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[Chittagong]

VR is stalling because even the most polished ecosystem product, PlayStation VR, is proof of concept quality.

The games are phenomenal but jesus christ the hassle of getting it all connected, positioning the camera right, sitting in the precisely correct place, keeping your controller in sight, the blurry edges and pixelated centre, cable dangling all around you is not a mass market experience.

And I am saying this as someone who is going to vote Astro Bot GOTY 2018.

VR will un-stall when it’s wireless, no external processor required, inside out tracking, high resolution display. Basically when people can lean back on a sofa and start playing right away.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

It’s a gimmick and always will be cus it will minority who plays it, and not the main way to play the games.

A minority does not make it a gimmick. Are we going to consider console gaming a gimmick too under your definition? Because it's certainly not the most popular way of playing games.

And you don't know for sure. It makes sense for VR to a be a platform with billions of users. That many users on one platform has the potential to be the dominant form of gaming. Whether it happens or not is up for debate, but you can't say it won't happen.

 

[A.Romero]

I think there is a good point buried in the rant. Presumably adding VR capabilities to certain kind of games shouldn't be that expensive (at least on PC) . I mean, you can buy a third party plug in and use it on some games that don't support VR. Why not offer some kind of support?

Hellblade is a good example of a traditional game (arguably) enhanced by VR capabilities. Whomever wants to play it like that and has the money to invest in the platform can do it and the rest of the people that are not interested, can't afford it or can't handle it because of motion sickness can play it in a traditional way.

I mean, you can get regular Blurays or pay more for 4K and 3D Blurays. Why not offer the same options for PC gaming? I know that I would seriously consider paying more for VR capabilities on some games.

It's a good point that I haven't thought about before. Yes, it's a niche market but still a market. I already invested in the platform and if I'm willing to shell out for crappy games/experiences, for sure I'd be willing to pay for more options even if they are not perfect (like Skyrim VR).

 

[Arkage]

VR is stalling because even the most polished ecosystem product, PlayStation VR, is proof of concept quality.

The games are phenomenal but jesus christ the hassle of getting it all connected, positioning the camera right, sitting in the precisely correct place, keeping your controller in sight, the blurry edges and pixelated centre, cable dangling all around you is not a mass market experience.

And I am saying this as someone who is going to vote Astro Bot GOTY 2018.

VR will un-stall when it’s wireless, no external processor required, inside out tracking, high resolution display. Basically when people can lean back on a sofa and start playing right away.

Agreed 100%. Had a vive for a while, sold it because it was just too much hassle to set up unless you have dedicated VR room, which I don't. Bought a PSVR, and enjoyed it for a bit. Didn't enjoy that the box didn't have HDR passthrough forcing me to dick around with cables every time, that I had to sit in a spot where I normally don't have a chair, and that the headset, while fairly comfortable, still sucks for long play sessions. Also the cabling from the headset to the system is just a big pain in the ass too.

As someone who loves 3D, loved Nvidia 3d vision (played most of skyrim that way), loves 3DS, loves 3D movies.... VR requires too many cables and too much set up. Especially for a hobby that you want to just sit down and immediate enjoy without having to fiddle with a bunch of stuff to set it up.

 

[Mozza]

I do like the way the OP used Laserdisc as a point in his argument,that's another niche product that was never going to get widespread adoption.

 

[Mozza]

The differences between VR and monitors are about the same in magnitude as between monitors and handhelds.

Fact.

There is no reason a game like BotW cannot be played on all three types of display devices. If you exclude all good games from one type, don't be surprised when adoption of that type stalls. It's not exactly rocket science (though for most people in this thread, it apparently is).

The issue is not many people would choose to play Zelda that way even if it was offered,which is kind of why VR is not selling all that well outside of the core enthusiast market,I would have thought for somebody as clever as yourself that would have been patently obvious.

Guess not.

 

[Grimmrobe]

I think there is a good point buried in the rant.

It's not buried. He is screaming it at the top of his lungs because no one is saying it, and if he said it in a normal voice you wouldn't have managed to perceive it. Even now you are saying it's "buried" when it's plastered in every single one of his angry and even shrill sentences.

