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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

#151

Post by capableweb »

tentboy wrote: post #150

Sim racing, or for those unaware of it: basically racing games with realistic physics and usually a competitive online racing field, is incredible in VR. The sense of speed and immersion with a good wheel and pedal setup in VR is unmatched by a monitor based setup. I tried it at a VR arcade and kept adding time to my session to keep playing. I have a fairly nice and expensive sim racing setup at home right now, but m…

Same for flight simulations (I'm using X-Plane and DCS World [DCS World has much better VR, better overall X-Plane is more fun]) with VR headset. With VR headset, it crushes any other simulators I've used, as the immersion increases and it becomes much more natural.

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

#152

Post by lostmsu »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #147
rafaelvasco wrote: post #134

The price. That's the only reason for me. Other than that it's wonderful; Once the prices reach affordable for the masses level, it will surely blow up, given the right apps come with it. People yearn to fantasize, break away from reality, new sensorial experiences etc. If VR offers that at good prices it'll be an explosion. That's my view on it.

100% this for me. Every 6 months or so I go and price out a VR capable desktop machine along with a headset. It's hard not to spend close to $2000 and still have confidence the rig will hold up in 2-3 years. I've seen builds out there around the $1000 price point with people marketing it as "VR-ready", but honestly I'm skeptical of what exactly that means and whether or not it's durable towards upcoming content. The…

Not sure what the two of you are talking about. You should be able to comfortably play with a <$1000 machine, including a headset (but not monitor).

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

#153

Post by mrec »

jotm wrote: post #14
timwaagh wrote: post #9

vr is just expensive and requires fairly high end hardware still. There are also are all kinds of software issues with it. like when i was playing a well known racing game, very often the camera would be somewhere other than the driver's seat. And those are the kind of games that really are quite heavy on vr adoption and are the natural fit for this type of control. many games do not naturally lend themself to vr, an…

FPS is actually the one amazing genre in VR... when it works right. Maybe someone will finally revive the First/Third Person RPG/RTS niche (not top down), which I really loved in BattleZone 1/2. I think it will work great in VR. But yeah, really resource intensive, Pimax says you'll need 2 GPUs (one per eye) to get the most performance out of their 8K headset.

What are the normal controls for player movement in a VR FPS? The WASD equivalent, I mean.

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

#155

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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…

Actually tricorders kinda exist, in that we have personal hand held computers with access to large databases of knowledge and a good number of environmental sensors.

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

#156

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

utf985 wrote: post #116
ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 i…

> There are some barriers for entry but, as I said they will eventually get ironed out.

That's what they said about 90s VR too. I mean, I guess "eventually" can technically still mean 30-40 years from now.

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

#157

Post by flyGuyOnTheSly »

I put a PS4 VR set on my head at my relatives over the holidays and I could not have been more disappointed.

They had just been gifted it for Christmas and were trying out all of the demos.

I put it on and while I could rotate my head in any direction like I was living inside some google maps experiment almost...

The picture was extremely blurry and the entire experience gave me a headache... after probably only 10 minutes of use.

I am not surprised that experience hasn't "taken off" yet. It was terrible.

I can't believe somebody paid good money for that.

As soon as I put it on all I could think was "damnit, we're still 20 years out from this actually working like we expect it to".

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

#158

Post by warp »

losvedir wrote: post #128
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…

I think you have it exactly backwards. VR might not catch on as readily among affluent folks who can afford to have all these great experiences in real life, but will be a great escape for others (yes, I'm aware some will see that as dystopian, but to me it's just a better TV). The Oculus Quest isn't like 5.1 sound at all. I kickstarted the original Oculus and would agree with your characterization there, but the Que…

I have an Oculus Quest. I like beat saber, but my office doesn't have enough room for it. The kids like Job/Vacation simulator, which sort of works seated, but is much better if you give it some room.

We have enough space if we move a table in the living room, but we have to do that every time we want to play. So to me it seems worse than the 5.1 setup, because you only have to do that once.

(Additionally, I don't want the lenses to get dusty, so I keep the Quest in a travel case -- so I have to remember to take it out of its case and charge it during the day if I plan to use it in the evening. The whole thing feels like a bunch of hassle)

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

#159

Post by cybwraith »

jotm wrote: post #14
timwaagh wrote: post #9

vr is just expensive and requires fairly high end hardware still. There are also are all kinds of software issues with it. like when i was playing a well known racing game, very often the camera would be somewhere other than the driver's seat. And those are the kind of games that really are quite heavy on vr adoption and are the natural fit for this type of control. many games do not naturally lend themself to vr, an…

FPS is actually the one amazing genre in VR... when it works right. Maybe someone will finally revive the First/Third Person RPG/RTS niche (not top down), which I really loved in BattleZone 1/2. I think it will work great in VR. But yeah, really resource intensive, Pimax says you'll need 2 GPUs (one per eye) to get the most performance out of their 8K headset.

Flight/Driving Sims are another amazing genre for VR.

Counterintuitively, I think large-scale strategy games are pretty awesome candidates for VR.

Third person games are also pretty amazing. If you have VR and haven't tried the free VR mode released for Hellblade, you're missing out.

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

#160

Post by kalado »

oblio wrote: post #142
ekianjo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

The Altair 8080 is considered the first PC and it was released in 1974. The IBM PC was released in 1981 and PCs became widespread only in the 1990's, when they started adding multimedia features. So about 20 years for mass adoption. The first touchscreen phone was introduced in 1994, the IBM Simon. Yet the first true modern smartphone to get mass adoption was the iPhone, 2007. And truly massive adoption worldwide hap…

With the exception that current VR devices are actually pretty good and much better than the first PC/Touchscreen phone.

It will probably be closer to 5 years than 10 year for the first mass adopted rig.

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