8 ms·

Why we're all-in on virtual reality

61 points by lux 11y ago

bunkydoo 11y ago
I think VR is going to end up being an intellectual holocaust if it keeps going the direction it is going, people designing the technologies seem to view it as a way to keep the "inferior" contained in a world that caters to their every emotional desire. Just look at all the porn and gaming comments.. Augmented Reality is the real way to go, VR simulations have their time and place - but this technology is nothing more than an overinflated dream from 80's sci fi.
- aetherson 11y ago
  Yeah, VR is the overinflated dream from 80's sci-fi, what we want instead is AR, the overinflated dream of oughties sci-fi. :P
- azinman2 11y ago
  Have you ever tried VR porn? It's very compelling to be someone else.
- defen 11y ago
  Murray and Herrnstein predicted this in The Bell Curve - "a high-tech and more lavish version of the Indian reservation for some substantial minority of the nation's population, while the rest of America tries to go about its business"
pshc 11y ago
Winnipeg of all places! How did that happen?
- lux 11y ago
  We were so cold last winter that we had to create our own virtual escape plan ;) Just happens to be where we're from, and it's actually a great city to live in with a very vibrant arts and indie dev community.
  - meatysnapper 11y ago
    The grass is always greener on the other side of the frozen, windswept tundra.
  - throwaway999666 11y ago
    One day, one day I will see a Canadian talk about Canada without whining about the cold or the winter straight off the bat.
    - lux 11y ago
      It's a joke man :)
      - throwaway999666 11y ago
        And such a good one!
  - pshc 11y ago
    Whoa, I gotta check out your scene! (Earlier this summer I was contemplating the notion of a VR startup in Calgary, partly yeah because of the winter factor :) guess I should switch the idea to Winnipeg.)
daenz 11y ago
It's hard to tell where VR is overstated and where it's understated. The possibilities seem endless, but I wonder if the vast majority of them exist for tech-savvy people. It's a safe bet that there can be mainstream adoption for games, but outside of games, I'm not convinced your average consumer will desire to use VR for other things.
- javabank 11y ago
  Would you be able to foresee the existence of something like Uber back when you were using your Nokia phone (10+ years ago)? We can't imagine what VR technology will be used for.
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    I actually did want to make something similar, born out of a desire to digitize my local transit schedules. I tried emailing my local transit agency, but they were uninterested and I didn't realize the kind of hustle you needed to get such stuff started. I then had an idea using SMS and windows pocket PCs to basically make something like Uber for a software taxi dispatch system. You would SMS a number and then get updates via SMS on the status of your cab. Cabs would have the pocket PCs installed with an external GPS module. I would sell it to taxi dispatch companies as a way to make more money. I was just starting university although, and felt quite overwhelmed with the idea of actually selling it to anyone.
  - lojack 11y ago
    In this case, I don't think the technology was as surprising as the fact that it came from outside the Taxi industry. Who would have thought that it would be easier to create a global fleet of drivers from scratch than it would be to utilize existing infrastructure. I do see your point though. Someone may have been thinking of this concept 10 years ago, but it certainly wasn't me.
  - burger_moon 11y ago
    I've been reading about Richard Hamming a lot lately, and this stuck with me when he was talking about AI. "You must struggle with your own beliefs if you are to make any progress in understanding the possibilities and limitations of computers in the intellectual area. To do this adequately you must formalize your beliefs and then criticize them severely, arguing one side against the other, until you have a fair idea of the strengths and weakness of both sides."
jkot 11y ago
VR is around the corner ... for past 30 years. For now I would just love to have 3d display which actually works (no headaches etc). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms
- jamesjamesm 11y ago
  Have you had a chance to try the Oculus developer kit at all?
  - k__ 11y ago
    Also google cardboard and all those other "put your smartphone in and watch 360° videos"-things
  - lux 11y ago
    And if so, I can assure the consumer version is far and away better than the DK2, as is the HTC Vive. I haven't tried Oculus's motion controllers yet, but the Vive dev kit controllers are amazing already.
bitwize 11y ago
Because it's the new hotness again. What is this, 1993? VR, AR, whatever kind of reality besides actual reality, they all have a long way to go before they can approach not being eyehurty. None of the manufacturers have addressed a major cause of eyehurt: the mismatch between perceived distance and actual distance throwing off the eye's focusing mechanism. And that's just one of many hurdles to overcome before we can jack into the Metaverse or otherwise enjoy VR as anything but a nifty five-minute demo.
- pyrocat 11y ago
  Haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Have you tried it out? People use it for much longer than 5 minutes without any pain. I don't think anyone is expecting to wear a VR headset for 24 hours straight. It's not all extremes.