 

[Mozza]

You're simply saying it's a gimmick over and over again, for literally no outlined reason. Just "It's a gimmick because I say so"

If you want people to actually take you seriously, you're going to need to state why it's a gimmick. Which isn't going to be possible considering I already laid out a definition that VR doesn't fall under.

The point about VR being a gimmick or not is moot,the fact the mass buying public see it as a gimmick is far more important.

 

[SonGoku]

Tech is not ready for VR, it takes too much processing power to play PS360 games
Also teleporting is stupid af, i want a proper game not on rails shit

 

[Grimmrobe]

On a simpler level, he is saying THERE ARE NO GAMES FOR THIS THING. So WHY SHOULD ANYONE BUY it?

It's not the cables or the setup or any of that stuff. It is simply that THERE ARE NO GAMES.

Then people are saying LET'S START AN ENTIRE NEW PLATFORM FOR VR. A platform that will compete with Nintendo and Sony and MS!

But it will NEVER happen. No one is interested in starting a FOURTH platform, because three are already more than enough. Devs will simply have to learn to create MOST of their games for ALL kinds of display devices. When THAT happens, VR will take off. And once it takes off, THEN you will see big-budget games made SPECIFICALLY and therefore exclusively for VR. But not before, because it would be a financial death sentence for any dev that did it.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

The point about VR being a gimmick or not is moot,the fact the mass buying public see it as a gimmick is far more important.

This is definitely something that needs to be overcome, with better marketing, more public demos etc.

It will sort itself out over time anyway. The secret to why a lot of people who haven't used VR think it's a gimmick is because what they have seen through video is generally the lower quality stuff like Job Simulator.

If you frequent Reddit's r/gaming, you'll notice that people get crazy excited over the really exciting unique stuff in VR. Because most people have no idea what VR is capable of.

We've only had AA exclusives so far with VR, and we're in gen 1. Less than 1/1000th of HMD-based VR's potential is fulfilled. As more of the potential is fulfilled, it will be much easier to market through video.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

On a simpler level, he is saying THERE ARE NO GAMES FOR THIS THING. So WHY SHOULD ANYONE BUY it?

It's not the cables or the setup or any of that stuff. It is simply that THERE ARE NO GAMES.

Then people are saying LET'S START AN ENTIRE NEW PLATFORM FOR VR. A platform that will compete with Nintendo and Sony and MS!

But it will NEVER happen. No one is interested in starting a FOURTH platform, because three are already more than enough. Devs will simply have to learn to create MOST of their games for ALL kinds of display devices. When THAT happens, VR will take off. And once it takes off, THEN you will see big-budget games made SPECIFICALLY and therefore exclusively for VR. But not before, because it would be a financial death sentence for any dev that did it.

VR as a whole isn't meant to compete with consoles. It's far bigger in potential and more important than some game consoles.

And there are plenty of great VR games, it's just that most people don't know about them, and I'll admit that there are no released (some are on the way) AAA exclusives so far but that does not mean there are no games.

 

[Grimmrobe]

All we need is a VR exclusive game on the level of Batman or Ghost of Tsushima, etc.

ONE game. ONE killer app.

That is ALL that VR needs.

But no one is making it because it doesn't make financial sense for anyone other than the platform holder. But Sony doesn't want to run 2 platforms, so they run 1.5 because see article.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

All we need is a VR exclusive game on the level of Batman or Ghost of Tsushima, etc.

ONE game. ONE killer app.

That is ALL that VR needs.

But no one is making it because it doesn't make financial sense for anyone other than the platform holder. But Sony doesn't want to run 2 platforms, so they run 1.5 because see article.

Of course developers are making it. Valve. Insomniac. Respawn. 5 AAA games between the three of them.

Valve in particular have the best chance at releasing a killer app.

 

[Grimmrobe]

And there are plenty of great VR games

There is nothing. If you think there is, you don't know what greatness is.

 

[brap]

Only heavy thing I want sitting on my face for hours is a woman. And it seems like most VR games are basically Wii tier garbage.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

There is nothing. If you think there is, you don't know what greatness is.

So what is greatness? Does a game need to win GOTY to be considered great? Does it need to be at least 95+ on metacritic?

