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Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#111

Post by jackbrookes »

skizm wrote: post #61

VR won’t ever be more than niche because there is no way to fake tactile feedback or motion. Games need to design around this. Beat Sanger is the best selling VR game because your character doesn’t move and there is nothing to touch. God games, like black and white or the sims, and 4x games might work well too. Also if graphics get better people can set up virtual desk spaces and get rid of screens. Ultimately though…

Every video game ever made has this problem suffers from a lack of haptic feedback and gaming is still one of the biggest activities in the world.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#112

Post by ekianjo »

imtringued wrote: post #107
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sold 1.6 million in 2019. Compare that with the switch, that sold 12 million in 2019.

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.

How is the quest 1st gen? There have been headsets for VR for quite a while already, including phone-based VR prior to that, so it's hardly a "first gen" product at all unless you narrow down the definition to mean exactly what you want it to mean.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#113

Post by ekianjo »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #89
bykhun wrote: post #80

Really, what a bad time to publish such article. Oculus Quest hit records with its' sales for Christmas, and out of stock for two months ahead.

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,…

> 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.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#114

Post by specialp »

For me personally I have tried it, and it gives me a headache and makes me feel bad. Now this could be like anything else that causes motion sickness where one would get accustomed to it, but I am not prepared to spend a lot of money on a headset not knowing if it ever would not give me a headache.

Also the experience isn't really mind-blowing either. We are still in a physical space where I'll walk into a wall. Virtual reality is far from reality and constrained by reality at the same time. I'd rather game with a large HD screen and use input devices so I still have my senses if I have to respond to the real world.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#115

Post by marliechiller »

ekianjo wrote: post #104
utf985 wrote: post #103

"We've never fallen in love"? Really? This is he first time for me where an emergent new technology in the gaming world feels like a proper thing with actual potential, and not a just a novelty gimmick like motion controls, 3D and previous attempts at "VR" were. I had the chance to try the new Oculus Rift S and the HTC Vive over the holidays with some Beat Saber and Superhot and it was a really amazing experience. I…

> "We've never fallen in love"? Really? Yes, really, You are the exception. By now there is quite a few people who have tried VR in some place or another and the market has clearly shown sales are not skyrocketing at all. It's a very slow growth, we are talking about a few millions headsets per year, which is just pocket money market wise compared to smartphones or even PCs at large. Also, most of the software is utt…

there is no space for gaming to evolve at the moment without VR. The only thing that next generation consoles are bringing to the table is more advanced graphics. VR offers a truly innovative space for gaming to move into and whilst its not there yet in terms of hardware and software, I can see it being 'the future' as it were.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#116

Post by utf985 »

ekianjo wrote: post #104
utf985 wrote: post #103

"We've never fallen in love"? Really? This is he first time for me where an emergent new technology in the gaming world feels like a proper thing with actual potential, and not a just a novelty gimmick like motion controls, 3D and previous attempts at "VR" were. I had the chance to try the new Oculus Rift S and the HTC Vive over the holidays with some Beat Saber and Superhot and it was a really amazing experience. I…

> "We've never fallen in love"? Really? Yes, really, You are the exception. By now there is quite a few people who have tried VR in some place or another and the market has clearly shown sales are not skyrocketing at all. It's a very slow growth, we are talking about a few millions headsets per year, which is just pocket money market wise compared to smartphones or even PCs at large. Also, most of the software is utt…

Obviously, we're still at very early stages with this tech. It's silly to compare it with smartphones and PCs, since it's a very different class of product. There are some barriers for entry but, as I said they will eventually get ironed out. The price of a full set with a fidelity grade matching the current high end sets shouldn't exceed the price of a games console in a few years.

There has definitely been a huge increase in interest with titles like Boneworks and the upcoming HL Alyx. The Valve index has been sold out almost instantly and there's reportedly a huge backlog of pre-orders for it.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#117

Post by untog »

chrischen wrote: post #101
mdorazio wrote: post #81

Really surprised that neither the article nor the comments here mention the #1 barrier to entry. Your average person doesn’t want to strap a big, heavy, sweaty contraption on their face that blocks their vision entirely. Analysts and enthusiasts seem to miss this point constantly.

People will do things that they aren't used to if the benefits outweigh the costs. And of the list of things preventing people from doing VR right now, I doubt strapping the headset on is anywhere near the top (things like cost, PC, space, etc are).

> I doubt strapping the headset on is anywhere near the top

For me personally, a side effect of that is the reason I'm not excited about VR: it's anti-social. I'm shutting myself off from anyone else in my apartment in a way a normal video game doesn't do. It makes me way, way less excited about the potential of VR.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#118

Post by gwd »

scottlocklin wrote: post #95

"Why we've never fallen in love with 3-d glasses" -fixed the title. Science fiction predictions of the future are almost universally comically bad. People should know this by now; we completely lack positronic brains, warp drives, moon bases and tricorders. VR is a science fiction prediction of the future, just like positronic brains. The fact that people won't pay lots of money for a cheesy 3-d glasses experience as…

But we do have personal communicators, which are way better than sci fi ever depicted.

Re: Why we've never fallen in love with virtual reality

#120

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

gwbas1c wrote: post #106

I find that playing a game in VR is like listing to music in 5.1: It requires a lot of physical space and setup, which then limits the audience to a dedicated niche. The limitation, in this case, is being affluent enough to have a large empty indoor space to dedicate to VR so you don't bump into things as you walk around; and the desire to calibrate the thing correctly. It's like setting up a really good sound system…

As someone that lives in a "small nyc apartment" I'd say the blanket statement around vr and small spaces doesn't hold.

There's potential for extremely immersive experiences even in the Vive's smallest play area. Right now, as I see it, the bigger barriers to VR adpoption are cost of equipment and social norms. Right now VR tends to be an isolating experience, and there aren't a lot of experiences that allow for VR and non VR people to interact, let alone have multiple participants in the same space.

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