[Sir_Crocodile]

because that craig charles vr gameshow traumatised a generation

awooga

[LamerDeluxe]

Sony's headset generates a giant cinema screen in front of you, not the same effect as being inside a 3D world. Head mounted displays with a high enough resolution, good motion tracking and a wide enough field of view are still too expensive. And moving around is a problem.

[east of eastside]

Gaming went the Madden, Halo, Call of Duty route. VR was something more for the dedicated video game hobbyist that took the medium seriously. Gaming went away from that direction.

[likeGdid]

As been said before, motion control and 3D will eventually converge with haptics and wearable computers.

I'm just eagerly waiting for smell based technology to catch up.

[kittens]

I was under the impression that the "quest" never really started. It was mostly pushed by future fantasy dreamers and early-to-the-party entrepreneurs who blew all their money on it. Or so it seemed to me.

[Atomski]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eV-MMm8Z7s

Another reason its dead :P

[theBishop]

It hasn't died, it's just proven to be a difficult challenge. The crucial problem is not display technology. As we've seen there are many workable visor displays.

The hard part is tactile feedback. What hardware is necessary to convey the kickback of a gun? If your battleaxe is blocked by your opponent's shield, what mechanism stops your arm, etc.

[Orin GA]

First, I had the thread open for a while before I responded, so I didn't see the responses before mine. For that, I do apologize. Second: We know that. But the average consumer was duped into believing it was VR. Hell, the things original name was the VR 32, and "virtual boy" kind of implies virtual reality. I think with the utter disappointment of this thing, people just kind of had an "is this all it is" thought to it, and it made people shy away form it somewhat.

Dude, I was 13 when the VB came out and I knew it wasnt VR. No one did, it was never marketed that way.

[teruterubozu]

If only

[ReaperXL07]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eV-MMm8Z7s Another reason its dead :P

it looks silly in that video, but in this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmpOQ...eature=related it actually looks alittle more interesting. Except running in a hamster ball does not seem very enjoyable :P

[Mudkips]

Brazzers.gif

[Baron_Calamity]

VR is probably dead on the consumer level. I just don't see an application in the home. There are a lot of industrial applications in engineering, medical, and education. Some of the engineering developments using VR are really useful.

[Atomski]

it looks silly in that video, but in this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmpOQ...eature=related it actually looks alittle more interesting. Except running in a hamster ball does not seem very enjoyable :P

Well of course their own videos are going to make it look better :P. But in all seriousness its just not going to work. It doesn't simulate real walking at all you will always feel the momentum of the ball rolling in one direction and you will have to fight it or eventually fall over.

[Sky Chief]

The technology required for a good experience hasn't been available yet. However, that is changing rapidly. 3D headset like the Sony HMZ-T1, motion controls, and motion tracking systems like Kinect are all starting to develop. I think next gen VR will be all the rage again.

[DarkPanda]

Because you can play regular games for hours and feel fine, but if you have to physically stomp goombas you'll get tired in 30 minutes and stop playing. The list of practical VR applications is a lot shorter than people think. Plus, it would turn everyone into cosplayers.

[Zaptruder]

It hasn't died, it's just proven to be a difficult challenge. The crucial problem is not display technology. As we've seen there are many workable visor displays. The hard part is tactile feedback. What hardware is necessary to convey the kickback of a gun? If your battleaxe is blocked by your opponent's shield, what mechanism stops your arm, etc.

Excuse me, have you researched VR in any depth?

While tactile feedback in the form you describe it would be nice - the biggest hurdle of tactile feedback has already been cleared - proprioception (the feeling of ones body position) - through accelorometer and camera based motion controls.

Your body moving around, with your vision corresponding with your body - is by far the biggest point of immersion that we can experience. Everything else is just a nicety.

So imagine balling your fist and swinging your arm around - and then imagine an axe in your hand, and swinging that axe around. It's a convincing feeling. Imagine standing on solid ground, overlooking a cliff with a waterfall that drops a thousand meters below. That's also a convincing feeling.

Tactile collision feedback will generally be necessarily limited to bulky mechanical gear that will never be priced to a mass market - nor be usable in most situations. It may eventually arrive in the future when we can directly tap into our sensory nervous system... but that's some future tech shit.