FYI, Astro Bot and Lone Echo are 90 and 89 on metacritic respectively. Astro Bot is PS4's 2nd highest rated new IP, and Lone Echo was one of 2017's best rated PC games. They are both exceptional titles. Masterpieces worthy of GOTY? I say no, though Astro Bot should be a contender to be honest.

 

[Chittagong]

All we need is a VR exclusive game on the level of Batman or Ghost of Tsushima, etc.

ONE game. ONE killer app.

That is ALL that VR needs.

But no one is making it because it doesn't make financial sense for anyone other than the platform holder. But Sony doesn't want to run 2 platforms, so they run 1.5 because see article.

I’m not sure that’s all it takes. Astro Bot is absolutely phenomenal, anyone who misses it misses a monumental achievement in gaming. Or Resident Evil 7 in VR, it’s a completely different experience from the TV based game. Both are fundamental VR experiences, but they are not enough to push VR to a must have. Because VR itself is clunky and unrefined, more a bolt-on hack than a standalone experience.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

I’m not sure that’s all it takes. Astro Bot is absolutely phenomenal, anyone who misses it misses a monumental achievement in gaming. Or Resident Evil 7 in VR, it’s a completely different experience from the TV based game. Both are fundamental VR experiences, but they are not enough to push VR to a must have. Because VR itself is clunky and unrefined, more a bolt-on hack than a standalone experience.

Actually a big reason why those two titles haven't moved that many VR systems is because Astro Bot is a new IP in a genre that isn't super-popular today, and the other can be played without.

A killer app needs to be an existing IP or an unbelievably well marketed new IP in a really popular genre by a big time developer with a AAA budget and enough gameplay hours. (15+ if linear singleplayer, 40+ if non-linear or open world)

In other words, we need something like Half Life 3 fully exclusive to VR.

Ideally, the absolute best killer app scenario would be the next WoW: A VRMMORPG with a huge AAA budget and one that truly nails the formula for future VRMMOs to come. But this is many years off, not likely to happen until the 2nd half of the 2020s. It's probably too early if this game was released today, because a VRMMO needs photorealistic avatars to truly become a shift in MMOs.

 

[Chittagong]

Actually a big reason why those two titles haven't moved that many VR systems is because Astro Bot is a new IP in a genre that isn't super-popular today, and the other can be played without.

A killer app needs to be an existing IP or an unbelievably well marketed new IP in a really popular genre by a big time developer with a AAA budget and enough gameplay hours. (15+ if linear singleplayer, 40+ if non-linear or open world)

In other words, we need something like Half Life 3 fully exclusive to VR.

Ideally, the absolute best killer app scenario would be the next WoW: A VRMMORPG with a huge AAA budget and one that truly nails the formula for future VRMMOs to come. But this is many years off, not likely to happen until the 2nd half of the 2020s. It's probably too early if this game was released today, because a VRMMO needs photorealistic avatars to truly become a shift in MMOs.

I think that is a reasonable theory. Do you think the masses would overcome the shortcomings of today’s VR hardware if the game was big enough?

 

[DarthBuzzer]

I think that is a reasonable theory. Do you think the masses would overcome the shortcomings of today’s VR hardware if tye game was big enough?

They wouldn't. Keep in mind a system seller or killer app only really needs to a sell a million+ units. That doesn't make it mainstream at all, but it does put VR into the mainstream light at least. For example, if a game releases and snatches up the GOTY awards for that year, VR becomes a much more noticeable and current topic. It gets the ball rolling more, and is in every sense a killer app, but not the one that gives it mainstream success.

Mainstream success will happen through a combination of killer apps years down the line with new generations of hardware.

Once we have the hardware that Oculus expects for 2022, then VR hardware will be good enough for the average gamer. Pair that with a killer app or two, and as long as the price is reasonable, it will start to take off - although will take several years on the mainstream runway.

After that, you have another phase where the 2022 tech goes into a ~2025 standalone VR headset which should honestly have no reason to not sell as well as a game console if priced right.

By that point, VR should be mainstream in gaming. If it isn't, then clearly something has gone wrong. Of course VR has the potential to hit smartphone levels of adoption, but that will be further out than 2025.

