Virtual Reality is a gimmick that's not going to catch on

Probably, yea.

But then you could do the same to movies aswell, you don't need the game

I find it funny, really. There were people who were absolutely evangelizing 3D a couple years ago... And a couple decades ago... And that hasn't gone anywhere at any point it's been pushed on the public. Same is true of VR. It's been trotted out over and over again, but it's never been presentable in a manner that is attractive for general home use. We see these two techs trotted out every couple of years as "the future," and they go away a few years later. I don't see how that trend gets broken here. Not EVERYTHING is guaranteed long-lasting appeal, or even the sort of fad status motion control had.

@The_Last_Ride: If Sony studios or Naughtydog or some other great company made this killer vr app that everyone would be talking about and was praising it like it was no tomorrow and all over the gaming websites and in magazines like Verge you would read things like IGN- "An amazing journy in a Virtual World" 10/10

Gametrailers- "No game has never been closer to reality" 10/10 Techradar-"The sence of presence is truly amazing" 10/10 "

Polygon- I have never felt something like this in a game before, does it even deserve to be called just a game?"9/10. " Gamefaqs -This is the next gen we all have been waiting for. Gamespot-"most intuitive game in decades" 10/10. Gamer.com "This is it, a new era of gaming are upon us" 10/10

Would you consider getting a Morpheus for $200 if this scenario happens? Or would you stick to traditional gaming because you are most used to it? This is just a rethorical question for you and everyone who have doubts about VR.

I see so many people judging VR even before it hits the market, even before the final product is finished and all we have been hearing about it so far from people who has tried them on are pretty much allways positive things so i really don't understand why some people have so little faith in VR. Have you guys taken the time to read into or watching some interviews with the lead designers of Oculus and Morpheus? Or just checking out random videoes out there of people trying these vr headsets out?

I tested out VR in a shoppingmall for many years ago and i remember that experience like it was yesterday. This was a fps with a lightgun that i was holding in both of my hands and i was walking around in this polstered circular area, i was shooting these badguys in this tron like virtual world and seeking cover behind walls and stuff and it was insanly cool and fun i remember. In fact, It felt so immersive that all 1st person shooters after that felt like it was something missing, it kinda sucked in a way because that single vr experience killed all future 1st person shooters for me, it hasn't been untill latly i have started playing some fps again in the knowing that VR is right around the corner and that with 10 times better vr than what i experienced.

I believe VR has alot of strong support these days, not only from VR enthusiasts and gamers in general but also from a core of game developers who are commited to make this happen.

when people try it out for them self they will most likely understand how amazing this technology really is.

Games that are confirmed for the Morpheus allready are games like Project Cars and a really good flight sim called War Thunder that you can get for free on the PS4 right now if you want.

These are just nishe games offcourse and Sony knows they need that killer app to make the Morpheus go mainstream and i can bet they will manage to do so and release it when the time is ready.

@YukoAsho: there are people who like 3D, but it's not something everyone wants

Exactly. I feel the same way with VR. Handled as a boutique niche for a certain customer, it can have some success. But every attempt to make it "the future" can only end the way that 3D has every time it's trotted out as the Next Big Thing(TM).

Something does not need to have support from every possible interest group in order to be more than a gimmick. Publicity is important as is attracting customers when selling a product, but advertising potential is not an absolute certainty of success or failure.

Current virtual reality technologies are not the collective goal. It is a metaphorical guidestone on the path to something similar in sophistication to the superlative virtual reality in Star Trek: The Next Generation or the Danger Room that the X-Men use for training purposes. The impact of current VR is significant because the lofty goals of making them and what comes after are represented.

The potential of Virtual Reality is the ability to visit designed worlds, discuss matters of importance with historical figures, and interact with them as if they are real with sensory information. They would be indistinguishable from reality other than with the knowledge that they are virtual constructs. In that regard, it is very much worth it and I believe that most Americans would like that advanced technology.

@BranKetra: i didn't say it wasn't worth, i just don't feel most gamers want this or asked for this

I did not say you did. However, I did say that you said it is a gimmick, but your defining of how it is a gimmick is not really what makes something a gimmick.

they wont.....couldnt even get ppl to put on small 3D glasses much less those face masks

@BranKetra: @notorious1234na: wow I 100 percent agree with you. I don't know why so many people have a hard time seeing that. They don't take it literally when you say visit virtual worlds because everyone has become jaded. But I assure you vr is the real deal. Stop thinking it's like kinect people. It's not. And it's certainly not using the same tracking devices either. It's the opposite of kinect in every sense. Your not pretending to be in a world like kinect, you actually are in a world. And it's friggen brilliant.