  - palmer_eldritch 11y ago
    > I don't think anyone is expecting to wear a VR headset for 24 hours straight. I'm pretty sure some people expect to do just that, especially in the gaming community. Although, I'm not sure it's going to be worse than spending 24h+ gaming on a regular screen while heavily imbibing energy drinks...
Zikes 11y ago
A lot of questions about how much interest there could be outside of video games, and that's okay! To be honest, video games could be a great proving ground for the technology. Gamers are used to being early adopters and tend not to be afraid to try new things, and after VR developers have sufficiently experimented in arena they can branch out in earnest. Even if it winds up being a primarily gaming-related accessory, I think it can still achieve success.
- prawn 11y ago
  I think there will be some eventual movement in remote working, virtual offices, etc. The hard part of telepresence is contact, but physical contact isn't something that is an issue in a typical office environment - it's facial expressions, screen sharing, etc. Once the resolution can handle virtual screens and facial tracking can handle some level of expressive avatars, we'll see some movement. Bosses will be more comfortable with remote workers when they can keep track of them like other workers in what feels like a real office. Businesses will start to reconsider leasing an expensive physical office and instead leave their workers in home offices, while having them interact in a virtual space. Virtual desktops, virtual screens, look sideways or behind you in the room to see virtual colleagues. In a small web business, I can spend $xk on goggles, have everyone work from home, and save $x0k on rent. Then imagine game chat from consoles applied to an office. A whisper goes to your team, a shout to everyone. Employees could set their status to leave-me-alone to be left off everything but the most crucial announcement - that's an improvement on current open plan offices where you only option is headphones. A toggled HUD could show what the rest of the team is working on, etc. Before avatars have expressions, I can imagine people working in a virtual office full of helmeted Daft Punk colleagues.
petercooper 11y ago
For me it's funny to see this pop up now. Just this week I've been getting heavily into VR and loving what I'm seeing. Finally corners are being turned. I feel a sense of something approaching a vital "tipping point" as I felt with blogging in the early 00s and Twitter in the late 00s. For anyone who's not yet convinced, see if you can get a go on the Samsung Gear VR. It's actually better than the Rift 2 in many ways (I've got the Gear plus both Rift kits) in that it's quicker to get going and the headset and visuals are better. Play a game called "Dreadhalls" and be prepared to be absolutely terrified and, if you have earphones in, be 99% to believing you're in the environment getting attacked by all manner of creatures. (And I should stress, playing this game in VR has been the most extreme experience I've had in a while - it's that good and has won me over on VR.) My employees have been enjoying all the equipment in the past week or two and I've found that people's tolerance for it still varies. One person can't experience any VR without feeling sick afterwards, whereas others have no issues at all. I think increased realism, resolution and immersion will help, as well as increased exposure. But whatever the case, we live in exciting times and VR is only going to become a bigger deal over the next few years.
- shostack 11y ago
  As someone who went from zero to puking in < 5 minutes playing Mirror's Edge, I am super worried about VR. I have been dreaming of true VR and AR for ages, and as current tech begins to be consumer ready (and affordable) I long for the day I can fully immerse myself. But my motion sickness makes me worry that it will be a new frontier I am entirely locked out of :( Do you happen to know of any places in the Bay Area where one can go to try these various devices and experiences for free to get a sense of this? I simply can't justify spending the money unless I know with great confidence I won't puke after short usage.
  - UberMouse 11y ago
    Mirrors Edge is practically guaranteed to cause nausea unless you have an iron stomach. Doesn't have native VR support and it's a first person platformer. Not to mention the fact the CV versions of the headsets coming out are going to be a LOT less likely to cause motion sickness with the higher refresh rates, better screens and improved SDKs/tracking solutions bringing down latency and hopefully eliminating any judder. Still, I don't think we'll really be seeing games like Mirrors Edge in VR for a long time, not until we've figured out locomotion that doesn't cause sickness. Things with 1:1 movement (ie the camera never moves unless you move your head) and/or things with static elements to give you a point of reference (like a cockpit, apparently even just having a helmet in your vision giving you a point of reference helps) basically don't make me sick. But if I try to play an FPS for even 10 minutes I come away rather queasy, whereas I can play Elite: Dangerous for hours with only minor discomfort (because I am sitting in a seat in the cockpit of the ship).
ianhirschfeld 11y ago
My company, The Soap Collective, recently entered the space as well. It's a ton of fun, I wish you the best of luck!