 

[Chittagong]

They wouldn't. Keep in mind a system seller or killer app only really needs to a sell a million+ units. That doesn't make it mainstream at all, but it does put VR into the mainstream light at least. For example, if a game releases and snatches up the GOTY awards for that year, VR becomes a much more noticeable and current topic. It gets the ball rolling more, and is in every sense a killer app, but not the one that gives it mainstream success.

Mainstream success will happen through a combination of killer apps years down the line with new generations of hardware.

Once we have the hardware that Oculus expects for 2022, then VR hardware will be good enough for the average gamer. Pair that with a killer app or two, and as long as the price is reasonable, it will start to take off - although will take several years on the mainstream runway.

After that, you have another phase where the 2022 tech goes into a ~2025 standalone VR headset which should honestly have no reason to not sell as well as a game console if priced right.

By that point, VR should be mainstream in gaming. If it isn't, then clearly something has gone wrong. Of course VR has the potential to hit smartphone levels of adoption, but that will be further out than 2025.

Yep, I am with you here. Do we know where Oculus or PSVR are heading for by 2022? Sony obviously doesn’t talk about future products but I haven’t been following Oculus.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Gimmick: "a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or trade. "

Nothing that describes VR. It's a fully additive medium, meaning that it adds to the experience in a valuable way.

And if you want to be active in your environment, then you'd be doing mixed reality in VR, which isn't here yet because you know, it's early days and everything?


It has learnt. VR's motion controls are where they are now because of the groundwork left behind by Wii, PS Move and such.
Developers have also learnt (not all of them of course) how to avoid waggle-based gameplay that was unavoidable in Wii games.

Until SONY FULLY commits to VR which means dropping the Dualshock entirely, than I don't see the VR taking off like the Wii motion controllers.

 

[The_Mike]

So what is greatness? Does a game need to win GOTY to be considered great? Does it need to be at least 95+ on metacritic?

When talking about console exclusives Metacritic comes into play, so I guess it’s the same here?

 

[Grimmrobe]

Astro Bot and RE7 are cool. But RE7 can be played without VR also, and Astro Bot is not exactly the kind of game that fires up people's imaginations. You have to PLAY it to see that it's great, but with stuff like Ghost of Tsushima you are drooling BEFORE you even play it.

THAT'S what VR needs.

 

[Grimmrobe]

Imagine if a new console came out to compete with Sony, MS and Nintendo, with the kind of exclusives VR has now. Who would buy the box for that crap? VR costs as much as a new box, and has the absolute WORST exclusives of all platforms.

It's not the wires. Or the price. It's the games. More precisely, the lack of them.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Yep, I am with you here. Do we know where Oculus or PSVR are heading for by 2022? Sony obviously doesn’t talk about future products but I haven’t been following Oculus.

You can find a bunch of information here: https://uploadvr.com/abrash-2018-predictions-oc5/

Most are very likely for 2022, a few are likely, but still a bit iffy.

But the TL;DR is:
- Bare minimum 4000 x 4000 resolution per eye and 140 degrees FoV.
- Photorealistic Avatars with full body tracking, eye tracking, finger tracking, facial tracking. Basically your Ready Player One avatars, or at least close to that.
- Depth of focus using varifocal displays or something else to solve vergence accommodation. No more headaches, no more eye strain.
- Mixed reality in VR, being able to scan the real world in real time to any amount, from items like keyboards, mice, furniture, drinks, pets, humans, food, drink, or everything in the room. Solves isolation. Allows you to easily teleport to a friend's house, etc.
- Personal HRTF calibration. A way for your ears to be scanned so spatial audio goes through a reconstructed mesh of your ear canal, thus giving you audio that sounds 100% lifelike with audio propagation algorithms.
- Foveated Rendering which would be able to cut around 20x of pixels out of the rendering equation, making VR games less intense on GPUs than non-VR. Eventually far less intense. This is where VR starts to outpace traditional gaming in graphics, framerates, and resolution.
- Wireless.

So a 2022 HMD from Oculus should fix almost every hardware problem with VR.

Other than that, we know Oculus believes haptic gloves to be doable within 10 years, and Waveguide displays would give us the Ready Player One visor form factor with no distinct time frame given, but clearly implied to be somewhere in the 5-10 year range.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Imagine if a new console came out to compete with Sony, MS and Nintendo, with the kind of exclusives VR has now. Who would buy the box for that crap? VR costs as much as a new box, and has the absolute WORST exclusives of all platforms.

