VR... can't even use it because I wear glasses...
Honestly I doubt it's ever going to take off while it has the current issues of high prices, the 'moving around your room without hitting stuff' issue and in one case facebook ownership...
Personally I'm more interested in AR, ie hololens but that's just me.
Basic AR has already taken off in phones. Things such as Pokemon Go and Ingress have 10s of millions of downloads.Originally Posted by LSG501
I'm in two minds about it's fadishism. Hey, did I just invent a word?
First, I've yet to use a set that didn't make me either want to upchuck, or give me a nasty headache. Or more accurately, a couple didn't do one or t'other .... they did both. Which is not an improvement. That said, thus might say more about my eyes than VR.
Second, I don't think the tech is 'there' yet. And "there" means good enough, at a realistic price, and sufficient content, in both quantity and quality, is available.
But I've seen technologies before where it languished for years, waiting for hardware to get sufficient grunt, at a low enough price, to gget mass appeal.
VR may yet get there. I put it's inability to get the snowball rolling downhill down to both lack of grunt (until fairly recently, at least) and price making it too niche.
So, is it a fad, and if so, is it over? Dunno. Too early to tell. Jury's still out. And so on.
Either way, I seriously doubt it'll ever suit me, but if not for headaches and/or puking, I'd buy in the nanosecond I considered there to be enough, or essential enough, content. Which means games, for me.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
No, and yes.
In it's current form, it's just paving the way to something (hopefully) better. I like to think of it as an evolutionary dead end, which will trigger a different approach.
Take Half Life Alyx as an example - Alyx was exclusive to VR because, like most VR games, it leans so hard on the VR aspect it can't stand on it's own for game play - That's been a common theme in just about every VR title so far - The VR bit has to become natural but everything is still pushing the "it's awesome cuz it's VR" shtick. Its' just another turn of the handle on the VR sausage machine - churning out turd melts packaged as Filet Mignon because it has a cool USP.
It feels like 3D movies all over again. Avatar was crap - a poor quality sci-fi Pocahontas, but "it's awesome cuz it's 3D".
That's all very negative, I know, and I want VR to be good; but anything that requires you strap a lump to your forehead and re-locate all your living room furniture needs a rethink. Accessibility is an issue too - I don't suffer from motion sickness but a few minutes with a VR headset makes me feel queasy. On top of that - the entry bar is far too high to get the masses on board.
Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes; after that, who cares?! He's a mile away and you've got his shoes!
3D movies were limited by framerate. Any fast moving action looks crap in a movie at 24fps.
People itt shaking their fists at electricity and these new fangled flying machines and whatnot.
True (although tbh I don't rate the ar in those apps that highly) but not quite the type of usage I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of more business use where you can preview a 'house' on a plot of land or how a remodel or exhibition layout would look etc.
As a glasses wearer my Vive is perfectly fine for hours on end.
To the main question if it's a fad? Maybe? I've had countless hours out of mine and the games still blow me away.
I'll be sad when/if the games dry up for it but at the moment it's still great fun and has been for the 18 months I've had it.
I treat it the same as my console, something cool comes out for it I'll get it and play it.
Does it get used every day? No. A few hours a week certainly, especially when there's a good campaign game to play through - currently winging my way through Star Wars Squadrons.
I'm old enough to remember the same question being asked of 3d graphics cards, but the price needs to come down, more comfortable to wear, resolution increased, and the most important of all - a killer game/application that does it well. Much like Quake, Half-Life etc in the early days of 3d graphics.
The basic technology isn't quite there yet though. Give it 6 or 7 years when £5000 graphics cards become the norm, and a grand for a VR setup is peanuts.
I could see some good uses for training purposes, such as medical or large machinery, where the initial physical training on working equipment would be very expensive or time consuming to allow each individual one by one to have a go.
Gaming, I think the novelty has worn off slightly though I've seen some fun games I don't think many developers have it as a core focus.
You need the correct environment for it at home which few people will have.
£300/400 for a controller I wouldn't use much - no thank you.
When they first came out roughly 4/5 years ago they couldn't throw them at you hard enough, free with phone contracts, bundled with graphics cards. Now it's barely mentioned.