- lux 11y ago
  Awesome, you too!
fossuser 11y ago
> "Imagine a phone call with a family member halfway across the country, and seeing them right there in the room with you. Not on a screen, but sitting right across from you." I feel like an often overlooked part of VR videochat is that everyone has a giant box attached to their face so how do you do it well? I guess you could have an avatar and some clever ability to detect facial expressions of the person wearing the box, but that's hardly better than actually seeing them. That said I have a DK2 and the presence you get is impressive. Especially the ability to lean into the environment because of head tracking. This game really impressed me: https://share.oculus.com/app/i-expect-you-to-die https://share.oculus.com/app/i-expect-you-to-die [Edit] For those looking towards AR, hard AR is pretty hard. Notably the ability to draw black. Michael Abrash has a really good blog post about this problem and others: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar-anytime-soon/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- lux 11y ago
  Here's my take on it, both short- and long-term: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9938332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9938332
- doublerebel 11y ago
  Magic Leap stated last month that they have solved drawing black "with light" due to collaboration between their artists and engineers. It will give them a huge advantage if they can get production costs low enough.
- idrios 11y ago
  Oculus, Sony's Morpheus, Microsoft's Hololens- these are all just the next step in the VR/AR movement. Currently it's at a stage where the tech requires a box with cell phone screens on your face (or in the case of my favorite AR--Innovega's iOptik--sunglasses and a projector). This isn't the final stage of VR though. The next big leap might be bionic eye implants that directly stimulate your optical nerves (Second Sight's Argus II could be the start of this). The hardware will continue to get better as these companies put more time and money into them. Entirely new companies will be made just to create algorithms and applications to improve the VR experience (how do you make an avatar of a person feel like the real thing? I don't know but I bet Oculus would pay a lot of money for the rights to that algorithm). In the meantime, you are correct about black in AR being a challenge. I'm be curious how that one will be solved
joesmo 11y ago
For me, there's only one question: will it make me motion sick? Only if they can fix that issue will it become something even worth thinking about for those of us who suffer from motion sickness. I hope it can be addressed.
- lux 11y ago
  I don't think you can solve that 100% with current mobile VR headsets, and any game that separates your in-game movement from your actual physical movement will cause some people to feel sick. I think developers are learning how to work with the hardware though, and things are getting much better. Plus the hardware itself is improving on that front too, for ex: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/8153101/valve-boss-gabe-newell-says-noone-gets-sick-using-vive-vr http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/8153101/valve-boss-gabe-new... The Vive is quite a step up from the Oculus Rift DK2, and having played with it myself, that claim actually holds up pretty well.
hokkos 11y ago
I think VR is overselled, never underestimate the effect of intrusiveness on the user. This is the same reason we have less 3D movies than a few years ago, the novelty factor fade and the gains from the medium have to be sufficient to beat the intrusiveness. VR is cumbersome, a large part of the population will probably never be able to use them and users now prefer low engagement medium due to the constant distraction life we are in now.
- fossuser 11y ago
  Maybe - though the presence you get from VR is really something new. 3D was intrusive for minimal gains (even in the best case of Avatar it wasn't that different of an experience). If you've been able to play with a DK2 and some of the better experiences it really is different. Even with the huge improvements made recently there are still really big changes that would make things even better. (100x higher resolution on the small displays, 90hz and 90fps on mobile, graphics hardware way beyond where it is now). VR puts a strain on modern hardware, but it really gives you something new and maybe that sense of presence will be enough that even with the intrusiveness users will want it.
- UberMouse 11y ago
  cumbersome is only a temporary thing, VR is definitely going to be an enthusiast thing for the next couple of years, but once the form factor/price starts coming down and the content is actually starting to come out at a reasonable rate I can't see it doing anything but exploding. It's not something you can really understand until you've experienced it first hand, but I think the experience can turn a decent amount of people into enthusiasts.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
juliangregorian 11y ago
Haha, Montreal isn't only known for it's gaming sector. (it's also where much of the online porn industry is engineered)
cafebeen 11y ago
To give a little context on how old VR is, see this picture of Ivan Sutherland from 1967: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/356/1888 http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/35...

