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I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet

125 points by r0h1n 10y ago

ggregoire 10y ago
I like new technologies but I never got excited about VR. Same for the general public in my opinion. It reminds me the Google glass (as "futuristic" product). Everyone in the tech community was obsessed about it but it made a big flop.
greenspot 10y ago
Not sure but the current and next VR gen might be the next smartwatch. Overhyped. Why => 1. You need an highres screen which must be pixel-free. Even if you throw Samsung's ppi front runners Note 5 or S7 into a Google cardboard you definitely see pixels; it's not crisp, it's not clear, it's just annoying and those monster phones have already 500-600ppi, more than any Oculus. So we need screens with 1000 ppi minimum because they sit so close in front of your eyes. We are used to crispy Retina noteboks and even higher res smartphone screens for years and shall now go back? 2. People are annoyed by Androids micro stuttering here and there, even the mainstream users and now we believe some milliseconds latency and stutter won't hurt VR? So here we need minimum 60 fps and even more since head movements can be quite quick and morever, even subtle movements which happen with your head all the time must be reflected with same sensivity. Didn't see this yet. 3. 1000ppi at 60fps? Ok, let's try to get hardware for this; you need hardware with the best avail GPUs, coolers, heatpipes, and fat cables to your lovely headset since batteries won't help. So we talk about a non-mobile product, something with cables keeping you at one position. And a price tag far away for the mainstream user. Once this thing can be sold next to the Playstation for few hundred bucks at the quality mentioned in 1 and 2 + killer apps we are ready to go and we can talk again about mainstream adoption. To get there I assume that we need min. 10 years if not more. And even then, if we are there and have 1+2+3 fulfilled I come up with my 4th point: 4. Great about games is that I sit on my sofa and can conquer the world without moving at all. All is done with my fingertips on my controller. Moving is exhausting--and thats the point of video games: to not run yourself and climb mountains like you do in Uncharted 4 for days--even moving my head can get exhausting after a while and anyway head movements are also much faster done with my controller's right analogue stick. So, what's the point? Why do I need an headset when a large screen and my proven Playstation controller can do the same? Better immersion?
pdimitar 10y ago
Damn, an overhyped tech carried by massive paid PR campaigns is not holding up. SURPRISE! Never seen that before in human history, no sir. I find Jeff Atwood's piece on VR to be the truest of them all. He nails it at every point.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Can you link to it?
  - shpx 10y ago
    https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-ok/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-ok/
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      Thanks. There's lots of great points in there, though I have demo'd an old oculus with a Leap Motion that could track both hands and all fingers with ease. Why it isn't bundled and contended by not, I do not know. Even before this article was published I was saying (I'm sure others were as well) that the reality that the Oculus lets people share is that of a black box strapped to their faces. I guess the reality phase of the hype cycle has now hit.
RyJones 10y ago
I'm in the same place - I probably got 12 hours of gameplay out of it before I unplugged mine. It is exhausting and frustrating to use.
- __david__ 10y ago
  Exhausting in what way? Is it too heavy, or is it somehow cognitively expensive?
  - usrusr 10y ago
    I used to do flight simulation with a head tracker to control the virtual cockpit perspective. Hardly any mass added over regular headphones, but it was a world of a difference between holding my head in whatever position that felt comfortable to see the screen and holding it in exactly the right angle to point the camera to where I wanted. It's fun and a great improvement over manually controlling the camera, but also surprisingly exhausting.
  - RyJones 10y ago
    When I play TF2 in 2D, I guess it's far enough away from reality that I don't try to understand what I'm seeing. When I play it in the Rift, I see a bunch of stuff that isn't quite right. I don't think it's the uncanny valley, because the game is still a cartoon. I really can't explain it any better than the author: after I play for a while, I need a nap.
    - kinkdr 10y ago
      Like the 3D TV syndrome?
- hesdeadjim 10y ago
  The Vive is an infinitely better experience currently. Hand controls and sub-millimeter tracking precision in a room up to 12x12 makes all the difference.
  - 10y ago
sillysaurus3 10y ago
Apparently I can't read this article due to using adblock. Neither visiting the article nor the "web" workaround work. http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png Fascinating. I wonder what the web will look like in a decade. On-topic: I was one of the original backers of Oculus, but missed the opportunity to get a free Rift. I guess it didn't matter much. It seems like what happened to the Oculus is what happened to many platforms throughout history: No killer app on launch day = no uptake.
- taneq 10y ago
  I almost didn't click the link because of this, then remembered I'm on my iPad and so don't have ad blocking. Holy crap there are a lot of ads on that story. I stopped reading after the third huge animated ad. How do people use the web generally without ad blocking? Back on topic, the Vive's room scale tracking really makes the difference IMO. The Rift seems more like just a fancy display device, whereas the Vive enables a whole new class of experiences.
- saganus 10y ago
  Yeah, me either. At first I kind of thought of disabling stuff so I Could read Forbes but I've found so much crap lately that I don't bother anymore.
- shripadk 10y ago
  You have to wait a good 1 minute or 2 for the article to load. I have found this issue with all of Forbes articles when I have adblock turned on.
- pvg 10y ago
  https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer does a decent job when used with uBlock on Chrome (without the whatevermonkey script). It gets past the Forbes nonsense, at least.
- ivan_ah 10y ago
  Something that I've found to work on a lot of the paywalls is to half-load the page and then hit the escape button to stop some of the media and js from loading. The payall script hasn't had time to load yet so you can see the full article... Note this might be harded to pull off if you have really fast Internet...
symlinkk 10y ago
> The headset doesn’t always fit quite right, and the experience can be straight up exhausting I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while. I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account its strengths and weaknesses. This is actually one of the reasons I think Oculus has a good chance at succeeding in the VR world - they've had the tech for quite a while and have had time to figure out how to make a good VR experience. The camera on a rail in Lucky's Tale is a good example of Oculus Studios thinking in new ways about how to design VR games. It's a new medium, and it's going to take some trial and error before we figure out how to use it correctly. > telling them to spend $600+ on a headset right now would just be madness, given the relatively small scope of the software at present I think the author should have expected that there's not much software out there, after all this is a totally new market, there's not going to be many games for it after all. I remember the day the PS3 came out there were very few games for it, and that was Sony's 3rd console. Give it some time. Overall, I think VR has enormous potential. Give Virtual Desktop a try, or a deep VR game like Elite: Dangerous, or even something simple but polished like Lucky's Tale.
- a_bonobo 10y ago
  >I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account its strengths and weaknesses. Nintendo did this nicely with the Wii controllers - you can flail your arms around wildly, but it also works when you flip your wrist a little bit
- reustle 10y ago
  > I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while Is this really the day and age we live in where needing to mov e your head around is considered a con? You move your head around all the time while walking around, driving, etc and nobody complains about that
  - the_rosentotter 10y ago
    The problem is that these devices limit your field of view a lot. So, like when wearing a mask, you have to turn your head quite a lot to get stuff into the center of vision field, which quickly gets very annoying and tiring.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
The Vive has issues, comfort issues especially, but it's a good setup. I can't say the same for the Rift, and the controls don't help.
philliphaydon 10y ago
I was going to preorder but ultimately I opted not to simply because there's no real use case, yet. It's still too early. I believe in a few years it will be worth it but I just don't want to be an early adopter on demo ware.
BuckRogers 10y ago
