Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

glinden.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 418 posts

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#341

Post by ekianjo »

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

I remember not too long ago when the Wii and the Kinect were supposed to be the future of gaming (they were hugely popular at some point) before everyone got sick of standing playing games and went back to their couches.

Wondering if the same thing is not going to happen with VR as well.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#342

Post by ekianjo »

dougmwne wrote: post #89

I very much think that folks on HN are jaded by the long wait and the unfulfilled promises of VR. I recently picked up a Quest 2 as my first VR headset and I am blown away and convinced it is the future. The thing is, I also recognize that while it is already an incredible achievement, it's still probably 5-20 years from hitting its iPhone moment. By then, my initial excitement will have gone away and I'll have tired…

> let me tell you that this is an absolutely unstoppable evolution of computing.

If that's the case, the sales are hardly convincing. If this was such a revolution you'd see more people buying them. Beyond head tracking and movement tracking, the fact that you cant feel anything (no feedback) in the world you are supposed to be in makes it illusion breaking.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#343

Post by scpedicini »

vekker wrote: post #189
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there are probably some narrow applications where it’s clearly better than not having it, but I’m skeptical of VR as a platform. Fitness. It is much easier to grind in a VR game for an hour than it is to grind on a treadmill for the same amount of time. I have a Quest, the games suck, but the fitness experience is paradigm changing. Beat Saber was and still is the Quest's killer app, but there are lot of si…

Fitness? The idea of puffing and sweating inside a heavy VR headset doesn't seem very alluring to me for some reason... Besides, I personally think fitness should be about reconnecting with the body and the real world, not "grinding" and distracting yourself while getting this physical thing done.

I keep in good physical condition in every possible manner: running trails, playing soccer, lifting weights, hell even playing DDR.

Fitness is literally getting your body into a more physically fit form, it has nothing to do with "connecting with the real world.", whatever that means. I'm down with anything that motivates people to elevate their heart rate.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#345

Post by scpedicini »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #174
iguanayou wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could build actual things in an actual shed? This is the same impulse that drives people to build furniture, boats, and model train layouts. To me, the real physical objects are much more fulfilling.

Yeah, why weave animate things out of pure thoughtstuff in cyberspace, bounded only by your imagination and compute resources, when you could be messing with plywood in a shed?

Exactly, the fun is accidentally destroying your laboriously constructed circuit because you misread the resistor bands, or reversed the polarity. What's the point if I can just Ctrl-Z that shit and recompile?

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#346

Post by ilaksh »

standardUser wrote: post #6

It's a hard sell for an older (early 40's) gamer like me. I have far more games I want to play on my expensive PC than I have time for (or likely ever will). To consider investing in a new gaming technology it would have to be more enticing than the abundance of stuff I already have! And a lot of the games I'm eager to play are sequels/remakes of things I already know I enjoy immensely, so to draw me away would take…

I just turned 43 and Eleven Table Tennis and also the bowling game on Oculus Quest are my main avenues for exercise.

And I also have more video games than I could ever play but I have spent quite a lot more time in VR table tennis. It's very realistic and fun. And a lot easier to figure out than most of the games now which seemed to be designed to be as intricate as possible.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#347

Post by Noos »

chaostheory wrote: post #279
ColFrancis wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many people play wii sports? It was awesome fun, super novel, and was huge for a while there but now it's died off. It'll be interesting to see if VR does the same. One thing going for VR is that there's more than one company making stuff.

The problem with Wii Sports is that you couldn't make it a high intensity workout. High intensity workouts are a reality in VR. This is just one example out of many https://www.getsupernatural.com Even boxing is amazing and tiring https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3008315795852749

Don't need VR for that at all, Konami did a great arcade boxing game that was also quite the workout in 2001, called Mocap boxing:

https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8724

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#348

Post by scpedicini »

kreddor wrote: post #54
memetherapy wrote: post #28

The quest 2 is pretty much a revelation. Untethered, light, cheap, high quality display and inside out tracking and connects wirelessly to a gaming PC allowing you to play virtually any title if you pay $15 for vrdesktop. Obviously you have to be comfortable with facebook but it's just a better end to end experience than any other headset I've tried, although it would be better if VR desktop or something similar was…

Is it that much better than Quest 1? The first Quest was already pretty great compared to everything else, Facebook or not.

No, the resolution and refresh rates were increased but the field of vision was actually REDUCED from the already narrow oculus quest which had a fov of about 90 degrees. Think about that for a minute, the normal fov for a human is about 200 degrees.

It's like looking out of a damn periscope on a submarine, which is the first VR experience I would develop for the oculus quest.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#349

Post by irrational »

It will take off when Apple releases a VR headset (iVR?) At least, from my viewpoint that has been the impetus for many things taking off, even if they existed for years beforehand. Smart phones, tablets, watches, I can't think of any other examples but maybe there are some.

Re: When will virtual reality take off? The $100 bet

#350

Post by shostack »

outworlder wrote: post #143
chris_st wrote: post #22

I wonder how many people, like me, tried it on a friend's equipment and found that the motion sickness is just impossible to get past. I had motion sickness when I tried the early first-person shooters, but got over it when I learned to keep the (non-moving) screen bounds in mind. That' just impossible in VR, and when the motion in my eyes doesn't match my vestibular system, wow, it's bad. Sigh... some of the games w…

YMMV I guess. I have a pretty high tolerance for motion sickness in VR. However, if I play something like No Man's Sky for one hour, in the normal locomotion mode, my mouth will start to water, which for me is a prelude to nausea, so I have to stop. That's goes for other games too, even if the blank the peripheral vision(although that helps). I can play for 10 hours straight (and I have) if I use the teleportation me…

As I understand it, cockpit movement is not as bad because your brain doesn't think your body is moving when it isn't. It thinks the vehicle you are in is moving and is ok with that.
Post reply on HN