61 points by lux 11y ago

I think VR is going to end up being an intellectual holocaust if it keeps going the direction it is going, people designing the technologies seem to view it as a way to keep the "inferior" contained in a world that caters to their every emotional desire. Just look at all the porn and gaming comments.. Augmented Reality is the real way to go, VR simulations have their time and place - but this technology is nothing more than an overinflated dream from 80's sci fi.

aetherson 11y ago
Yeah, VR is the overinflated dream from 80's sci-fi, what we want instead is AR, the overinflated dream of oughties sci-fi. :P
azinman2 11y ago
Have you ever tried VR porn? It's very compelling to be someone else.
defen 11y ago
Murray and Herrnstein predicted this in The Bell Curve - "a high-tech and more lavish version of the Indian reservation for some substantial minority of the nation's population, while the rest of America tries to go about its business"

pshc 11y ago

Winnipeg of all places! How did that happen?

lux 11y ago
We were so cold last winter that we had to create our own virtual escape plan ;) Just happens to be where we're from, and it's actually a great city to live in with a very vibrant arts and indie dev community.
- meatysnapper 11y ago
  The grass is always greener on the other side of the frozen, windswept tundra.
- throwaway999666 11y ago
  One day, one day I will see a Canadian talk about Canada without whining about the cold or the winter straight off the bat.
  - lux 11y ago
    It's a joke man :)
    - throwaway999666 11y ago
      And such a good one!
- pshc 11y ago
  Whoa, I gotta check out your scene! (Earlier this summer I was contemplating the notion of a VR startup in Calgary, partly yeah because of the winter factor :) guess I should switch the idea to Winnipeg.)

daenz 11y ago

It's hard to tell where VR is overstated and where it's understated. The possibilities seem endless, but I wonder if the vast majority of them exist for tech-savvy people. It's a safe bet that there can be mainstream adoption for games, but outside of games, I'm not convinced your average consumer will desire to use VR for other things.

javabank 11y ago
Would you be able to foresee the existence of something like Uber back when you were using your Nokia phone (10+ years ago)? We can't imagine what VR technology will be used for.
- mahyarm 11y ago
  I actually did want to make something similar, born out of a desire to digitize my local transit schedules. I tried emailing my local transit agency, but they were uninterested and I didn't realize the kind of hustle you needed to get such stuff started. I then had an idea using SMS and windows pocket PCs to basically make something like Uber for a software taxi dispatch system. You would SMS a number and then get updates via SMS on the status of your cab. Cabs would have the pocket PCs installed with an external GPS module. I would sell it to taxi dispatch companies as a way to make more money. I was just starting university although, and felt quite overwhelmed with the idea of actually selling it to anyone.
- lojack 11y ago
  In this case, I don't think the technology was as surprising as the fact that it came from outside the Taxi industry. Who would have thought that it would be easier to create a global fleet of drivers from scratch than it would be to utilize existing infrastructure. I do see your point though. Someone may have been thinking of this concept 10 years ago, but it certainly wasn't me.
- burger_moon 11y ago
  I've been reading about Richard Hamming a lot lately, and this stuck with me when he was talking about AI. "You must struggle with your own beliefs if you are to make any progress in understanding the possibilities and limitations of computers in the intellectual area. To do this adequately you must formalize your beliefs and then criticize them severely, arguing one side against the other, until you have a fair idea of the strengths and weakness of both sides."

jkot 11y ago

VR is around the corner ... for past 30 years. For now I would just love to have 3d display which actually works (no headaches etc). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms

jamesjamesm 11y ago
Have you had a chance to try the Oculus developer kit at all?
- k__ 11y ago
  Also google cardboard and all those other "put your smartphone in and watch 360° videos"-things
- lux 11y ago
  And if so, I can assure the consumer version is far and away better than the DK2, as is the HTC Vive. I haven't tried Oculus's motion controllers yet, but the Vive dev kit controllers are amazing already.

bitwize 11y ago

Because it's the new hotness again. What is this, 1993? VR, AR, whatever kind of reality besides actual reality, they all have a long way to go before they can approach not being eyehurty. None of the manufacturers have addressed a major cause of eyehurt: the mismatch between perceived distance and actual distance throwing off the eye's focusing mechanism. And that's just one of many hurdles to overcome before we can jack into the Metaverse or otherwise enjoy VR as anything but a nifty five-minute demo.

pyrocat 11y ago
Haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Have you tried it out? People use it for much longer than 5 minutes without any pain. I don't think anyone is expecting to wear a VR headset for 24 hours straight. It's not all extremes.
- palmer_eldritch 11y ago
  > I don't think anyone is expecting to wear a VR headset for 24 hours straight. I'm pretty sure some people expect to do just that, especially in the gaming community. Although, I'm not sure it's going to be worse than spending 24h+ gaming on a regular screen while heavily imbibing energy drinks...