A few points that stood out to me. 1. He has the wrong headset. VR needs roomspace or it's just not going to be worth it. Yes gametime on the extreme end will go down in VR. That's very welcome by many of us finely aged gamers who don't have much time anyway for 6 to 12 hour sessions anymore (or don't want to invest that kind of time). I'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than 12 hours of Civilization (which I already put countless hours into during the early 90s anyway). 2. He did nail the second thing that needs to happen when he said the cords were a mess: the need for a self-contained VR system with no cords. Cell phone VR for the basic setup and a more powerful and immersive but also wirefree all-in-one VR outfit is where it'll be at in the longterm. Think Powergloves and the whole deal. 3. Main issue here is that this as an author who doesn't know what he needs. But what he needs is a killer app. Once someone figures out what that is, it'll explode.
- girvo 10y ago
  > I'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than 12 hours of Civilization I'm not finely aged, as I'm only 25, but I feel the exact same way. One thing I loved about Quantum Break recently was the fascinating live-action video that breaks up each chapter of the single-player game. I'm a fan of immersive experiences, so the 2-3 hours a week I spend gaming have a bigger impact on me and are more enjoyable.
gear54rus 10y ago
Gonna derail this a bit, but what the fck is up with stock indicators in these 'news' posts? Seeing more and more of that lately. Who even cares about that: https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png when they came to read a story such as this. Is this some useless bs marketing move or am I missing something. Please explain.
- Mayzie 10y ago
  It's Forbes. That's their industry and target audience.
  - gear54rus 10y ago
    So maybe someone from that industry can comment if that helps anyone at all?
    - newacct23 10y ago
      If there is news about a company and it's recent it might be interesting information how the stock of the company is affected? It's useful information for the people that normally read Forbes.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        It makes sense for breaking news. Looking at a single day's stock movement doesn't make any sense for a discussion of a product that came out months ago.
    - whamlastxmas 10y ago
      It's not supposed to be helpful, it's an interstitial ad. The point is to make you click on it so you get sent to a feed of stories about Facebook and another page full of ads.
onewaystreet 10y ago
There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an enthusiast want to use either of them for more than a few hours.
- asadlionpk 10y ago
  The thing is, without good a standard controller and tracking there can't be any good software other than tech demos.
- askafriend 10y ago
  You say "few hours" but I'd go even further and say "few minutes".
- MatthaeusHarris 10y ago
  Literally every person I've put into my Vive has been blown away by it. Sure, there's probably some selection bias, but I've been buttonholing anyone who sets foot in my house, including my 70-year-old in-laws. So far, of the 20+ people to whom I've shown it, one has taken it off voluntarily, and all had variations of, "Holy shit, this is really amazing."
  - imh 10y ago
    I had that reaction to my brother's Vive too. It was really amazing. But that doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't spend more than $30 on one. Despite being blown away, there are no compelling games and it gave me a headache.
    - jobigoud 10y ago
      > it gave me a headache This is possibly because the interpupillary distance wasn't correctly calibrated for your eyes, which means you didn't get the correct scale and depth of things (hard to notice explicitly except that your brain doesn't like it).
kranner 10y ago
It's especially a problem if you live in a hot and humid climate like I do. No matter what I did I could not prevent the lenses from fogging over and I tried everything from antifog sprays for ski masks to stuffing paper towels into the sides of the headset. The steamy, foggy, bad-smelling experience contributes as much to the nausea, or at least it exacerbates it in my experience.
- visarga 10y ago
  Perhaps it needs active ventilation.
  - kranner 10y ago
    Forgot to mention that I tried that as well with a USB fan. Something like this one: http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-Portable-Mini-USB-Fan-SDL411733852-1-2d34f.jpg http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-Portable-Min... But yes, an in-built fan (if it weren't too noisy) should help a lot.
    - ethbro 10y ago
      You might want to look up fans for paintball helmets. From memory, most of them run off battery, but you could probably have them to use 5v USB. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan Biggest advantage being that they're specifically designed to move air down through a set of goggles.
      - kranner 10y ago
        Thanks!
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    I'm not sure how you'd maintain a breeze across the eye area that wasn't noticeable and distracting, though.
- 10y ago
wmeddie 10y ago
VR headsets that are attached to big PCs are very much a solo-thing at the moment. I can understand wanting to play a multi-player game like Halo while visiting a friend's house. I got my Oculus Rift a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. Practically use it every day. Lucky's Tale was surprisingly good, and I can no longer Elite: Dangerous without the headset. There's not enough software at the moment. I still want to see a good flight simulator and Altspace-like spaces with actual things to do with people.
- exodust 10y ago
  I wonder if 3 monitors side by side would be good enough to replace your headset with Elite? Combined with headtracking so when you look at left monitor, the view shifts slightly with your head movement? Or is it that you're completely enclosed in the world more important?
  - Tech1 10y ago
    I've got a triple head setup and a TrackIR v5 and play a lot of flight / combat (DCS series) sims (with a Warthog HOTAS), ARMA 3, and Elite Dangerous. It's worth it. I'm still standoff ish on VR till my setup can be replicated, but I think I'm an outlier in the target market.
    - exodust 10y ago
      Sounds good. I might invest in a dedicated setup like that. One of the advantages of a triple monitor setup is that our eyes can instantly scan around the screens with only a small amount of head movement. With VR the same move requires a larger head turn, and the resolution not as good. Not to mention the nice desktop area.
yarrel 10y ago
They need to open up the wire protocol. Let people innovate outside their walled garden.
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  The Vive is open, as far as I know. Only the OR is closed.
cheerioty 10y ago
Wrong headset :# I could spend days in the Vive and Google Tiltbrush alone.
jkelsey 10y ago
I did the Oculus demo at a Best Buy. The technology is incredibly impressive, but I found the experience annoying. Besides the face sweat, I just can't envision myself coming home and enjoying my time in a headset the same way I can enjoy myself in front of a TV or computer, and I think that's because you can't see around your physical space without taking the headset on and off. Maybe I'm just being a troglodyte about VR. I can admit that much.
- ARCarr 10y ago
  The HTC Vive has a camera on the front you can turn on to see around your environment.
  - pen2l 10y ago
    Oh wow, I did not know that. So basically, Vive is a potential AR device as well. Speaking of which, I have the mattel view-master headset that I use with an iphone 6. If you use the default mattel app, the device looks through the camera, and when it sees the disc that comes along it (this one: http://www8.pcmag.com/media/images/488976-mattel-view-master-virtual-reality-vr-viewer-starter-pack.jpg?thumb=y http://www8.pcmag.com/media/images/488976-mattel-view-master... ) -- it renders a rocket spinning on top of it. So even the cheap headsets allow a VR... but of course, the lag and stuff kind of bring it down and make it very headache-inducing. Of course the best AR experience is one where reality is not see through a re-render picture of stuff captured from camera, but simple you seeing the stuff around you through a glass because nothing beats reality.
    - SimonPStevens 10y ago
      No, not quite. It's a single camera mounted in the centre. So it can't do stereoscopic 3d and although the resolution is OK, it's not great. Currently you can bring the camera up as a floating window attached to you controller that lets you look out into the real world. It's kind of like looking at the world on a tablet screen in your hand. I believe they recently have provided access to the camera stream via the API, so we might see developers start integrating it into things, but it's never going to be like AR.
Animats 10y ago
I still think VR headsets are the next 3D TV. Yes, they're cool, for a few days. Yes, some hardcore FPS gamers like them. There's a modest market for them. But it may not be that big.
- Taek 10y ago
  Have you tried a Vive? It's much more significant when you can walk around and grab things.
- XorNot 10y ago
