4 ms·

The first problem is the technology just isn't good enough yet - it literally makes people sick. Higher resolution, faster frame rates, and better tracking can

The first problem is the technology just isn't good enough yet - it literally makes people sick. Higher resolution, faster frame rates, and better tracking can help with this. The second problem is it's too expensive. Once there is enough demand to scale the technology better, costs can come down. And costs for better screens and chips will come down in time on their own anyway. The third problem is a lack of content. For the amount of money Facebook has been pouring into VR developers, it's really just sad how few good games there are. The general consensus I hear from gamers is they've just given up on VR, and I don't know any devs who see it as anything more than an experiment right now. There just isn't anything compelling about VR right now, at least not for me. Even the people I know who used to champion it almost never use it anymore, and many of my friends who used to work at Oculus have quit as they no longer believe in the vision. All of this is anecdotal of course. The real data point is sales, and they are bad. Look at VR sales and compare them to the Microsoft Kinect, which MS has essentially abandoned and admitted to being a failure (at least for gaming and mainstream consumer applications). If VR is woefully trailing behind a technology accepted to be a failure that was practically force-fed down consumer's throats as MS tried to push it with their Xbox business, it's hard to see a bright future for VR. It's been years and billions of dollars have been spent, and VR has a couple of indie hits and no killer app.

throwaway34241 8y ago
It's not too surprising that sales are bad, the V1 hardware is pretty terrible in various ways, and the cost all in is ~$1400 for a PC system (cheaper for PlayStation but not that cheap). At least management at Facebook and Valve have been very clear that their expectations for V1 were not high. If you look at tablet PCs, Microsoft didn't capture much market share with early $1000+ systems with non-touch based software, but there was still room for the iPad to come in at a lower price and be a successful product. I think the difference between a (not-terrible) mobile system like the Quest at $400 and existing PC based systems is at least as stark. BTW I didn't hear of anyone getting motion sick, but neither of the Quest demos had any artificial movement, and people weren't using it for hours. Of course there still needs to be content with some sort of appeal. That's pretty subjective. I liked the tennis demo I had, the lack of a cable made quite a big difference and the lenses aren't nearly as fussy to get a clear picture. I'm not a big gamer but I like being active IRL and playing table tennis etc. I don't know how big a market that is. But I could see myself buying one at $400, not as a developer, if it had a variety of that sort of stuff. None of the other systems I've tried get remotely close to that, in terms cost/inconvenience for what you get. I'm also curious about movie watching. I wouldn't use existing systems for it, but a higher-res mobile system with better lenses (and hopefully a native Netflix app)? I'm very curious to see if it's a practical thing yet. People watch lots of shows on their phone, it doesn't seem unthinkable that VR could have some appeal for that. If they have decent content, I think they will probably move more units than VR systems have to date. But to think about the Wii again, even though it was successful as a device it still didn't end up having a major long-term impact... I don't think just the numbers matter in early stage hardware while there are still extreme qualitative differences. You see companies that focused on cardboard/GearVR based on that sort of reasoning, even though that had an even less likely future as a platform than fully-tracked systems. The Palm Treo wasn't a mass market product, but that hardly doomed smartphones.
esyir 8y ago
To be honest though, I'm surprised the VR porn industry hasn't really taken off. Though that's hardly the driver of high end rigs, but rather more towards something lower end.

throwaway34241 8y ago

It's not too surprising that sales are bad, the V1 hardware is pretty terrible in various ways, and the cost all in is ~$1400 for a PC system (cheaper for PlayStation but not that cheap). At least management at Facebook and Valve have been very clear that their expectations for V1 were not high. If you look at tablet PCs, Microsoft didn't capture much market share with early $1000+ systems with non-touch based software, but there was still room for the iPad to come in at a lower price and be a successful product. I think the difference between a (not-terrible) mobile system like the Quest at $400 and existing PC based systems is at least as stark. BTW I didn't hear of anyone getting motion sick, but neither of the Quest demos had any artificial movement, and people weren't using it for hours. Of course there still needs to be content with some sort of appeal. That's pretty subjective. I liked the tennis demo I had, the lack of a cable made quite a big difference and the lenses aren't nearly as fussy to get a clear picture. I'm not a big gamer but I like being active IRL and playing table tennis etc. I don't know how big a market that is. But I could see myself buying one at $400, not as a developer, if it had a variety of that sort of stuff. None of the other systems I've tried get remotely close to that, in terms cost/inconvenience for what you get. I'm also curious about movie watching. I wouldn't use existing systems for it, but a higher-res mobile system with better lenses (and hopefully a native Netflix app)? I'm very curious to see if it's a practical thing yet. People watch lots of shows on their phone, it doesn't seem unthinkable that VR could have some appeal for that. If they have decent content, I think they will probably move more units than VR systems have to date. But to think about the Wii again, even though it was successful as a device it still didn't end up having a major long-term impact... I don't think just the numbers matter in early stage hardware while there are still extreme qualitative differences. You see companies that focused on cardboard/GearVR based on that sort of reasoning, even though that had an even less likely future as a platform than fully-tracked systems. The Palm Treo wasn't a mass market product, but that hardly doomed smartphones.

esyir 8y ago

To be honest though, I'm surprised the VR porn industry hasn't really taken off. Though that's hardly the driver of high end rigs, but rather more towards something lower end.