Zikes 11y ago

A lot of questions about how much interest there could be outside of video games, and that's okay! To be honest, video games could be a great proving ground for the technology. Gamers are used to being early adopters and tend not to be afraid to try new things, and after VR developers have sufficiently experimented in arena they can branch out in earnest. Even if it winds up being a primarily gaming-related accessory, I think it can still achieve success.

prawn 11y ago
I think there will be some eventual movement in remote working, virtual offices, etc. The hard part of telepresence is contact, but physical contact isn't something that is an issue in a typical office environment - it's facial expressions, screen sharing, etc. Once the resolution can handle virtual screens and facial tracking can handle some level of expressive avatars, we'll see some movement. Bosses will be more comfortable with remote workers when they can keep track of them like other workers in what feels like a real office. Businesses will start to reconsider leasing an expensive physical office and instead leave their workers in home offices, while having them interact in a virtual space. Virtual desktops, virtual screens, look sideways or behind you in the room to see virtual colleagues. In a small web business, I can spend $xk on goggles, have everyone work from home, and save $x0k on rent. Then imagine game chat from consoles applied to an office. A whisper goes to your team, a shout to everyone. Employees could set their status to leave-me-alone to be left off everything but the most crucial announcement - that's an improvement on current open plan offices where you only option is headphones. A toggled HUD could show what the rest of the team is working on, etc. Before avatars have expressions, I can imagine people working in a virtual office full of helmeted Daft Punk colleagues.

petercooper 11y ago

For me it's funny to see this pop up now. Just this week I've been getting heavily into VR and loving what I'm seeing. Finally corners are being turned. I feel a sense of something approaching a vital "tipping point" as I felt with blogging in the early 00s and Twitter in the late 00s. For anyone who's not yet convinced, see if you can get a go on the Samsung Gear VR. It's actually better than the Rift 2 in many ways (I've got the Gear plus both Rift kits) in that it's quicker to get going and the headset and visuals are better. Play a game called "Dreadhalls" and be prepared to be absolutely terrified and, if you have earphones in, be 99% to believing you're in the environment getting attacked by all manner of creatures. (And I should stress, playing this game in VR has been the most extreme experience I've had in a while - it's that good and has won me over on VR.) My employees have been enjoying all the equipment in the past week or two and I've found that people's tolerance for it still varies. One person can't experience any VR without feeling sick afterwards, whereas others have no issues at all. I think increased realism, resolution and immersion will help, as well as increased exposure. But whatever the case, we live in exciting times and VR is only going to become a bigger deal over the next few years.

shostack 11y ago
As someone who went from zero to puking in < 5 minutes playing Mirror's Edge, I am super worried about VR. I have been dreaming of true VR and AR for ages, and as current tech begins to be consumer ready (and affordable) I long for the day I can fully immerse myself. But my motion sickness makes me worry that it will be a new frontier I am entirely locked out of :( Do you happen to know of any places in the Bay Area where one can go to try these various devices and experiences for free to get a sense of this? I simply can't justify spending the money unless I know with great confidence I won't puke after short usage.
- UberMouse 11y ago
  Mirrors Edge is practically guaranteed to cause nausea unless you have an iron stomach. Doesn't have native VR support and it's a first person platformer. Not to mention the fact the CV versions of the headsets coming out are going to be a LOT less likely to cause motion sickness with the higher refresh rates, better screens and improved SDKs/tracking solutions bringing down latency and hopefully eliminating any judder. Still, I don't think we'll really be seeing games like Mirrors Edge in VR for a long time, not until we've figured out locomotion that doesn't cause sickness. Things with 1:1 movement (ie the camera never moves unless you move your head) and/or things with static elements to give you a point of reference (like a cockpit, apparently even just having a helmet in your vision giving you a point of reference helps) basically don't make me sick. But if I try to play an FPS for even 10 minutes I come away rather queasy, whereas I can play Elite: Dangerous for hours with only minor discomfort (because I am sitting in a seat in the cockpit of the ship).