  The difference between 3D TV and VR is staggering. I hate 3D TV (and movies) but was instantly amazed and wanted more of VR. VR's biggest problem is tech needs to catch up - i.e. the race is towards doing retina-resolution VR, at which point it's game-over for monitor tech. 3D TV is about as good as it's ever going to get, with a lot of really obvious limitations.
- drewrv 10y ago
  3D TV's were pushed by the manufacturers as a way to sell more tvs. Consumers are demanding VR as evidenced by the oculus kickstarter and preorder volume.
laichzeit0 10y ago
This is not surprising. VR is currently in the "peak of inflated expectations" in terms of the Hype Cycle [1]. Sit it out for another 2 years before taking another look at it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
Viper007Bond 10y ago
Honestly the only reason I'm excited to get one is for racing simulators. Rather than trying to sit close to a big TV or having multiple displays, you can just use one of these for the immersion. Plus you can look around like you would in a real car. Great example (with a bit of augmented reality via green screen mixed in): https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk
- teh_klev 10y ago
  Not poo-pooing that video, but not sure if you read the short FAQ in the description: FAQ - No, i can´t see my hands or the steering wheel while playing, it´s done in video editing - I´m using the Oculus Rift DK2 with runtime 0.6 - The block dot comes from unwarping the Rift video, I´m sorry for that, but i couldn´t get rid of it - Greenscreen is to make my room invisible so i can edit real and virtual view together - The poor resolution is because i record with 1080p but then have to crop the picture down the the view of one eye in 16:9 so i get less than 720p. This will get better as soon as i get the final verion of the Rift or the Vive That said, I'd totally buy into VR if I could do that. For now I think I'll wait for a bit.
  - Viper007Bond 10y ago
    Right, as I says it's augmented reality but what he sees (other than his hands and wheels) is right. Another without that: https://youtu.be/7R5swCafrOs https://youtu.be/7R5swCafrOs
- bencoder 10y ago
  Yeah, I use my DK2 pretty much solely for a flight simulator (FSX with Flyinside). I'm learning to fly in real life and it turns FSX into a realistic way of training for GA flying, rather than only instrument procedures - being able to look around out the windows makes all the difference.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    If you are into flight simulation, then you are likely to have experience with the old head tracker / desktop monitor combo as well. How do those experiences compare? (I'm asking because I have spent quite a bit of time doing headtracked virtual piloting, zero with a VR headset)
cloudjacker 10y ago
> Despite my surprising lack of interest in VR, I recognize that it is the future. This isn’t one company making some gimmicky piece of tech .... and lord knows when Apple unveils their own VR headset, it’ll be game over. oh geez, this means nothing.
Blackthorn 10y ago
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for mine to ship at the end of June / start of July :-( I love flight and racing sims, so I expect to get a lot more use out of it.
bunkydoo 10y ago
VR is going to be somewhat like the advent of the 3D television in 2010-ish. Every manufacturer will make one, few people will buy one, and the people who do will likely only use it on novelty occasions. VR is really only a stepping stone to augmented reality, and mixed reality mobile operating systems. On a side note Oculus and WhatsApp seem to be some of the dumbest expenditures Facebook could have ever made. 13 billion dollars for a messaging app. Thats 13 trips to the moon and back... But fuck it, we will just eat Cheetos and do a computer simulation of a moon mission in an Oculus. #MillennialLyfe
- Trundle 10y ago
  We've been to the moon plenty. At some point one has to ask "why do we keep visiting a big desert that's difficult to get to?" It doesn't create any value for any one. WhatsApp does.
- colmvp 10y ago
  I think 3D television was a mere incremental improvement whereas the immersion of VR is the next stepping stone of entertainment. Though, I think the full-room experiences are a bit of fad as seated experiences are more comfortable and relatable to how we've always consumed various forms of relaxing entertainment. Instead of the simplistic interactions, I honestly wouldn't mind it if I used a keyboard and mouse interface but wore a VR helmet at my desk, since I never look down anyway. And I'm also betting that VR porn has the potential to be hugely addictive. The reviews of initial explorations are fairly lukewarm but it's still way too early to discount that effort.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    There is quite big market for non-seated entertainment - Wii, Kinect, etc have shown that. It is a very different market from the people who currently have high-end gaming PCs suitable for VR, but the number of people who like and want full-room experiences is quite large.
    - usrusr 10y ago
dclowd9901 10y ago
It's been my complaint since the beginning: This isn't virtual reality. It's clever, non-sickening head tracking. Great. Now I won't throw up when I move my head around in a 3D space. We're a bit closer, but not nearly close enough, to total immersion. You can play a racing game or a flying game and get some pretty good immersion, maybe even trick your brain here or there. But VR is a fever dream until we understand how brain impulses work and can manipulate them directly to simulate experience. Of course, by then, we'll probably be questioning the whole thing altogether.
- purplelobster 10y ago
  Have you completely missed the HTC Vive?
  - dclowd9901 10y ago
    Not at all. Spatial tracking is great but it's still arbitrarily limited. You're not walking through an environment; you might as well be in a closet simulator.
partycoder 10y ago
Well... I was an early adopter for the Amazon Echo. Initially it was about the same, novelty but practically useless, until new integrations were added and now I make extensive use of it.
- cm2187 10y ago
  But the headsets are not going to get any lighter with time unless you buy new ones.
  - partycoder 10y ago
    I think there will be more relevant applications of VR. Today there is very few software that is VR specific
Negative1 10y ago
Summary; VR is a great novelty but it wears out and then you're just left with sub-par looking games lacking replay value and quality. It's super expensive and the games aren't very engaging (no killer app yet). The competitor landscape is also confusing and there's a lot of innovation still left to be done by industry heavyweights (namely Google and Apple). Basically, VR is here but the experience isn't sticky enough due to lack of great software. Sound familiar?
cm2187 10y ago
Entirely agree with the article. There is a quote by Clemenceau: "the best time in love is when I walk up the stairs". I'd say by best time with VR is the time between ordering and receiving it...
newhouseb 10y ago
To me, the most exciting thing about VR (particularly on the Vive) is not anything gaming related but the possibilities around creation and collaboration that are opened up by being able to program in "the real world." If you've played with Tiltbrush at all you can see a glimpse of this. Your brain's implicit understanding of your presence in 3D space is incredibly vital to understanding the shapes and structure that you see with your eyes. You can imagine many design fields: fashion, furniture, architecture, etc can all have a dramatically reduced leap between conceptualization and realization. A lot of people are quick to dismiss VR and present AR as the future, but I think a more constructive way to think about it is that VR is AR without the walls punched out (yet). Realistically, we all spend the majority of our lives in a couple rooms (an office and a bedroom), so by moving to AR the largest benefit is going to be comfort. So many potential new interactions are ripe for exploring today, even in VR (not to mention the Vive has a front-facing camera anyway, although the latency can be a bit nauseating).
- return0 10y ago
  I await for the current hype to calm down for the same reason. I see it as the natural evolution of monitors.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Tiltbrush on the Vive is friggin amazing. The thing with it is that it's not just a painting app. If the brush width is set to wide and style to solid it's the most fluid and intuitive 3D modeling system I've ever used. I'm a hobbyist artist - using the Vive for a first time I could sculpt a 3d figure, life sized, in front of me in just minutes. (Professinal 3D designers are probably faster than that on their 3D system of choice but I'm just an accidental hobbyist). I would guess the better one can generate shapes from memory the more amazing the experience is. This will be huge with designers.
