all.

I think that can only be said when companies stop investing in hardware and software and VR goes away. It is the very beginning, no reasonable person expected VR to take off with the pretty high barrier of entry.
 

Dario ff

Banned
As a Vive early adopter who has demo'd it extensively to other people: My main recommendation to them was waiting for the second generation if they actually plan to use the thing. First generation is far from the ideal device with the noticeable low resolution, cumbersome use and lack of software.

The amount of units it has reached for a first generation device honestly exceeded my expectations considering the price.
 
Lol. To be fair:

1. The most mundane interactions like menu navigation in VR become cooler/more interesting/more immersive when they're contextualized like that.
2. Everything they've shown of both demos has been experimental and subject to change.



Some of this is already here. DOTA 2 has a really great VR spectating mode now. Big Screen Beta (not a Valve thing) let's you watch movies or play games or whatever in a multiplayer setting and it's free.

Not totally sure what you mean by VR powered AAA movies.

Lol, well that last one isn't a Valve issue. This is probably asking too much, but eventually I want the AAA movie studios to have "VR remasters" where I can be "in" the movie.

Never knew about the DotA VR mode. I am into CS:GO, TF2, and L4D2. I need VR modes in some capacity, for those games.
 
I think that can only be said when companies stop investing in hardware and software and VR goes away. It is the very beginning, no reasonable person expected VR to take off with the pretty high barrier of entry.

A lot of people were expecting it to rapidly grow like the Wii. I never expected anything like that, but I also didn't expect growth to completely stall just a few months after they were finally released.
 

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
VR is still the future, or at least part of the future. As far I know the price still hasn't dropped and no one expected it to take off at the current prices. There are only so many early adopters out there willing to spend the money at this time.

That doesn't mean the technology as a whole has failed.
 
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