ianhirschfeld 11y ago

My company, The Soap Collective, recently entered the space as well. It's a ton of fun, I wish you the best of luck!

lux 11y ago
Awesome, you too!

fossuser 11y ago

> "Imagine a phone call with a family member halfway across the country, and seeing them right there in the room with you. Not on a screen, but sitting right across from you." I feel like an often overlooked part of VR videochat is that everyone has a giant box attached to their face so how do you do it well? I guess you could have an avatar and some clever ability to detect facial expressions of the person wearing the box, but that's hardly better than actually seeing them. That said I have a DK2 and the presence you get is impressive. Especially the ability to lean into the environment because of head tracking. This game really impressed me: https://share.oculus.com/app/i-expect-you-to-die https://share.oculus.com/app/i-expect-you-to-die [Edit] For those looking towards AR, hard AR is pretty hard. Notably the ability to draw black. Michael Abrash has a really good blog post about this problem and others: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar-anytime-soon/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lux 11y ago
Here's my take on it, both short- and long-term: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9938332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9938332
doublerebel 11y ago
Magic Leap stated last month that they have solved drawing black "with light" due to collaboration between their artists and engineers. It will give them a huge advantage if they can get production costs low enough.
idrios 11y ago
Oculus, Sony's Morpheus, Microsoft's Hololens- these are all just the next step in the VR/AR movement. Currently it's at a stage where the tech requires a box with cell phone screens on your face (or in the case of my favorite AR--Innovega's iOptik--sunglasses and a projector). This isn't the final stage of VR though. The next big leap might be bionic eye implants that directly stimulate your optical nerves (Second Sight's Argus II could be the start of this). The hardware will continue to get better as these companies put more time and money into them. Entirely new companies will be made just to create algorithms and applications to improve the VR experience (how do you make an avatar of a person feel like the real thing? I don't know but I bet Oculus would pay a lot of money for the rights to that algorithm). In the meantime, you are correct about black in AR being a challenge. I'm be curious how that one will be solved

joesmo 11y ago

For me, there's only one question: will it make me motion sick? Only if they can fix that issue will it become something even worth thinking about for those of us who suffer from motion sickness. I hope it can be addressed.

lux 11y ago
I don't think you can solve that 100% with current mobile VR headsets, and any game that separates your in-game movement from your actual physical movement will cause some people to feel sick. I think developers are learning how to work with the hardware though, and things are getting much better. Plus the hardware itself is improving on that front too, for ex: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/8153101/valve-boss-gabe-newell-says-noone-gets-sick-using-vive-vr http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/5/8153101/valve-boss-gabe-new... The Vive is quite a step up from the Oculus Rift DK2, and having played with it myself, that claim actually holds up pretty well.

hokkos 11y ago

I think VR is overselled, never underestimate the effect of intrusiveness on the user. This is the same reason we have less 3D movies than a few years ago, the novelty factor fade and the gains from the medium have to be sufficient to beat the intrusiveness. VR is cumbersome, a large part of the population will probably never be able to use them and users now prefer low engagement medium due to the constant distraction life we are in now.

fossuser 11y ago
Maybe - though the presence you get from VR is really something new. 3D was intrusive for minimal gains (even in the best case of Avatar it wasn't that different of an experience). If you've been able to play with a DK2 and some of the better experiences it really is different. Even with the huge improvements made recently there are still really big changes that would make things even better. (100x higher resolution on the small displays, 90hz and 90fps on mobile, graphics hardware way beyond where it is now). VR puts a strain on modern hardware, but it really gives you something new and maybe that sense of presence will be enough that even with the intrusiveness users will want it.
UberMouse 11y ago
cumbersome is only a temporary thing, VR is definitely going to be an enthusiast thing for the next couple of years, but once the form factor/price starts coming down and the content is actually starting to come out at a reasonable rate I can't see it doing anything but exploding. It's not something you can really understand until you've experienced it first hand, but I think the experience can turn a decent amount of people into enthusiasts.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

juliangregorian 11y ago

Haha, Montreal isn't only known for it's gaming sector. (it's also where much of the online porn industry is engineered)

cafebeen 11y ago

To give a little context on how old VR is, see this picture of Ivan Sutherland from 1967: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/356/1888 http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/35...