That said... you can achieve some of the information garnered from physical tactile feedback through other sensory mechanisms - primarily visual and audio. e.g. if in the virtual world you move your arm in a way that collides with objects in the world; continue moving your arm in the real world in such a way that your virtual arm cannot pass through - the system creates a super-imposed phantom arm showing you the disjoint between where the limb can be and where you limb currently is. The further it gets away, the brighter it glows. Finally, if it gets far enough, some failure condition kicks in - perhaps you drop your weapon, or your virtual arm falls limp to its side - where you'll have to reposition your arm back to your side to 'pick it up again'. Attach some auditory cues... and hey, presto - you have tactile feedback, albeit in a more audio-visual form then we're used to.

The advantage is that such a mechanism continues to engage our proprioception, which in a sense is our largest tactile feedback sensory system.

The flipside is, we eschew VR and all the benefits and potentials it has because we can't wrap our collective heads around a couple teething issues - after getting so close with the motion input and the vision... we continue to ignore it, because we're too dumb to figure out that the high quality approximation of VR is still extremely valuable, not just to gaming but multiple fields of learning, production, creativity.

[onQ123]

PlayStation 5 Believe!

[ToxicAdam]

Does anybody actually want this? It seemed like an awful concept to me. I definitely would not buy this technology, not matter how mature.

I think the problem some people have when they discuss emerging technologies is that they assume it is going to replace what they currently enjoy. That rarely happens in technology as things usually coexist for years, even though they serve the same purpose.

VR is just going to be another appendage or hydra head on the gaming monster.

It's application might not even be what we conventionally think of as 'gaming' at all. If a virtual world like Second Life can thrive and be profitable, there's no reason to think that a similar idea couldn't carry over into a VR unit. Especially as speech to text software improves which would help overcome any interface issues.

[Pyronite]

The biggest problem is the brain-body disconnect when being presented with motion and not feeling it viscerally. It causes nausea in a lot of people, which is kind of a critical flaw with a mass-market entertainment product.

I played an experimental VR game for a company called Virtus back in the mid-90s. I did experience the brain-body disconnect - I spent most of the time running around the game with my head facing to the left.

I didn't have any problems with nausea or headaches, but it was a little odd for the reason above.

The technology is definitely there. This was a 3d game I was playing in the mid 90s at a relative startup in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and it was full featured. It's just not consumer-friendly enough I imagine.

[Ruze789]

I remember playing a VR game outside some expo in the streets of Boston in the late-90s.

It wasn't very good, really just a simple 3d polygon maze like out of a PSOne game, looking for other players and pew-pewing them with one of the controller sticks you held.

But it made enough of an impression to cause me to still be waiting to play something like it with modern tech. Seeing advances from Wii to Move and Kinect have gotten my hopes up to seeing something similar again.

[B_Rik_Schitthaus]

Everyone gave up on VR after seeing this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkzF56tGYSg

[Dyno]

I don't think it's dead at all! The various tech needed to power it are developing nicely. That it is still somewhat bulky, expensive, and of limited use means that the industry is not willing to invest in a consumer product quite yet. These things will pass in time. We're going to see excellent VR in our homes well within our lifetime.

[Kai Dracon]

AR, Augmented Reality, is probably the future in the near term. AR doesn't suffer the visual/body disconnect problem since you're mostly interacting with solid reality that is slightly enhanced.

I think the AR technology conceptualized in the anime Denno Coil is a fantastic look at how AR could be realized that would achieve much of what people thought VR would be used for, but integrated with everyday life.

[JoeTheBlow]

So, yeah, i just spent half an hour in Datura, in a HMZ with a Move strapped to the side, with full headtracking and VR-glove style Move functionality.
My 1st experience with proper VR (TrackIR mouselook emulation is no comparison at all), now feel a bit sick and have a headache. Amazing while it lasted but not one i'll be spending much more time with.

Yeah, i think the real reason its not feasible is because humans are susceptible to motion sickness (and you don't have to be in motion for that, only your eyes saying that you are and your body saying you ain't), and theres no changing that. Damn our stupid monkey brains.

[evilromero]

I think people are confused on what VR intended to do. We're seeing it happen again today with AR apps on phones and the new handhelds. The Virtual Boy was never a VR unit, since turning your head or the unit didn't augment the experience. It was a just a portable 3D device, much like the 3DS today.

What really held back VR in the 90s was technology. We just didn't have the processing power to do the kinds of things necessary for on the fly VR movement in a realistic manner. I sense we're about to experience a breakthrough in that regard though with AR tech mixing with the latest controllers.

[Magnus]

Because it's cumbersome, expensive and a pain in the ass to use.