@gregglle,

The virtual reality would be virtual constructs, of course, but the Star Trek episodes "Ship in a Bottle" and the more direct "The Measure of a Man" ask an important question: In an age of super-intelligent machines, what qualifies something as alive and therefore with the right to live?

VR headsets are too big. They should be the size of a pair of glasses, if you could wear them without knowing you even have them on, then you could really have an immersive experience. They look like shit, i remember VR junk even from the 80s and they were big and ugly as they are now. I can't see myself ever using something like this as it is currently.

Not everyone is going to buy it, and it's for a niche community, It's a gimmick

@The_Last_Ride: It is as if you ignored most of my original post.

No i didn't, when it's not something for everyone. It's not a must have for games nor is it necessary. It's a gimmick

The end goal is most important, and not only the early versions.

Not everyone is going to buy this. People want to play games on a tv, not some crap you stick to your head

Actually, that technology is absolutely terrifying. You're talking about technology which can create for you any reality which you want. That would be the literal end of human progress because there'd be no incentive to do anything other than keep those holodecks powered up.

And that's not even taking into account the actual pain and suffering that would take place in these virtual worlds. You could create all sorts of horrifying scenarios. Some people might like their virtual murder fantasies, where they go around slaughtering civilians and monsters. Some people might get into rape VR. Some people might do alternate history VR, and try to play out what would happen if the Nazis took over the world. However, if it's indistinguishable from "reality" in every aspect except for the player knowing that it's not real, then it's freaking real. You can boot up your Alien VR program and watch fake people suffer while parasites burst out of their chest and then eat their kids, but a sufferer is one who ACTS as if he/she is suffering. If the simulacrum is absolutely indistinguishable from the real thing in every observable way, then that's freaking real. You can reduce it down and say that it's just bits of data, but you and I are just atoms. That doesn't stop us from actually somehow forming feelings and emotions, and it doesn't stop us from feeling PAIN. And when it comes down to it, the pain that you feel is not observable to me. I can't access your feelings, all I can do is observe how you act. If I were to take a blowtorch to your face (hypothetical scenario, I am NOT threatening you), you would act as if you are in pain. If I scanned your brain, I would see that the pain centers of your brain are becoming hyperactive. If I were to measure your heart rate and the presence of naturally released painkillers into your bloodstream, all of this observable data would back up the notion that you are indeed feeling pain. It's not "indistinguishable from reality" without passing all know tests. And if it passes all known tests, then it's real.

The holodeck is actually one of the most terrifying and horrific inventions I've ever seen in sci-fi. And the mere fact that is used so casually just adds to the disturbing aspects.

But that's a little bit off-topic. I agree that the "ideal" game-changing form of virtual reality doesn't rest with current VR tech. Yes, current VR tech just caters to the early adopters, and hopefully it will get better if there's enough support for it. We agree on that. I just think that widespread acceptance of VR has a hard road ahead of it. And I just think that the end goal you're envisioning is freaking horrifying. I mean, for god's sake, this is the exact premise of a shitload of science fiction that has been released in the previous century. A holodeck-style virtual world cannot be indistinguishable from reality without fake sentience and pain being so identical to the real thing that there's no test that shows it to be fake. And at that point, we're dealing with REAL sentience and pain. If artificial intelligence ever advances to the point where it is indistinguishable from intelligence, then that artificial intelligence IS real intelligence. If an animal looks and sounds and acts like a duck, then it's a duck. You can't demonstrate it to not be a duck without it failing some test for what makes a duck a duck.

TLDR version: **** the holodeck.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/gimmick

gimmick

noun

A trick or deviceintended to attractattention, publicity, or business.

I do not mean to be harsh. Your argument is faulty because you are basing it on your claim that it is a gimmick for the quoted comment rationale. It would actually be a gimmick because of the reasons that I mentioned. There is a negative connotation of the word "gimmick" that is not based on the fact that it is meant to attract, but rather its quality and that is not the right manner in which to use that word.

I disagree. People shall be able to utilize gamification for important goals then exit a program to apply their newfound knowledge to solve real world issues. For example, there could be a martial arts game to practice technique and restraint. Another example is the concept of solving a murder mystery in order to advance deductive ability. There would be potential for escapism, yes, but I doubt that it would be the standard rather than the exception.