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  Yup. There's a lot going on right now with people making tools for sculpture, for design, and even stuff like minecraft is a blast on the vive. I've had mine three weeks and managed to spend 6 hours in it solidly on Saturday - 30 minutes and you need a nap? Please. Better make some ovaltine and put your slippers on. On the other hand, I can't take more than 30 minutes of holopoint - it's physically intense and leaves you a sweaty wreck. As to motion controllers "perhaps being more intuitive" - I'm guessing he hasn't used them. They're not "more intuitive" they're your damned hands, joining your head in another world. I mean, I suppose hands are useful in interacting with the world. I strapped my 90 year old granddad in, and he was immediately having a blast flipping burgers in job simulator - and this is a guy who fumbles with his iPad. So - motion controllers are not "perhaps more intuitive", unless you count your hands as "perhaps more intuitive" to pick things up with than your mouth. Other "game changer" stuff - altspace vr is the nearest thing to Stephenson's metaverse I can conceive of - it's not like sitting at home chatting on irc watching a stream of something with others - it's like meeting people and going somewhere. It's all well and good going "I'll wait five generations", but a) you're missing out on pre-september vr and b) if nobody buys devices there won't be five generations.
vectorpush 10y ago
I think the problem isn't so much that the tech isn't ready, it's simply that the software is immature. Everyone has been rushing hard to get this tech out the door, but software developers haven't really had time to produce much beyond "app-store" quality content which tends to lack lasting replay value. We all know it takes a lot of time to produce high quality software and there is still a lot of experimentation that needs to happen before developers lock onto the techniques that provide the optimal experience. People aren't going to keep putting on their headset just to look at tech demos, they're going to keep coming back to experience the well designed, super fun, highly addictive title that they've been playing obsessively, just like on every other platform.
- throwaway13337 10y ago
  It's a chicken and egg problem. Because the hardware is so niche, the software makers don't have an audience to justify a big investment. What's more, content - even if it becomes the Mario of the VR - is not as important as the platform itself for control. Companies and investors realize this and so they focus on platforms. And so we have a bunch of companies vying for a turn at the platform while no one wants to make content.
  - hayksaakian 10y ago
    there's no 'mario' or 'angry birds' of VR yet, that opportunity is wide open for the right company
    - usrusr 10y ago
      There is not much of an opportunity, because a market capped at one copy per headset is tiny. People did not buy smartphones because they wanted to play angry birds, they played because they already had a phone. What smartphones had and VR will never have is a feature like pinch to zoom: something that not only looks impressive but also happens to be routinely demonstrated in a social setting, without the explicit intention of showing off.
- exodust 10y ago
SystemOut 10y ago
I have to agree with most, if not all, of what this article is saying. Some friends of mine brought over their gaming rig and the Vive over. My kids loved it, it was pretty cool and all but there is no way I'm spending 2K to buy a gaming PC and the Vive. On top of that, you need a 3m by 4m room to play the better games so anytime I want to play I have to clear out a room in the house or dedicate it basically. For a game system? No. For this to go big, and eventually I think it will, you need the headset to be wireless, the goggles have to be lighter, and the video card necessary to power the thing needs to be an appliance. I'm guessing once the consoles can handle it we might see more traction. I also would like to see the hand controllers something more along the lines of a set of light weight gloves or something that allows finger and gesture tracking. Basically, Minority Report. When I was playing hollow point and budget cuts on the vive I really wanted something like that.
creed 10y ago
I think the fact that we don't know how to use any of this at the moment just shows how new and game changing this all is. You can't just copy/paste any of the old stuff onto this new medium, it just doesn't work that way and you certainly cannot compare this to 3D tv/cinema... ..and I think the people that got hyped the most also completely underastimated the tectonic shift needed in order to make any of this really entertaining. I think of the "visual" component of the VR problem as solved and am now looking forward to seeing how the "interactive" component of the problem will be solved. Because you need to perceive the world, check, but now you need to be able to interact with it: not solved yet. But people got waaaay to excited seeing only the visual aspect solved...
frik 10y ago
I tried various VR, AR, 3D glasses (shutter, anaglyph) and autostereoscopy displays in the last 20 years. There were several hypes and fads (like 3D TVs and movies) and VR glasses seems like another fad - especially as soon as more and more tried them and cannot imagine to use it for general purpose gaming - it's more relevant for niche topics. Autostereoscopy displays and AR might get a broader audience in future. But current prototype AR devices like HoloLens are a far cry what would be possible, and at the moment a lot of demos are faked to hype unfinished devices, as the reality is that AR is won't be ready for another 3 years (e.g. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-im-Haertetest-3208736.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-im... ). A problem of VR and AR-prototypes is motion sickness, that some people have (from my experience often people who have not 100% eye sight) - I never got motion sickness, but I saw some fellows vomitting on the lab floor (carpet). Autostereoscopy displays like in the Nintendo 3DS handheld console have its appeal as there is no ugly glass needed and technically it's possible to support a group of people, instead of just one person. So in near future our smartphones and TVs may have such a 3D display. And given a 4k LCD panel one can still get a 1080p or 720p 3D resolution out of it, that's already enough and it will be cheap. And with back projection technology even projectors could be used for 3D autostereoscopy.
reedlaw 10y ago
I know a few people who feel sick just playing a FPS game on a regular computer monitor for more than a few minutes. Even on a high-end system 3D environments can cause motion sickness. So I believe it will be a long time until VR technology overcomes these problems.
- fsloth 10y ago
  The solution is to map the movement in the VR to only users movements. HTC vive and Hololens both do this. Oculus almost makes me puke each time I try it but not so with Vive or Hololens.
- exodust 10y ago
  Some FPS games make the mistake of limiting field of view, which can cause motion sickness on regular monitors. A wide field of view and high frame rate greatly improves things. With VR, it's a combination of frame rate and as the comment above mentions - too much movement. In No Limits 2 rollercoaster for example, you can walk around the park and get on the coaster, ride the coaster, then get off and walk around again - it's too much. The best VR I saw was sitting on virtual chair and things happening around you.. or the chair slowly moves through environment with deliberate and smooth velocity.
vmp 10y ago
I had the DK2 and pretty much the same thing happened, boxed and shelved after a week, after I tried all the best demos - although for a different reason: the eye-strain and nausea was too much to bear for me. I couldn't really explain it since other people, family members and friends, could wear it just fine for any amount of time. I wear glasses but neither lenses or any settings offered relieve, guess I'm simply too sensitive to enjoy current-gen VR. Also the DK2 drivers were glitchy - had to plug in an old 19" monitor because the only way the rift would run at its designed 75Hz was with a primary monitor that supported it too, it's been a real hassle to switch from a nice 27" 1440p display to 1280x1024 and back, only to get really bad judder ingame because either the game wasn't using the latest SDK version or my GPU couldn't keep up (gtx 670 with an i7-2600k). Direct-To-Rift mode should have fixed these issues (judder primarily) but it rarely worked for me. Note that I never tried the CV1 or any other HMD so far, nor do I really plan to. My DK2 experience has been sobering but I am hopeful for future generations.
- madaxe_again 10y ago
  I had a dk2, and the nausea was real. Had to put it down and sit there pale and sweaty many times. In the vive, at 90fps and all the other bells and whistles - none, even dogfighting in elite, even stick-moving in minecraft. That said, a gtx 670 would be marginal at best - a 970 is the official min spec, and the new generation of pascal cards are essentially built for vr.
  - vmp 10y ago
    That's interesting to hear. The Vive has some unique features that make it sound really cool too. What about screen-door effect? Texts in EliteDangerous weren't readable at all. I'm planning on getting a gtx 1070 once they are out for some sweet sweet 1440p gaming, the 670 served me well but just doesn't cut it anymore for anything higher than 1080p.
    - selectodude 10y ago
      Apparently the Elite Dangerous text issue is an HTC Vive issue. There's no text issue at all on the Oculus.