The question 'Was virtual reality just a fad' seems to suggest you've already made up your mind
VR has been around since the 1990s, so hardly a fad.
VR use in serious applications continues to grow. However within those applications VR is delivered in a 'suite' and the VR headset is a very small part of the overall investment.
The question is whether consumer and mainstream VR use will ever catch on? Reminds me of video conferencing, which originally involved setting up a dedicated suite with multiple cameras, expensive microphones and an ISDN30 line. 30 years later executives and everyone else can Zoom from their front room but the experience is just a bit crap compared to the dedicated business suites that came before.
First we gotta have actual good GFX cards for this..
Mainstream VR? am not sure, it looks quite a bit thin still, they are too heavy to wear most of them as well. clunky controllers to be honest...
if had body controllers would make it interesting or more interesting instead, and eye control of some sort.
Further to my previous post, the most recent Steam Hardware Survey, indicates only 1.88% of Steam users has a VR headset...
ISTM that is 1.88% of computers running Steam, which isn't the same as users.
We have a family of 4 here, which including desktops, laptops and the shoebox machine downstairs is 7 computers running Steam and one of those has the VR headset attached. I'm not saying the actual figure is 7 times higher, but it will be very much under reporting.
We also have a HOTAS that we share, and some racing pedals that move between machines. You can't really measure peripherals in the same way as graphics cards.
With the Quest 2 taking over from the Rift, I suspect Steam reporting will get even worse.
Edit:
Our Rift is powered by an RX 570. Really, the hardware bar is *really* easy to get over these days. When I got the thing you needed a £400 GPU and an expensive quad core i7 to get usable results; now more power can be had on a £150 GPU and a Ryzen 3600.
We all know Steam isn't that representative either...
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
Are you joking? There has been an exponential increase in adoption of VR with a doubling over user base every 12 months. Only a slight slow down in the past few months as new generation of headsets are about to or have been released over the past few days.
As someone that has been using the Oculus Rift CV1 since 2016 and now just got the Quest 2, VR is by far the best tech purchase I've ever made. The experience is incredible and has only been getting better with time.
It seems like most people commenting here have actually never used a VR headset like Quest or Rift before. Comparing it to 3DTV's is completely ridiculous - they are not comparable at all. In fact, I HAVE a 3DTV, and you know how many times I've used it in 4 years? About twice. Yet I use VR every single day.
Before commenting on the future of VR, you ought to try *good VR*. And no, I don't mean the type that you put in your phones or Oculus Go. Those are not true VR. Google cardboard? That's ridiculous... You have never tried VR if that's what your opinion is based on. Google cardboard is awful and not VR.
PSVR has been doubling its VR user base almost every year since 2016. Percentage of steam users adopting VR has been roughly doubling each year. Exponential growth leads to very large numbers... and we're almost at 2% right now. You do the math.
1st post so I can't share a link, but google: steam survey vr headset growth march-2020
Technology adoption usually follows an exponential trend and follows an S-curve. The past few months have slowed down, but now with Quest 2 and other headsets being released, it will grow significantly again.
With Quest 2 now being just £299, developers are seeing 10x the number of sales than before. Overwhelmingly positive reviews as well.
And as far as 'vr sickness' goes: this is something that the vast majority of people adapt to. Within days to weeks, 90% of people become immune and don't experience these side effects.
I can't believe it's 2020 and I see people comparing it to 3DTVs.
VR industry has NEVER in its entire history been as healthy as it is today. It's been growing consistently... Will it go away? No, never. VR will be the next big computing platform. It will replace monitors and many TV's.
Fad? No. Niche, yes.
I never tried out the 3D glasses fad, but that's because I didn't have the gear powerful enough to do it. By the time I had a 144Hz monitor and a powerful enough GFX card to do that, the fad had gone. Which is a shame, as that sounded like the better option - 3D gaming without loosing the ability to see your controller.
I enjoy watching some films in 3D, e.g. CGI ones. I imagine there would be a few games I'd enjoy playing in VR. But not many. And for that, it has to have a reasonable cost but quite frankly with the price of graphics cards at the moment, there is negative cash left over for VR.
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