It's not the wires. Or the price. It's the games. More precisely, the lack of them.

VR has much more quality exclusives than Xbox One.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

When talking about console exclusives Metacritic comes into play, so I guess it’s the same here?

And I gave examples of high metacritic scores. You could throw around the word "great" and no one is going to think of only 90+ metacritic games. Most people would say a game in the 80s is great, and some in the 70s too.

Until SONY FULLY commits to VR which means dropping the Dualshock entirely, than I don't see the VR taking off like the Wii motion controllers.

It doesn't mean dropping Dualshock entirely. They could have a hybrid like the Switch, except in VR terms. A VR headset that is it's own console, but hooks up wirelessly to a PS6. (As I doubt this will happen for PS5)

Sony are also far from the only force in VR. If Oculus releases a standalone headset with their 2022 predictions for high-end VR, then I see no reason why that headset shouldn't sell as much as the Wii.

 

[Grimmrobe]

VR has much more quality exclusives than Xbox One.

Tru dat lol. But that doesn't matter to poor people, because they can't afford to play games on PC. So they buy an Xbox One. That's why Xbox One has sold more than VR headsets.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Tru dat lol. But that doesn't matter to poor people, because they can't afford to play games on PC. So they buy an Xbox One. That's why Xbox One has sold more than VR headsets.

It also helps that Xbox is a long running brand, and is an 8th generation console. Going up against 1st gen headsets is clearly going to put the upper hand in the console space.

 

[Grimmrobe]

It also helps that Xbox is a long running brand, and is an 8th generation console. Going up against 1st gen headsets is clearly going to put the upper hand in the console space.

That's why they should have called it the Oculus 9

 

[Xenon]

It's obviously people's fault for not wanting to buy it. =P

Still haven't seen a game worthy of selling the platform.

 

[EventHorizon]

I’m not sure that’s all it takes. Astro Bot is absolutely phenomenal, anyone who misses it misses a monumental achievement in gaming. Or Resident Evil 7 in VR, it’s a completely different experience from the TV based game. Both are fundamental VR experiences, but they are not enough to push VR to a must have. Because VR itself is clunky and unrefined, more a bolt-on hack than a standalone experience.

Astrobot is a platformer and Resident Evil 7 is a horror game. Platformers are not a popular genre on the PS4. It might be absolutely fantastic in VR, but people have no way to know that. I'm in that camp. Even with the great reviews, I don't have a whole lot of desire to play it because I'm just not that into platformers.

Horror is never going to be a killer game in VR. It's too intense for the mass market. Besides it was available as a fully non VR game so there was not a lot of incentive to pick up PSVR to play it.

We've gotten a good showings from the Skyrim VR remake and potentially will have another with the upcoming Borderlands 2 VR remake, but those are remakes of remakes. They were/are never going to move a lot of units by themselves.

Instead of looking for a big home run, the more likely scenario for PSVR to score runs is with steady consistent play. It needs to build up a library of good enough games available a decent discounts accompanied by good sales on the hardware for people to start to consider the PSVR an impulse buy.

Price has always been the biggest limiting factor for PSVR. As a peripheral, PSVR was far more capable as a gaming device than the record selling original Kinect for the Xbox 360. The reason why the PSVR could not match it in sales was because of price. The Kinect launched for $150 while the PSVR launched at $399. That is simply way too much for a peripheral to sell to a mass market.

The upcoming Target Black Friday sales have PSVR hardware with hit games bundled at $200-$250. That is the combination that will make PSVR fly off the shelves. Once the price can get down and stay at that range, PSVR will take off.

 

[Chittagong]

You can find a bunch of information here: https://uploadvr.com/abrash-2018-predictions-oc5/

Most are very likely for 2022, a few are likely, but still a bit iffy.

