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In my case: a) neither are new or revolutionary, I've been following VR for literally 20+ years, and it's been around in various forms for decades longer b) d

by bane 11y ago

In my case: a) neither are new or revolutionary, I've been following VR for literally 20+ years, and it's been around in various forms for decades longer b) despite not being new or revolutionary, real solid use-cases for the technology hasn't really been found outside of "better stereoscopic presentation and head tracking for games" c) lots of the mistakes that were made in the first several rushes to 3d are obviously about to be made again d) to "do it right" (e.g. not using it as a fancy 3d-tv strapped to your head) requires lots of expensive equipment and facilities (space to move around in). People will have to make investments in completely changing not only their computing equipment, but even likely dedicating an entire empty room to the endeavor. e) all the fancy 3d use-cases that aren't in b) above are almost all better handled through existing user I/O schemes an awful lot of the stuff we're hearing sounds like yet another version of Mall Quest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94mwUGCkkg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94mwUGCkkg0) f) it's expensive, I mean seriously. Unless you're meeting minimum system specs in some way, you're looking at $1000+ minimum buy-in on the low-side. I can buy lots of other entertainment crap for $1000 and probably get better dollar/time ratios. g) it's still incredibly immature. There's at least 3-5 different major incompatible systems bouncing around. To fully participate in all this means costs for f) are x3-x5. It's not that I'm down on it. When I see VR/AR things, I think "that's cool" and think it'd be interesting to play a game for a couple hours (max) in VR-land. VR has always been cool and interesting. But the obvious downsides to the tech far outstrip any conceivable upside.

AndrewKemendo 11y ago
I think the thing that is new is that it's becoming accessible to the masses. PCs and Smartphones were certainly only for the "rich" to begin with but it quickly moved downmarket. This PSVR news is moving that downmarket accessibility faster for VR than happened in the PC market at a minimum. Your other points are spot on though, which is why I (and basically everyone else) thinks that the VR market has a cap, whereas the AR market really doesn't - at least until neural interfaces come along.
moron4hire 11y ago
If you've been following VR for 20+ plus years, then why do you have no clue what your talking about?
- bane 11y ago
  Maybe I have a blind spot, where an I wrong? (Vague "this'll change everything" statements don't count)
  - adventured 11y ago
    > despite not being new or revolutionary, real solid use-cases for the technology hasn't really been found outside of "better stereoscopic presentation and head tracking for games" That's an interestingly alternative way to say: VR presents a radically different, superior experience of immersion which no other current technology offers. Not to mention it's still in the first inning of development and is accelerating rapidly. You might as well be in 1952, claiming there has been no other use found for the transistor, other than radios.
    - kybernetikos 11y ago
      > VR presents a radically different, superior experience of immersion which no other current technology offers Well VR covers and has covered for many years a huge number of different technologies. I used a CAVE system decades ago, and I'd still call that VR. If there were some technology that provided a superior experience of immersion, we'd call that VR too, so that statement is pretty close to contentless. Whether or not a 'superior experience of immersion' is something that is worth paying significant chunks of money and the inconvenience that go with all hardware you need is the real question, and I tend towards suspecting that for the normal consumer with the hardware where it is at the moment the answer is still no. I still enjoy breaking the VIVE and the Oculus out on occasion, particularly to show people who haven't tried VR before, but neither of them have a huge chance of becoming something that I'll use frequently.
    - bane 11y ago
      so I'm basically filing your response under the "Vague "this'll change everything" statements don't count" clause. The Oculus, Vive etc. are merely the new kids on the block in a neighborhood that's been around for decades. > Not to mention it's still in the first inning of development and is accelerating rapidly. No, VR has literally been around for decades. I've used probably a dozen different systems over the years, some great, some terrible...at this point I feel like the hype machine is preying on either the young who don't remember or the uninformed who simply don't know. VR systems builders have some very hard problems to solve beyond head tracking and game-style hand controls to become immersive. There's probably 20 years alone researching haptic feedback systems and none of the ones I've used were all that great and had very large performance cost and capability trade-offs. Solving all of these problems means that all of the issues I highlighted in my grandparent post simply magnify.

by bane 11y ago

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

I think the thing that is new is that it's becoming accessible to the masses. PCs and Smartphones were certainly only for the "rich" to begin with but it quickly moved downmarket. This PSVR news is moving that downmarket accessibility faster for VR than happened in the PC market at a minimum. Your other points are spot on though, which is why I (and basically everyone else) thinks that the VR market has a cap, whereas the AR market really doesn't - at least until neural interfaces come along.

moron4hire 11y ago

If you've been following VR for 20+ plus years, then why do you have no clue what your talking about?

bane 11y ago
Maybe I have a blind spot, where an I wrong? (Vague "this'll change everything" statements don't count)
- adventured 11y ago
  > despite not being new or revolutionary, real solid use-cases for the technology hasn't really been found outside of "better stereoscopic presentation and head tracking for games" That's an interestingly alternative way to say: VR presents a radically different, superior experience of immersion which no other current technology offers. Not to mention it's still in the first inning of development and is accelerating rapidly. You might as well be in 1952, claiming there has been no other use found for the transistor, other than radios.
  - kybernetikos 11y ago
    > VR presents a radically different, superior experience of immersion which no other current technology offers Well VR covers and has covered for many years a huge number of different technologies. I used a CAVE system decades ago, and I'd still call that VR. If there were some technology that provided a superior experience of immersion, we'd call that VR too, so that statement is pretty close to contentless. Whether or not a 'superior experience of immersion' is something that is worth paying significant chunks of money and the inconvenience that go with all hardware you need is the real question, and I tend towards suspecting that for the normal consumer with the hardware where it is at the moment the answer is still no. I still enjoy breaking the VIVE and the Oculus out on occasion, particularly to show people who haven't tried VR before, but neither of them have a huge chance of becoming something that I'll use frequently.
  - bane 11y ago
    so I'm basically filing your response under the "Vague "this'll change everything" statements don't count" clause. The Oculus, Vive etc. are merely the new kids on the block in a neighborhood that's been around for decades. > Not to mention it's still in the first inning of development and is accelerating rapidly. No, VR has literally been around for decades. I've used probably a dozen different systems over the years, some great, some terrible...at this point I feel like the hype machine is preying on either the young who don't remember or the uninformed who simply don't know. VR systems builders have some very hard problems to solve beyond head tracking and game-style hand controls to become immersive. There's probably 20 years alone researching haptic feedback systems and none of the ones I've used were all that great and had very large performance cost and capability trade-offs. Solving all of these problems means that all of the issues I highlighted in my grandparent post simply magnify.