[ScOULaris]

I remember seeing these machines in malls and movie theaters during the mid-90's:



Dactyl Nightmare 2, WUT?!

[Host Samurai]

Its probably one of those things that sound better on paper. The closest I would go to VR is maybe some glasses with built in head phones and a controller in hand. Im not into the controller free Kinect stuff.

[Fourth Storm]

This thread made me think of that force feedback vest which was marketed years back. That may have failed, but there's other, newer "vest tech" being worked out even today.

[Neuromancer]

I'd be totally down if the tech and price were right.

[GrayFoxPL]

We are VR, we are VR.

[Wray]

Because the technology isnt ready yet. It's going to be another 20-30 years before nanotech advances to the point where they can interact with the neurons in your brain to properly replicate your sense of touch, smell, etc to accurately produce a virtual reality simulation.

[CPS2]

I think Google glasses + augmented reality + navigation could combine into some pretty incredible games.

[heckmanimation]

itll be back dont you worry.

[chris.trejo]

Sony seems to be working on it with their HD helmet thing and tracking with move/camera but I guess it's just not cost effective enough to sell to the masses.

[Solid07]

If PS4 or XBOX720 implements this, I'll buy it on Day 1.

I remember playing a VR boxing game at the arcade when I was a kid. Coolest thing ever.

[Woo-Fu]

Nintendo killed the quest with this piece of shit:

Time to sell the VirtualBoy and buy some non-virtual sheets.

[crazygambit]

This Battlefield simulator was super nice though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg8Bh5iI2WY

[TriGen]

I just don't think the tech is where it needs to be for it to feel "natural".

[Pimpbaa]

Won't take off until the technology is there to feel virtual boobies.

[VVIS]

AR is the new VR. Tech's not ready in some key places, and getting it to scale in real life situations makes it a pipe dream. In 20 years, I could see both AR and VR as realities though.

Until then, there might be small time, focused implementations that will work in certain situations, with certain huge drawbacks. Ultimately, no one really wants to wear an I/O device, which might be the kicker even if the tech was amazing.

[Zaptruder]

So, yeah, i just spent half an hour in Datura, in a HMZ with a Move strapped to the side, with full headtracking and VR-glove style Move functionality. My 1st experience with proper VR (TrackIR mouselook emulation is no comparison at all), now feel a bit sick and have a headache. Amazing while it lasted but not one i'll be spending much more time with. Yeah, i think the real reason its not feasible is because humans are susceptible to motion sickness (and you don't have to be in motion for that, only your eyes saying that you are and your body saying you ain't), and theres no changing that. Damn our stupid monkey brains.

Sounds like a conditioning problem. You'll get use to it and nausea will subside. Just like the pain subsided after a while of using the HMZ-T1.

A good trick would be to semi-track the movement of legs, and use that as an indication of movement.

Running on the spot = running in the game.

Hell of a way to get fit as well I'd think.

Still... it's going to have to improve significantly and probably come off the back of AR if it's going to find success in the mass market - it's going to have to work without easily perceptible problems right off the bat.

[GreggTheGrimReaper]

I think this guy is already there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnbUsgJpKqs

I'm holding out for the HMZ-T2 and hope that it will feature headtracking built in the device. Gyrosensors are cheap and common now and Sony really like to push their 3D technology across various devices so it makes perfect sense to market it to gamers.

[Ivan A Nguyen]

I thought a lot about this when I first started playing EverQuest. It seemed like all that was needed was the glasses and you'd have VR. Still seems that way. I don't need full body immersion to be in VR, just my eyes.

[basik]

I remember seeing these machines in malls and movie theaters during the mid-90's: Dactyl Nightmare 2, WUT?!

I was just looking for this...yea I played this in the mgm grand hotel in las vegas and in atlantic city, nj in the big mall thats like floating on the ocean piers.

I found a link with more info on it: http://www.arcadianvr.com/SU_2000.htm

this is exactly what I thought of when I first saw the wii... I was thinking you mean I get to own one of those in my house? awesome! it didnt exactly work out that way but the wii is a decent start.

edit: wow that page I just linked has screenshots of the old games!
edit 2: now that I know the names of the games I see youtube has some crappy videos of them up

[BetterWorldz]

I guess at some point we could get some sort of suit that gives you some tactile feedback but I've always wondered how you could get a practical setup that lets you walk and run in the game world inside your living room. What would be a better solution than that hamster ball?