But the TL;DR is:
- Bare minimum 4000 x 4000 resolution per eye and 140 degrees FoV.
- Photorealistic Avatars with full body tracking, eye tracking, finger tracking, facial tracking. Basically your Ready Player One avatars, or at least close to that.
- Depth of focus using varifocal displays or something else to solve vergence accommodation. No more headaches, no more eye strain.
- Mixed reality in VR, being able to scan the real world in real time to any amount, from items like keyboards, mice, furniture, drinks, pets, humans, food, drink, or everything in the room. Solves isolation. Allows you to easily teleport to a friend's house, etc.
- Personal HRTF calibration. A way for your ears to be scanned so spatial audio goes through a reconstructed mesh of your ear canal, thus giving you audio that sounds 100% lifelike with audio propagation algorithms.
- Foveated Rendering which would be able to cut around 20x of pixels out of the rendering equation, making VR games less intense on GPUs than non-VR. Eventually far less intense. This is where VR starts to outpace traditional gaming in graphics, framerates, and resolution.
- Wireless.

So a 2022 HMD from Oculus should fix almost every hardware problem with VR.

Other than that, we know Oculus believes haptic gloves to be doable within 10 years, and Waveguide displays would give us the Ready Player One visor form factor with no distinct time frame given, but clearly implied to be somewhere in the 5-10 year range.

Thanks, much appreciated. Didn’t think that foveated rendering, photorealistic avatars and HRTF calibration would be quite that soon. Wireless and high res displays obviously, and mixed reality.

 

[Grimmrobe]

Instead of looking for a big home run, the more likely scenario for PSVR to score runs is with steady consistent play. It needs to build up a library of good enough games available a decent discounts accompanied by good sales on the hardware for people to start to consider the PSVR an impulse buy.

That's not how platforms flourish. That's how they die.

Platforms--VIDEOGAME platforms at any rate--flourish with apps that people will line around the block for 3 nights to play. And until VR gets them, VR will remain in cryostasis. And all it needs to get them is for Ubisoft to make all its new games compatible with the damn things.

 

[EventHorizon]

Thanks, much appreciated. Didn’t think that foveated rendering, photorealistic avatars and HRTF calibration would be quite that soon. Wireless and high res displays obviously, and mixed reality.

While those capabilities might be technically possible by 2022, that is not the same thing as being financially possible. Oculus has had recent high level firings and a rumored cancelation of the Rift 2 in order to focus on more modest devices.

Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe had decided to leave Facebook partially due to his “fundamentally different views on the future of Oculus” and decisions surrounding the cancellation of a next-generation “Rift 2” project.
...
Its cancellation signified an interest by Facebook leadership to focus on more accessible improvements to the core Rift experience that wouldn’t require the latest PC hardware to function.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/31/a...-plans-a-modest-update-to-flagship-vr-headset

Oculus has offered a lukewarm denial of the cancelation, but it is clear that the project is not currently running smoothly. That is likely due to lower than expected sales. The problem comes back to price. You can put a ton of bells and whistles on your VR device, but if it is too expensive then few can, or will, buy it.

 

[EventHorizon]

That's not how platforms flourish. That's how they die.

Platforms--VIDEOGAME platforms at any rate--flourish with apps that people will line around the block for 3 nights to play. And until VR gets them, VR will remain in cryostasis. And all it needs to get them is for Ubisoft to make all its new games compatible with the damn things.

If the Kinect for the 360 can be a record breaker with virtually no gaming capability, the PSVR can easily cross the threshold to sell well. The only thing holding it back is the price.

The XB1 is a perfect example of how price affects sales. It was floundering a year after release until Microsoft offered deep discounts during the 2014 holiday season. It then sputtered along after that, peaking only when going on sale again. It wasn't until the Xbox had made permanent its discounts that its sales stabilized.

PSVR will follow the same trend. It will quickly and easily sell out during the upcoming holiday sales. Then when the price pops back up, sales will go down again. Eventually Sony will be able to lower the price permanently to the previous discount price and the PSVR sales will bounce back to what they will be this holiday...just like what happened with the XB1.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

While those capabilities might be technically possible by 2022, that is not the same thing as being financially possible. Oculus has had recent high level firings and a rumored cancelation of the Rift 2 in order to focus on more modest devices.



Oculus has offered a lukewarm denial of the cancelation, but it is clear that the project is not currently running smoothly. That is likely due to lower than expected sales. The problem comes back to price. You can put a ton of bells and whistles on your VR device, but if it is too expensive then few can, or will, buy it.

