Meh, has Tadhg actually tried the Valve VR room demo? If he has't tried that demo, I question his credibility in claiming that VR doesn't work.<p>I'm as skeptical as any about the Oculus acquisition, but having experienced the Valve VR room demo (now owned by Oculus), I think we're a lot closer to the Matrix than anyone would have thought after looking at DK1. My first thoughts after taking the demo rig off was "wow, I'm going to have to reconsider what the next 10 years looks like for humanity."
Argument: VR is a non-starter because it only works with gaming PC's, which only uber-geeks still own and normal people think of as being just for work.<p>Response: What is an Xbox, if not a proprietary gaming PC? Sony is working on VR for the PS4. Meanwhile, Valve is trying to bring linux gaming PC's to the living room. This stuff is not going to be limited to work computers. Eventually, with a wireless connection or a sufficiently powerful mobile computer (i.e. Your phone in a few years), VR will be available wherever you feel like putting on a headset.<p>Argument: VR is only going to attract the hardcore gamers, and they don't trust Facebook, so nobody's going to buy.<p>Response: Oculus is just one of several big firms currently making major pushes into VR-land. Sony is another and you can bet MS won't be far behind.<p>Argument: Presence doesn't work if not everything is perfect, so VR is doomed.<p>Response: What do you have when you play a game through a monitor? Imperfect presence. You interact with a virtual world through a window. You frequently walk around in that world as a humanoid avatar speaking to other humanoids and you completely forget you're looking through a window into their world. Imperfect presence works. It even worked back when you could see pixels the size of your avatar's head. VR simply puts your head through the window and lets you look around. Why didn't it take off sooner then? Up until now, 2D windows had clearly superior lag properties and limited resolution meant things looked better on smaller displays. It's also pretty wasteful to blow pixels on peripheral vision, so we didn't bother when pixels were expensive. VR headsets don't have to be perfect to take off. They just have to be as good as 2D displays in the ways that matter.<p>P.S. Bluray cannot be considered dead until a viable alternative arises that addresses its market: Audio/Video-philes. This is a niche market, but a stable one.
I disagree with many of the arguments in the article. I think VR — especially on consoles — has a real chance of making it into gaming.<p>But I agree that it's not going to go mainstream, not in the way that smartphones have. VR is probably going to get popular with console and PC gamers, but I think many others simply will not care about presence. I say this as someone who has played with the Dev kits. They are fun, and magical experiences the first few times. But ultimately they get put away for more convenient entertainment that is just as engaging.<p>Edit: which is why the Facebook thing is so weird. I don't think anyone actually wants a metaverse. I think people want fun and interesting unique-to-VR game and simulation experiences.
Won't take off in the marketplace? Seems plausible. Doesn't produce novel experiences? Already false but maybe this can be spun convincingly. But <i>the technology can't possibly work</i>? That just seems silly.
The Facebook acquisition really seems to have broken some people's brains.<p>Either you think it works or doesn't, whether or not Facebook bought a company doesn't speak to the technology or possible market.
I think we'll be able to have great solutions to supplying our eyes and ears with believable virtual realities. But I'm not sure what we're going to do about our arms, hands and legs. I'm really interested to see how the experience on a VR treadmill is, I have a feeling it will leave a lot to be desired.
From what I've read, the problem of motion sickness present in the earlier Rifts (including Dev Kit 1) is mostly fixed in recent versions that incorporate positional tracking, because it reduces the disconnect between your head movement and what you see.
These arguments are so poorly constructed, I hope this was just meant to be link bait. Otherwise, the writer is quite ignorant of both the current state of VR and overall history (in my humble opinion).
he's apparently thinking its tablets and mobiles all the way down? - The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.