Both systems can render the same type of game, but both handle the situations differently. Both approaches can allow a player to walk around an object and see things from different angles. However the more natural approach is that you just move your head to do this or get up and look around it like the real world. VR requires you to use a controller of some kind to simulate this action, or at least some of the movement required.
Except this is exactly where AR becomes more limiting in other ways. You cannot recreate anything in AR to look at and around. You can only recreate what you can fit in your room and your FoV. Potentially, the scope will broaden, but of course if you want to recreate anything large, you'll need to go outside. And suddenly the whole argument that it can enhance TV or whatever goes out the window. Literally. It will still be cool stuff, but any potentially *really* great applications for gaming and whatnot is going to be a long way off.
The way i see it, both systems need to be fed data from somewhere, however MS has additional processing power in the device itself as it's untethered. To be honest AR is where I was expecting nintendo to go. Far greater potential to reach people interested in using it. To this day VR has always been cool in my mind, but I never sought it out.As soon as I saw what cold be done with AR games ( before the MS announcement) that convinced me that it has a greater chance of being wide spread
By the time AR is practical and powerful enough to be 'widespread', VR will have grown quite a bit, too, realizing more of its potential and probably gaining many AR capabilities as well. I don't think its going to be as much of a 'vs' thing as you think.
I don't think TV is obsolete either. If you pay for an 80 inch 4k tv, why switch to a vr headsets that is a fraction of the resolution? For me, all the things that could be done with illumiroom to make your home environment a part to the game could be done with AR in a much more convincing manner. It can make your standard gaming exp better imo, not only different.
I think, again, the point is that if AR is advanced enough that it can do these things that you envision, there probably wont be much need for traditional TV's anymore because you'll be able to create your
own TV in AR. Wherever you want. However big you want. Locked to a plane or floating but locked to your head movement.
And it shouldn't be impossible that you could 'sync' content between users so you can all still be watching the same thing.
TV may still have a place, who knows. Its never possible to accurately predict how much technology will actually change our lives. But personally, I feel that if VR and AR start to gain in popularity and become advanced enough, TV's, as we know them now, are going to feel a lot more limiting and outdated. This would be a ways off, of course. I'm not talking within the next 10-20 years even. But I mean even now, for me, after having tried VR, I sometimes sit and look at what I'm watching and playing and feel a little bit frustrated at just how lacking it really is.