If we assume truth, it still doesn't impact a 2022 Rift. There's a problem right now with releasing a 2nd gen headset, and that's the fact that foveated rendering and eye-tracking are crucial for almost any advancement to happen. So until those are solved around 2022, Oculus has to either go the Pimax route and make a high specced headset for 2019/2020 which is What Iribe supposedly wanted, or work on a Rift 1.5 which makes much more sense for growing the market.

Facebook knows how crucial all of the 2022 tech discussed is. When it comes around to that time, they'll almost certainly give the greenlight on going all-in on that technology, especially since Mark Zuckerberg has said beyond generation 1, we're going to see big leaps in tech, plus Abrash would look like a fool if none of his 2022 predictions come true because Facebook decided to make a Rift 1.8 for 2022.

Facebook realizes that the price becomes much more justifiable with better tech. Abrash's proposed 2022 headset would be a steal at $400 for example, whereas today $400 is still considered a bit expensive for VR.

 

[Grimmrobe]

If the Kinect for the 360 can be a record breaker with virtually no gaming capability

You know what else is a record breaker with no gaming capability?

Mouse pads.

What you are saying has nothing do with the present discussion, just like mouse pads, or the Kinect.

 

[EventHorizon]

You know what else is a record breaker with no gaming capability?

Mouse pads.

What you are saying has nothing do with the present discussion, just like mouse pads, or the Kinect.

You are projecting your own irrelevancy. I am comparing two high profile peripherals to modern consoles that allowed entirely new types of gaming, while you are talking mousepads.

 

[ReBurn]

VR is stalling for the same reason good motion controlled games died so quickly on the Wii and move for PS3. Developers either don't know how to utilize it effectively so they create shallow, hokey experiences or it's more lucrative to just stick with the tried and true ass in chair gamepad/M&K experience that they know people will pay for. Until there's real money in VR nobody is going to be willing to invest creative energy into it.

 

[EventHorizon]

If we assume truth, it still doesn't impact a 2022 Rift. There's a problem right now with releasing a 2nd gen headset, and that's the fact that foveated rendering and eye-tracking are crucial for almost any advancement to happen. So until those are solved around 2022, Oculus has to either go the Pimax route and make a high specced headset for 2019/2020 which is What Iribe supposedly wanted, or work on a Rift 1.5 which makes much more sense for growing the market.

Facebook knows how crucial all of the 2022 tech discussed is. When it comes around to that time, they'll almost certainly give the greenlight on going all-in on that technology, especially since Mark Zuckerberg has said beyond generation 1, we're going to see big leaps in tech, plus Abrash would look like a fool if none of his 2022 predictions come true because Facebook decided to make a Rift 1.8 for 2022.

Facebook realizes that the price becomes much more justifiable with better tech. Abrash's proposed 2022 headset would be a steal at $400 for example, whereas today $400 is still considered a bit expensive for VR.

Once again it all comes back to price. They'll do anything that is cost effective, but they'll drop in a hot second anything that isn't. They already badly misjudged the current market for VR when it comes to price, which is why they have to adjust now. It's just an acknowledgement that their "build it and they will come" mentality was wrong.

What is the logic behind the thinking that $400 would be more palatable in 2022 than now for a VR headset. There will be some general inflation by then but it is not going to reduce the perceived cost that much. After all games are stuck at $60 and its general accepted common wisdom that $400 is the highest price for a mass market console, and those price limits haven't changed in many many years. My guess as I stated before is that a VR headset needs to be below $250 to sell to the mass market.

 

[Grimmrobe]

VR is stalling for the same reason good motion controlled games died so quickly on the Wii and move for PS3. Developers either don't know how to utilize it effectively so they create shallow, hokey experiences or it's more lucrative to just stick with the tried and true ass in chair gamepad/M&K experience that they know people will pay for. Until there's real money in VR nobody is going to be willing to invest creative energy into it.

Motion-sensing games died because motion-sensing is a dead-end:

The Motion-sensing Dead-end
https://culture.vg/features/art-theory/the-motion-sensing-dead-end/

tl;dr Motion-sensing defeats the entire purpose of videogames, which is to NOT move (and use the illusion instead to simulate movement).