125 points by r0h1n 10y ago

I like new technologies but I never got excited about VR. Same for the general public in my opinion. It reminds me the Google glass (as "futuristic" product). Everyone in the tech community was obsessed about it but it made a big flop.

greenspot 10y ago

Not sure but the current and next VR gen might be the next smartwatch. Overhyped. Why => 1. You need an highres screen which must be pixel-free. Even if you throw Samsung's ppi front runners Note 5 or S7 into a Google cardboard you definitely see pixels; it's not crisp, it's not clear, it's just annoying and those monster phones have already 500-600ppi, more than any Oculus. So we need screens with 1000 ppi minimum because they sit so close in front of your eyes. We are used to crispy Retina noteboks and even higher res smartphone screens for years and shall now go back? 2. People are annoyed by Androids micro stuttering here and there, even the mainstream users and now we believe some milliseconds latency and stutter won't hurt VR? So here we need minimum 60 fps and even more since head movements can be quite quick and morever, even subtle movements which happen with your head all the time must be reflected with same sensivity. Didn't see this yet. 3. 1000ppi at 60fps? Ok, let's try to get hardware for this; you need hardware with the best avail GPUs, coolers, heatpipes, and fat cables to your lovely headset since batteries won't help. So we talk about a non-mobile product, something with cables keeping you at one position. And a price tag far away for the mainstream user. Once this thing can be sold next to the Playstation for few hundred bucks at the quality mentioned in 1 and 2 + killer apps we are ready to go and we can talk again about mainstream adoption. To get there I assume that we need min. 10 years if not more. And even then, if we are there and have 1+2+3 fulfilled I come up with my 4th point: 4. Great about games is that I sit on my sofa and can conquer the world without moving at all. All is done with my fingertips on my controller. Moving is exhausting--and thats the point of video games: to not run yourself and climb mountains like you do in Uncharted 4 for days--even moving my head can get exhausting after a while and anyway head movements are also much faster done with my controller's right analogue stick. So, what's the point? Why do I need an headset when a large screen and my proven Playstation controller can do the same? Better immersion?

pdimitar 10y ago

Damn, an overhyped tech carried by massive paid PR campaigns is not holding up. SURPRISE! Never seen that before in human history, no sir. I find Jeff Atwood's piece on VR to be the truest of them all. He nails it at every point.

jsprogrammer 10y ago
Can you link to it?
- shpx 10y ago
  https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-ok/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-ok/
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Thanks. There's lots of great points in there, though I have demo'd an old oculus with a Leap Motion that could track both hands and all fingers with ease. Why it isn't bundled and contended by not, I do not know. Even before this article was published I was saying (I'm sure others were as well) that the reality that the Oculus lets people share is that of a black box strapped to their faces. I guess the reality phase of the hype cycle has now hit.

RyJones 10y ago

I'm in the same place - I probably got 12 hours of gameplay out of it before I unplugged mine. It is exhausting and frustrating to use.

__david__ 10y ago
Exhausting in what way? Is it too heavy, or is it somehow cognitively expensive?
- usrusr 10y ago
  I used to do flight simulation with a head tracker to control the virtual cockpit perspective. Hardly any mass added over regular headphones, but it was a world of a difference between holding my head in whatever position that felt comfortable to see the screen and holding it in exactly the right angle to point the camera to where I wanted. It's fun and a great improvement over manually controlling the camera, but also surprisingly exhausting.
- RyJones 10y ago
  When I play TF2 in 2D, I guess it's far enough away from reality that I don't try to understand what I'm seeing. When I play it in the Rift, I see a bunch of stuff that isn't quite right. I don't think it's the uncanny valley, because the game is still a cartoon. I really can't explain it any better than the author: after I play for a while, I need a nap.
  - kinkdr 10y ago
    Like the 3D TV syndrome?
hesdeadjim 10y ago
The Vive is an infinitely better experience currently. Hand controls and sub-millimeter tracking precision in a room up to 12x12 makes all the difference.
- 10y ago

sillysaurus3 10y ago

Apparently I can't read this article due to using adblock. Neither visiting the article nor the "web" workaround work. http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png Fascinating. I wonder what the web will look like in a decade. On-topic: I was one of the original backers of Oculus, but missed the opportunity to get a free Rift. I guess it didn't matter much. It seems like what happened to the Oculus is what happened to many platforms throughout history: No killer app on launch day = no uptake.

taneq 10y ago
I almost didn't click the link because of this, then remembered I'm on my iPad and so don't have ad blocking. Holy crap there are a lot of ads on that story. I stopped reading after the third huge animated ad. How do people use the web generally without ad blocking? Back on topic, the Vive's room scale tracking really makes the difference IMO. The Rift seems more like just a fancy display device, whereas the Vive enables a whole new class of experiences.
saganus 10y ago
Yeah, me either. At first I kind of thought of disabling stuff so I Could read Forbes but I've found so much crap lately that I don't bother anymore.
shripadk 10y ago
You have to wait a good 1 minute or 2 for the article to load. I have found this issue with all of Forbes articles when I have adblock turned on.
pvg 10y ago
https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer does a decent job when used with uBlock on Chrome (without the whatevermonkey script). It gets past the Forbes nonsense, at least.
ivan_ah 10y ago
Something that I've found to work on a lot of the paywalls is to half-load the page and then hit the escape button to stop some of the media and js from loading. The payall script hasn't had time to load yet so you can see the full article... Note this might be harded to pull off if you have really fast Internet...

symlinkk 10y ago

> The headset doesn’t always fit quite right, and the experience can be straight up exhausting I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while. I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account its strengths and weaknesses. This is actually one of the reasons I think Oculus has a good chance at succeeding in the VR world - they've had the tech for quite a while and have had time to figure out how to make a good VR experience. The camera on a rail in Lucky's Tale is a good example of Oculus Studios thinking in new ways about how to design VR games. It's a new medium, and it's going to take some trial and error before we figure out how to use it correctly. > telling them to spend $600+ on a headset right now would just be madness, given the relatively small scope of the software at present I think the author should have expected that there's not much software out there, after all this is a totally new market, there's not going to be many games for it after all. I remember the day the PS3 came out there were very few games for it, and that was Sony's 3rd console. Give it some time. Overall, I think VR has enormous potential. Give Virtual Desktop a try, or a deep VR game like Elite: Dangerous, or even something simple but polished like Lucky's Tale.

a_bonobo 10y ago
>I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account its strengths and weaknesses. Nintendo did this nicely with the Wii controllers - you can flail your arms around wildly, but it also works when you flip your wrist a little bit
reustle 10y ago
> I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get really tiring after a while Is this really the day and age we live in where needing to mov e your head around is considered a con? You move your head around all the time while walking around, driving, etc and nobody complains about that
- the_rosentotter 10y ago
  The problem is that these devices limit your field of view a lot. So, like when wearing a mask, you have to turn your head quite a lot to get stuff into the center of vision field, which quickly gets very annoying and tiring.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

The Vive has issues, comfort issues especially, but it's a good setup. I can't say the same for the Rift, and the controls don't help.

philliphaydon 10y ago

I was going to preorder but ultimately I opted not to simply because there's no real use case, yet. It's still too early. I believe in a few years it will be worth it but I just don't want to be an early adopter on demo ware.

