Read more.Fad or functional - you decide.
Read more.Fad or functional - you decide.
Gaming is, well, for me anyway, about immersion. Take me to a battlefield where I can lay waste to my foes or travel the stars in a far flung future... the stuff dreams are made of.
Unfortunately not everyone can dream such a fantastic story or adventure on a whim. That's where gaming comes in, it fills that void that we crave, the more gaming can immerse us closer to that real world lucid dream the better in my book.
VR headsets are a step in that direction, bring them on, make them available to the masses, and move onto the next step that will increase the immersion.
I do see it as something that would be fun to have, but the obvious issue would be Battery life or an annoying cable. I can just image someone using the Wii controllers and playing a zombie game, goes in for the machete kill, Yanks the cable VR headset flies into the wall only to become a Reality Reality.
Who knows this may be a cheaper alternative to buying a 70" 4k TV, making for Cinema, TV, YouTube, and Wizards Dreams come to life. Because we have tried to sleep in bed watching cute cat videos, only to have our phone fall flat onto your nose.
I don't see it as a fad this time. Technology has caught up and can enable a great VR experience now, and with all the development time that Occulus has put in (which has made the likes of Sony do the same) when they finally hit the market this time around they should be nice and mature and give a great user experience. Once word gets around how great it is I think it might take a bite out of monitor sales a little.
This will be about as popular as 3D gaming I'm guessing, it's still a long way off mainstream. And what's the longest someone has used one of these before throwing up their dinner?
Having used the DK2... Going to be huge... VERY immersive (possible too much immersion).
If the consumer Rift is slick and nice wide angle then can see a lot of emaciated gamers being found dead with them on.
well seeing as my holosuite is broken then vr has got to be the next best thing ..
but at £400 a pop for a good headset then not many people are going to be using them ..
What does it matter now if men believe or no?
What is to come will come. And soon you too will stand aside,
To murmur in pity that my words were true
(Cassandra, in Agamemnon by Aeschylus)
To see the wizard one must look behind the curtain ....
Naaaaa, we are just making the same mistakes again with the people who said it was crap last time not being listened to.
VR / whatever the current rebrand is called is and will always be worse as it is much less immersive as immersion requires the ability to use your imagination. The closer to reality something becomes the easier it is for the brain to pick fault.
! I think that it is a big contender and the cost is only high now because it is not yet ready for the main stream. There is still quite a lot to do to make them more affordable, though saying that with the right headset, it could replace a multi-monitor setup that would cost far more than £400.
I have only tried the DK2 but in Elite Dangerous this was a really good example of where it really works. A lot of things that were annoying with a controller (such as looking around the cockpit) became much more natural and far more immersive. The only concerning aspect is the affect that long term use of such technology might have on eyes... as it felt strange enough after just half an hour!
Augmented reality with items such as holo lens might offer a good compromise, that way you don't throw everything off your desk when you go to grab the flight stick in Elite Dangerous..!
I sure hope not, as I suffer from not being able to comprehend the 3rd dimension, yet like to be at the forefront of gaming, I'd rather not be ultimately left behind. I'm sure enough that some people out there will make vr for people like me, but I doubt I'll ever get the same, or even a comparable experience from such a device and so, call me old fashioned if you like, but I'd rather see development in larger resolution displays with higher refresh rates
I am not sure that it would become the main stream probably not for a while, and much longer term it perhaps doesn't seem as "far fetched" that we would plug into the system in a similar fashion to the matrix! If they can make VR work and be comfortable for longer periods of time (perhaps these will have to be less immersive or maybe not), then there is a lot of possibilities. I believe that the Steam VR may be one of the key technologies for VR in general and will be interesting to see how it turns out.
I so want them to become a reality, go mainstream and become affordable.
Not sure how things are going to work out tho. Will it be oculus rift style with wasd at your desk, or Virtuix Omni or the HTC vive where you need to have a room for it.
The whole needing room/ space for the vive is a bit worrying. Most young gamers, game in their bedrooms. Will they have the space there? Also what about the tech hungry Japanese where space is a premium?
My own preference would be for the former. I have one major fear about these, the videos that spouses will upload to youtube of guys using them. As it is now, with my headphones on, my wife could walk in to the room and I might not notice. Headphones and a headset, well I'll never know anyone has been in the room.
Last edited by TaintedShirt; 27-03-2015 at 11:01 PM. Reason: just to add a bit.
I think that the real next big thing would be AR, not VR. Still, I do think that VR would have some success. I'll have to see how the end products turn out.
The final version of the Oculus and Vive won't require a room or for you to be sat down. They will both allow you to choose.
As a DK2 owner, I think they'll take of faster than most people think. I've demo'd the tech to a lot of people and no matter how little they care or how enthusiastic they are before hand, they always come out surprised and amazed. My mother in law, who can barely send an email, spend a full 5 minutes floating in space with it and loved it. People who like technology all say they will buy one.
Play Elite: Dangerous in VR and you won't want to go back. I rigged up my Kinect to Unreal 4 and had a walk about in an empty room, it was still mind-blowing. I've just finished reading Ready Player One and loved it, the movie will be a big part of making VR popular.
VR is different from stereo displays. Even if you are not able to perceive stereo disparity, you can move your head. This produces a massive number of parralax-based depth-cues.
There should probably be a requirement for a "Have you tried a modern VR headset Y/N" here. If you've never tried it, or have only experienced the consumer-grade ****e (or even industrial-grade ****e, because it's not much better) released in the past, it's difficult to convey how much more effective and functional modern VR devices are.
No. Not right now.
"Nothing is safer than a giant snowball whipping through space...at a million miles an hour"
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