 

[ReBurn]

Motion-sensing games died because motion-sensing is a dead-end:

The Motion-sensing Dead-end
https://culture.vg/features/art-theory/the-motion-sensing-dead-end/

tl;dr Motion-sensing defeats the entire purpose of videogames, which is to NOT move (and use the illusion instead to simulate movement).

Then what does that say about VR, where movement is part of the immersion? If the point of video games is to not move then VR has the same issue.

 

[EventHorizon]

VR is stalling for the same reason good motion controlled games died so quickly on the Wii and move for PS3. Developers either don't know how to utilize it effectively so they create shallow, hokey experiences or it's more lucrative to just stick with the tried and true ass in chair gamepad/M&K experience that they know people will pay for. Until there's real money in VR nobody is going to be willing to invest creative energy into it.

Motion controlled gaming died primarily because it wasn't accurate enough for games. It could never perfectly simulate the user's input so instead of that input being an extension of the player's body, it was just another abstract input for gaming. If you are going to do an abstract input anyway, then a button press makes for a far better gaming experience than some high latency arbitrary motion.

 

[Grimmrobe]

Then what does that say about VR, where movement is part of the immersion? If the point of video games is to not move then VR has the same issue.

Movement is NOT part of the immersion in VR. Headsets are merely a halfway point to brain jacking where it will even be IMPOSSIBLE to move. Read the essay I linked. No one in the industry understands this stuff like Alex Kierkegaard. Unless you read him, you will not understand why things are happening the way they are.

 

[EventHorizon]

Motion-sensing games died because motion-sensing is a dead-end:

The Motion-sensing Dead-end
https://culture.vg/features/art-theory/the-motion-sensing-dead-end/

tl;dr Motion-sensing defeats the entire purpose of videogames, which is to NOT move (and use the illusion instead to simulate movement).

That is halfway true. It's true that some people don't want to move, but it is a mistake to think they represent the entire potential gaming audience. One of the reasons why the Wii, Kinect, and Wii Balance Board sold so well is because people wanted to move. People liked the idea of exercise while being distracted by gaming.

Also the idea of natural movements eliminated much of the barrier to entry to control games for the casual player, which opened gaming up to many people who hadn't considered it before. Sales would have continued just fine if only the motion controls had actually worked. Instead we got the waggle, which wasn't fun for anyone.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Once again it all comes back to price. They'll do anything that is cost effective, but they'll drop in a hot second anything that isn't. They already badly misjudged the current market for VR when it comes to price, which is why they have to adjust now. It's just an acknowledgement that their "build it and they will come" mentality was wrong.

What is the logic behind the thinking that $400 would be more palatable in 2022 than now for a VR headset. There will be some general inflation by then but it is not going to reduce the perceived cost that much. After all games are stuck at $60 and its general accepted common wisdom that $400 is the highest price for a mass market console, and those price limits haven't changed in many many years. My guess as I stated before is that a VR headset needs to be below $250 to sell to the mass market.

Unless something goes very wrong, I'd expect it will hold up. Abrash is keeping the price in mind too, otherwise he'd be talking about a 220+ degree FoV, haptic suits, gloves and such for such a headset, which would be clearly enterprise focused in 2022.

If Facebook market Oculus Rift's successor in 2022 correctly, then people will be much more inclined to spend the same price as Rift is today.

Why? Because it would be at least 30 PPD which is the start of where VR is viable to use as a replacement for screens. It would have unbelievable social capability. It would have much higher realism in telepresence applications, and 6DoF video should be a consumer thing by then, which in itself is a killer app of VR.

I mean right there you have 3 killer apps of VR. Social, screen simulation, and telepresence. All of that is here today, but none of them are ready. With such a 2022 headset, they would finally be ready.

Even just screen simulation adds a lot of value by itself because you're replacing material goods.

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Movement is NOT part of the immersion in VR. Headsets are merely a halfway point to brain jacking where it will even be IMPOSSIBLE to move. Read the essay I linked. No one in the industry understands this stuff like Alex Kierkegaard. Unless you read him, you will not understand why things are happening the way they are.

Movement is part of immersion. This is why games like Lone Echo, Sprint Vector, Climbey feel a lot more immersive when moving compared to Pavlov and Robo Recall.