BuckRogers 10y ago

A few points that stood out to me. 1. He has the wrong headset. VR needs roomspace or it's just not going to be worth it. Yes gametime on the extreme end will go down in VR. That's very welcome by many of us finely aged gamers who don't have much time anyway for 6 to 12 hour sessions anymore (or don't want to invest that kind of time). I'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than 12 hours of Civilization (which I already put countless hours into during the early 90s anyway). 2. He did nail the second thing that needs to happen when he said the cords were a mess: the need for a self-contained VR system with no cords. Cell phone VR for the basic setup and a more powerful and immersive but also wirefree all-in-one VR outfit is where it'll be at in the longterm. Think Powergloves and the whole deal. 3. Main issue here is that this as an author who doesn't know what he needs. But what he needs is a killer app. Once someone figures out what that is, it'll explode.

girvo 10y ago
> I'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than 12 hours of Civilization I'm not finely aged, as I'm only 25, but I feel the exact same way. One thing I loved about Quantum Break recently was the fascinating live-action video that breaks up each chapter of the single-player game. I'm a fan of immersive experiences, so the 2-3 hours a week I spend gaming have a bigger impact on me and are more enjoyable.

gear54rus 10y ago

Gonna derail this a bit, but what the fck is up with stock indicators in these 'news' posts? Seeing more and more of that lately. Who even cares about that: https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png when they came to read a story such as this. Is this some useless bs marketing move or am I missing something. Please explain.

Mayzie 10y ago
It's Forbes. That's their industry and target audience.
- gear54rus 10y ago
  So maybe someone from that industry can comment if that helps anyone at all?
  - newacct23 10y ago
    If there is news about a company and it's recent it might be interesting information how the stock of the company is affected? It's useful information for the people that normally read Forbes.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      It makes sense for breaking news. Looking at a single day's stock movement doesn't make any sense for a discussion of a product that came out months ago.
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    It's not supposed to be helpful, it's an interstitial ad. The point is to make you click on it so you get sent to a feed of stories about Facebook and another page full of ads.

onewaystreet 10y ago

There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an enthusiast want to use either of them for more than a few hours.

asadlionpk 10y ago
The thing is, without good a standard controller and tracking there can't be any good software other than tech demos.
askafriend 10y ago
You say "few hours" but I'd go even further and say "few minutes".
MatthaeusHarris 10y ago
Literally every person I've put into my Vive has been blown away by it. Sure, there's probably some selection bias, but I've been buttonholing anyone who sets foot in my house, including my 70-year-old in-laws. So far, of the 20+ people to whom I've shown it, one has taken it off voluntarily, and all had variations of, "Holy shit, this is really amazing."
- imh 10y ago
  I had that reaction to my brother's Vive too. It was really amazing. But that doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't spend more than $30 on one. Despite being blown away, there are no compelling games and it gave me a headache.
  - jobigoud 10y ago
    > it gave me a headache This is possibly because the interpupillary distance wasn't correctly calibrated for your eyes, which means you didn't get the correct scale and depth of things (hard to notice explicitly except that your brain doesn't like it).

kranner 10y ago

It's especially a problem if you live in a hot and humid climate like I do. No matter what I did I could not prevent the lenses from fogging over and I tried everything from antifog sprays for ski masks to stuffing paper towels into the sides of the headset. The steamy, foggy, bad-smelling experience contributes as much to the nausea, or at least it exacerbates it in my experience.

visarga 10y ago
Perhaps it needs active ventilation.
- kranner 10y ago
  Forgot to mention that I tried that as well with a USB fan. Something like this one: http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-Portable-Mini-USB-Fan-SDL411733852-1-2d34f.jpg http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-Portable-Min... But yes, an in-built fan (if it weren't too noisy) should help a lot.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    You might want to look up fans for paintball helmets. From memory, most of them run off battery, but you could probably have them to use 5v USB. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan Biggest advantage being that they're specifically designed to move air down through a set of goggles.
    - kranner 10y ago
      Thanks!
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  I'm not sure how you'd maintain a breeze across the eye area that wasn't noticeable and distracting, though.
10y ago

wmeddie 10y ago

VR headsets that are attached to big PCs are very much a solo-thing at the moment. I can understand wanting to play a multi-player game like Halo while visiting a friend's house. I got my Oculus Rift a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. Practically use it every day. Lucky's Tale was surprisingly good, and I can no longer Elite: Dangerous without the headset. There's not enough software at the moment. I still want to see a good flight simulator and Altspace-like spaces with actual things to do with people.

exodust 10y ago
I wonder if 3 monitors side by side would be good enough to replace your headset with Elite? Combined with headtracking so when you look at left monitor, the view shifts slightly with your head movement? Or is it that you're completely enclosed in the world more important?
- Tech1 10y ago
  I've got a triple head setup and a TrackIR v5 and play a lot of flight / combat (DCS series) sims (with a Warthog HOTAS), ARMA 3, and Elite Dangerous. It's worth it. I'm still standoff ish on VR till my setup can be replicated, but I think I'm an outlier in the target market.
  - exodust 10y ago
    Sounds good. I might invest in a dedicated setup like that. One of the advantages of a triple monitor setup is that our eyes can instantly scan around the screens with only a small amount of head movement. With VR the same move requires a larger head turn, and the resolution not as good. Not to mention the nice desktop area.

yarrel 10y ago

They need to open up the wire protocol. Let people innovate outside their walled garden.

LeoPanthera 10y ago
The Vive is open, as far as I know. Only the OR is closed.

cheerioty 10y ago

Wrong headset :# I could spend days in the Vive and Google Tiltbrush alone.

jkelsey 10y ago

I did the Oculus demo at a Best Buy. The technology is incredibly impressive, but I found the experience annoying. Besides the face sweat, I just can't envision myself coming home and enjoying my time in a headset the same way I can enjoy myself in front of a TV or computer, and I think that's because you can't see around your physical space without taking the headset on and off. Maybe I'm just being a troglodyte about VR. I can admit that much.

ARCarr 10y ago
The HTC Vive has a camera on the front you can turn on to see around your environment.
- pen2l 10y ago
  Oh wow, I did not know that. So basically, Vive is a potential AR device as well. Speaking of which, I have the mattel view-master headset that I use with an iphone 6. If you use the default mattel app, the device looks through the camera, and when it sees the disc that comes along it (this one: http://www8.pcmag.com/media/images/488976-mattel-view-master-virtual-reality-vr-viewer-starter-pack.jpg?thumb=y http://www8.pcmag.com/media/images/488976-mattel-view-master... ) -- it renders a rocket spinning on top of it. So even the cheap headsets allow a VR... but of course, the lag and stuff kind of bring it down and make it very headache-inducing. Of course the best AR experience is one where reality is not see through a re-render picture of stuff captured from camera, but simple you seeing the stuff around you through a glass because nothing beats reality.
  - SimonPStevens 10y ago
    No, not quite. It's a single camera mounted in the centre. So it can't do stereoscopic 3d and although the resolution is OK, it's not great. Currently you can bring the camera up as a floating window attached to you controller that lets you look out into the real world. It's kind of like looking at the world on a tablet screen in your hand. I believe they recently have provided access to the camera stream via the API, so we might see developers start integrating it into things, but it's never going to be like AR.

Animats 10y ago

I still think VR headsets are the next 3D TV. Yes, they're cool, for a few days. Yes, some hardcore FPS gamers like them. There's a modest market for them. But it may not be that big.

Taek 10y ago
Have you tried a Vive? It's much more significant when you can walk around and grab things.
XorNot 10y ago
The difference between 3D TV and VR is staggering. I hate 3D TV (and movies) but was instantly amazed and wanted more of VR. VR's biggest problem is tech needs to catch up - i.e. the race is towards doing retina-resolution VR, at which point it's game-over for monitor tech. 3D TV is about as good as it's ever going to get, with a lot of really obvious limitations.
drewrv 10y ago
3D TV's were pushed by the manufacturers as a way to sell more tvs. Consumers are demanding VR as evidenced by the oculus kickstarter and preorder volume.

laichzeit0 10y ago

This is not surprising. VR is currently in the "peak of inflated expectations" in terms of the Hype Cycle [1]. Sit it out for another 2 years before taking another look at it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

Viper007Bond 10y ago

Honestly the only reason I'm excited to get one is for racing simulators. Rather than trying to sit close to a big TV or having multiple displays, you can just use one of these for the immersion. Plus you can look around like you would in a real car. Great example (with a bit of augmented reality via green screen mixed in): https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk

teh_klev 10y ago
Not poo-pooing that video, but not sure if you read the short FAQ in the description: FAQ - No, i can´t see my hands or the steering wheel while playing, it´s done in video editing - I´m using the Oculus Rift DK2 with runtime 0.6 - The block dot comes from unwarping the Rift video, I´m sorry for that, but i couldn´t get rid of it - Greenscreen is to make my room invisible so i can edit real and virtual view together - The poor resolution is because i record with 1080p but then have to crop the picture down the the view of one eye in 16:9 so i get less than 720p. This will get better as soon as i get the final verion of the Rift or the Vive That said, I'd totally buy into VR if I could do that. For now I think I'll wait for a bit.
- Viper007Bond 10y ago
  Right, as I says it's augmented reality but what he sees (other than his hands and wheels) is right. Another without that: https://youtu.be/7R5swCafrOs https://youtu.be/7R5swCafrOs
bencoder 10y ago
Yeah, I use my DK2 pretty much solely for a flight simulator (FSX with Flyinside). I'm learning to fly in real life and it turns FSX into a realistic way of training for GA flying, rather than only instrument procedures - being able to look around out the windows makes all the difference.
- usrusr 10y ago
  If you are into flight simulation, then you are likely to have experience with the old head tracker / desktop monitor combo as well. How do those experiences compare? (I'm asking because I have spent quite a bit of time doing headtracked virtual piloting, zero with a VR headset)

cloudjacker 10y ago

> Despite my surprising lack of interest in VR, I recognize that it is the future. This isn’t one company making some gimmicky piece of tech .... and lord knows when Apple unveils their own VR headset, it’ll be game over. oh geez, this means nothing.

Blackthorn 10y ago

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for mine to ship at the end of June / start of July :-( I love flight and racing sims, so I expect to get a lot more use out of it.

bunkydoo 10y ago

VR is going to be somewhat like the advent of the 3D television in 2010-ish. Every manufacturer will make one, few people will buy one, and the people who do will likely only use it on novelty occasions. VR is really only a stepping stone to augmented reality, and mixed reality mobile operating systems. On a side note Oculus and WhatsApp seem to be some of the dumbest expenditures Facebook could have ever made. 13 billion dollars for a messaging app. Thats 13 trips to the moon and back... But fuck it, we will just eat Cheetos and do a computer simulation of a moon mission in an Oculus. #MillennialLyfe

Trundle 10y ago
We've been to the moon plenty. At some point one has to ask "why do we keep visiting a big desert that's difficult to get to?" It doesn't create any value for any one. WhatsApp does.
colmvp 10y ago
I think 3D television was a mere incremental improvement whereas the immersion of VR is the next stepping stone of entertainment. Though, I think the full-room experiences are a bit of fad as seated experiences are more comfortable and relatable to how we've always consumed various forms of relaxing entertainment. Instead of the simplistic interactions, I honestly wouldn't mind it if I used a keyboard and mouse interface but wore a VR helmet at my desk, since I never look down anyway. And I'm also betting that VR porn has the potential to be hugely addictive. The reviews of initial explorations are fairly lukewarm but it's still way too early to discount that effort.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  There is quite big market for non-seated entertainment - Wii, Kinect, etc have shown that. It is a very different market from the people who currently have high-end gaming PCs suitable for VR, but the number of people who like and want full-room experiences is quite large.
  - usrusr 10y ago

dclowd9901 10y ago

It's been my complaint since the beginning: This isn't virtual reality. It's clever, non-sickening head tracking. Great. Now I won't throw up when I move my head around in a 3D space. We're a bit closer, but not nearly close enough, to total immersion. You can play a racing game or a flying game and get some pretty good immersion, maybe even trick your brain here or there. But VR is a fever dream until we understand how brain impulses work and can manipulate them directly to simulate experience. Of course, by then, we'll probably be questioning the whole thing altogether.

purplelobster 10y ago
Have you completely missed the HTC Vive?
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  Not at all. Spatial tracking is great but it's still arbitrarily limited. You're not walking through an environment; you might as well be in a closet simulator.

partycoder 10y ago

Well... I was an early adopter for the Amazon Echo. Initially it was about the same, novelty but practically useless, until new integrations were added and now I make extensive use of it.

cm2187 10y ago
But the headsets are not going to get any lighter with time unless you buy new ones.
- partycoder 10y ago
  I think there will be more relevant applications of VR. Today there is very few software that is VR specific

Negative1 10y ago

Summary; VR is a great novelty but it wears out and then you're just left with sub-par looking games lacking replay value and quality. It's super expensive and the games aren't very engaging (no killer app yet). The competitor landscape is also confusing and there's a lot of innovation still left to be done by industry heavyweights (namely Google and Apple). Basically, VR is here but the experience isn't sticky enough due to lack of great software. Sound familiar?

cm2187 10y ago

Entirely agree with the article. There is a quote by Clemenceau: "the best time in love is when I walk up the stairs". I'd say by best time with VR is the time between ordering and receiving it...

newhouseb 10y ago

To me, the most exciting thing about VR (particularly on the Vive) is not anything gaming related but the possibilities around creation and collaboration that are opened up by being able to program in "the real world." If you've played with Tiltbrush at all you can see a glimpse of this. Your brain's implicit understanding of your presence in 3D space is incredibly vital to understanding the shapes and structure that you see with your eyes. You can imagine many design fields: fashion, furniture, architecture, etc can all have a dramatically reduced leap between conceptualization and realization. A lot of people are quick to dismiss VR and present AR as the future, but I think a more constructive way to think about it is that VR is AR without the walls punched out (yet). Realistically, we all spend the majority of our lives in a couple rooms (an office and a bedroom), so by moving to AR the largest benefit is going to be comfort. So many potential new interactions are ripe for exploring today, even in VR (not to mention the Vive has a front-facing camera anyway, although the latency can be a bit nauseating).

return0 10y ago
I await for the current hype to calm down for the same reason. I see it as the natural evolution of monitors.
fsloth 10y ago
Tiltbrush on the Vive is friggin amazing. The thing with it is that it's not just a painting app. If the brush width is set to wide and style to solid it's the most fluid and intuitive 3D modeling system I've ever used. I'm a hobbyist artist - using the Vive for a first time I could sculpt a 3d figure, life sized, in front of me in just minutes. (Professinal 3D designers are probably faster than that on their 3D system of choice but I'm just an accidental hobbyist). I would guess the better one can generate shapes from memory the more amazing the experience is. This will be huge with designers.
madaxe_again 10y ago
Yup. There's a lot going on right now with people making tools for sculpture, for design, and even stuff like minecraft is a blast on the vive. I've had mine three weeks and managed to spend 6 hours in it solidly on Saturday - 30 minutes and you need a nap? Please. Better make some ovaltine and put your slippers on. On the other hand, I can't take more than 30 minutes of holopoint - it's physically intense and leaves you a sweaty wreck. As to motion controllers "perhaps being more intuitive" - I'm guessing he hasn't used them. They're not "more intuitive" they're your damned hands, joining your head in another world. I mean, I suppose hands are useful in interacting with the world. I strapped my 90 year old granddad in, and he was immediately having a blast flipping burgers in job simulator - and this is a guy who fumbles with his iPad. So - motion controllers are not "perhaps more intuitive", unless you count your hands as "perhaps more intuitive" to pick things up with than your mouth. Other "game changer" stuff - altspace vr is the nearest thing to Stephenson's metaverse I can conceive of - it's not like sitting at home chatting on irc watching a stream of something with others - it's like meeting people and going somewhere. It's all well and good going "I'll wait five generations", but a) you're missing out on pre-september vr and b) if nobody buys devices there won't be five generations.

vectorpush 10y ago

I think the problem isn't so much that the tech isn't ready, it's simply that the software is immature. Everyone has been rushing hard to get this tech out the door, but software developers haven't really had time to produce much beyond "app-store" quality content which tends to lack lasting replay value. We all know it takes a lot of time to produce high quality software and there is still a lot of experimentation that needs to happen before developers lock onto the techniques that provide the optimal experience. People aren't going to keep putting on their headset just to look at tech demos, they're going to keep coming back to experience the well designed, super fun, highly addictive title that they've been playing obsessively, just like on every other platform.

throwaway13337 10y ago
It's a chicken and egg problem. Because the hardware is so niche, the software makers don't have an audience to justify a big investment. What's more, content - even if it becomes the Mario of the VR - is not as important as the platform itself for control. Companies and investors realize this and so they focus on platforms. And so we have a bunch of companies vying for a turn at the platform while no one wants to make content.
- hayksaakian 10y ago
  there's no 'mario' or 'angry birds' of VR yet, that opportunity is wide open for the right company
  - usrusr 10y ago
    There is not much of an opportunity, because a market capped at one copy per headset is tiny. People did not buy smartphones because they wanted to play angry birds, they played because they already had a phone. What smartphones had and VR will never have is a feature like pinch to zoom: something that not only looks impressive but also happens to be routinely demonstrated in a social setting, without the explicit intention of showing off.
exodust 10y ago

SystemOut 10y ago

I have to agree with most, if not all, of what this article is saying. Some friends of mine brought over their gaming rig and the Vive over. My kids loved it, it was pretty cool and all but there is no way I'm spending 2K to buy a gaming PC and the Vive. On top of that, you need a 3m by 4m room to play the better games so anytime I want to play I have to clear out a room in the house or dedicate it basically. For a game system? No. For this to go big, and eventually I think it will, you need the headset to be wireless, the goggles have to be lighter, and the video card necessary to power the thing needs to be an appliance. I'm guessing once the consoles can handle it we might see more traction. I also would like to see the hand controllers something more along the lines of a set of light weight gloves or something that allows finger and gesture tracking. Basically, Minority Report. When I was playing hollow point and budget cuts on the vive I really wanted something like that.

creed 10y ago

I think the fact that we don't know how to use any of this at the moment just shows how new and game changing this all is. You can't just copy/paste any of the old stuff onto this new medium, it just doesn't work that way and you certainly cannot compare this to 3D tv/cinema... ..and I think the people that got hyped the most also completely underastimated the tectonic shift needed in order to make any of this really entertaining. I think of the "visual" component of the VR problem as solved and am now looking forward to seeing how the "interactive" component of the problem will be solved. Because you need to perceive the world, check, but now you need to be able to interact with it: not solved yet. But people got waaaay to excited seeing only the visual aspect solved...

frik 10y ago

I tried various VR, AR, 3D glasses (shutter, anaglyph) and autostereoscopy displays in the last 20 years. There were several hypes and fads (like 3D TVs and movies) and VR glasses seems like another fad - especially as soon as more and more tried them and cannot imagine to use it for general purpose gaming - it's more relevant for niche topics. Autostereoscopy displays and AR might get a broader audience in future. But current prototype AR devices like HoloLens are a far cry what would be possible, and at the moment a lot of demos are faked to hype unfinished devices, as the reality is that AR is won't be ready for another 3 years (e.g. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-im-Haertetest-3208736.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-im... ). A problem of VR and AR-prototypes is motion sickness, that some people have (from my experience often people who have not 100% eye sight) - I never got motion sickness, but I saw some fellows vomitting on the lab floor (carpet). Autostereoscopy displays like in the Nintendo 3DS handheld console have its appeal as there is no ugly glass needed and technically it's possible to support a group of people, instead of just one person. So in near future our smartphones and TVs may have such a 3D display. And given a 4k LCD panel one can still get a 1080p or 720p 3D resolution out of it, that's already enough and it will be cheap. And with back projection technology even projectors could be used for 3D autostereoscopy.

reedlaw 10y ago

I know a few people who feel sick just playing a FPS game on a regular computer monitor for more than a few minutes. Even on a high-end system 3D environments can cause motion sickness. So I believe it will be a long time until VR technology overcomes these problems.

fsloth 10y ago
The solution is to map the movement in the VR to only users movements. HTC vive and Hololens both do this. Oculus almost makes me puke each time I try it but not so with Vive or Hololens.
exodust 10y ago
Some FPS games make the mistake of limiting field of view, which can cause motion sickness on regular monitors. A wide field of view and high frame rate greatly improves things. With VR, it's a combination of frame rate and as the comment above mentions - too much movement. In No Limits 2 rollercoaster for example, you can walk around the park and get on the coaster, ride the coaster, then get off and walk around again - it's too much. The best VR I saw was sitting on virtual chair and things happening around you.. or the chair slowly moves through environment with deliberate and smooth velocity.

vmp 10y ago

I had the DK2 and pretty much the same thing happened, boxed and shelved after a week, after I tried all the best demos - although for a different reason: the eye-strain and nausea was too much to bear for me. I couldn't really explain it since other people, family members and friends, could wear it just fine for any amount of time. I wear glasses but neither lenses or any settings offered relieve, guess I'm simply too sensitive to enjoy current-gen VR. Also the DK2 drivers were glitchy - had to plug in an old 19" monitor because the only way the rift would run at its designed 75Hz was with a primary monitor that supported it too, it's been a real hassle to switch from a nice 27" 1440p display to 1280x1024 and back, only to get really bad judder ingame because either the game wasn't using the latest SDK version or my GPU couldn't keep up (gtx 670 with an i7-2600k). Direct-To-Rift mode should have fixed these issues (judder primarily) but it rarely worked for me. Note that I never tried the CV1 or any other HMD so far, nor do I really plan to. My DK2 experience has been sobering but I am hopeful for future generations.

madaxe_again 10y ago
I had a dk2, and the nausea was real. Had to put it down and sit there pale and sweaty many times. In the vive, at 90fps and all the other bells and whistles - none, even dogfighting in elite, even stick-moving in minecraft. That said, a gtx 670 would be marginal at best - a 970 is the official min spec, and the new generation of pascal cards are essentially built for vr.
- vmp 10y ago
  That's interesting to hear. The Vive has some unique features that make it sound really cool too. What about screen-door effect? Texts in EliteDangerous weren't readable at all. I'm planning on getting a gtx 1070 once they are out for some sweet sweet 1440p gaming, the 670 served me well but just doesn't cut it anymore for anything higher than 1080p.
  - selectodude 10y ago
    Apparently the Elite Dangerous text issue is an HTC Vive issue. There's no text issue at all on the Oculus.