As far as worrying about humanity succumbing to its darker urges, I trust that the ethical foundation of modern society is stable enough to guide future people on the right path. You claim to see a visage of mankind wanting to behave in toxic ways more than positive behaviors are enforced by society. Also, you claim that this part of humanity is frightening, so progress should not be made towards this technology. Acting courageously despite that feeling might teach a medical student how to successfully remove a malignant tumor from a brain cancer patient. If even one life is saved, the potential cost is worth considering.

You can rest easy knowing people actually care.

What is the incentive to apply it to real world issues when you've got the ability to create any idealized world which is indistinguishable from reality? Why load up a dating VR program in order to get better at practicing dating skills with the ladies, when the VR program itself is so "indistinguishable from reality" that you can become a billionaire genius who's banging Scarlet Johansen and you've both raised absolutely perfect children?

And mankind ALREADY wants to behave in toxic ways. Take a look at gaming right now, and look at how much of it revolves around killing. Take a look at movies and see how many of them essentially create a fantasy world in which all major problems revolve around identifying the good guys, identifying the bad guys, and then making the world a better place by killing enough of the guys that the hero thinks are bad. Now imagine that we have the power of gods, and are able to create life just to destroy it for shits and giggles, and then reassure ourselves afterwards because we just "know" that it was all fake.

Yeah, people care. One thing to remember though, is that people tend to only care about CERTAIN PEOPLE. It doesn't mean much to say that a man cares about women right after you caught him beating the shit out of a gay dude. Oh, people "care" about real people and will use VR to save real people? Okay. That doesn't matter a whole freaking lot to all of the AI characters that he's slaughtering in a VR program before he goes to work removing brain tumors from flesh-and-blood people.

This is exactly how The Terminator series got started. Or The Matrix. Or I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. Stanislaw Lem, one of the most respected sci-fi writers of all time, wrote a story dealing about this. Ray Bradbury got in on this shit. This deals with the very nature of what it means to be human (or "real") and how people have a tendency to abuse the shit out of other entities when we arbitrarily categorize them as "not one of us." This is actually a very very serious ethical concern. If we can assume that we may one day be able to create "artificial intelligence" that is indistinguishable from "real" intelligence, then does that not mean that AI characters deserve equal rights under the law? And how the hell can you protect the civil rights of characters created in a VR program without seriously infringing on people's rights to free speech? Are people gonna stand for that? Are documentary makers going to take a stand against their works of art being banned because their VR Civil War program effectively kills a shitload of 1800 era guys every time some jackass loads up the program for educational purposes?

Back to Star Trek: The Next Generation...weren't there at least a couple of episodes in which the Holodeck-created characters were shown to be real enough to actually kill flesh-and-blood people on the Enterprise?

@BranKetra: I still stand by my statement

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

Isn't that the whole stick for Virtual Reality?

@MrGeezer: There are reasons why pursuing certain interests can be less attractive than others are. I shall just say that humanity is not stupid or unethical, overall. When we are faced with a dilemma, we successfully resolve it. If it is not immediately, it has transpired, eventually.

I still think it's a gimmick. Same with motion controls and 3D, i never thought anything of them. You might like it, most people won't. Why would they?

I know that humanity is not stupid or unethical overall. Regardless, SOME people are stupid or unethical. And VR that is indistinguishable from reality is VR that actually CREATES real suffering. Therefore, if we accept that SOME people are stupid and/or unethical, then it stands to reason that SOME people would actually would actually profit from creating sentient VR life that actually live/dies/suffers at the hands of the sociopath who is playing the game. And...that shit would have to be illegal. Same way as how, if murder were to be legalized tomorrow, most people wouldn't do a damn thing differently. But SOME people absolutely WOULD go out and kill a dude. So you've gotta ban that stuff.

Yeah, we generally tend to resolve most dilemmas. I mean, slavery used to be a big thing and now we've MOSTLY put a stop to that (though not entirely...slavery is actually still happening today). That doesn't negate the fact that a whole bunch of slaves suffered immensely before we decided to put an end to slavery.

Or were you simply talking about the "lack of productivity aspect" and claiming that it would be stupid and immoral to treat perfect VR worlds as a substitute for reality? If that's the case, then how is it stupid or unethical to take that position? If a VR world is real enough to cause sentience and love and pain, then that's just as valid of a reality as flesh-and-blood interactions. If artificial intelligence which is indistinguishable from real intelligence ever happens, then that ABSOLUTELY validates artificial love and artificial pain. You could become addicted to a VR world populated with artificially intelligent entities, but that's EXACTLY as valid as plugging out of the Matrix and falling in love with the girl down the street.

Again, this whole element of the conversation is kind of going off on a tangent. I admit that VR is a cool idea and I'd like for it to become popular enough that it improves. I just think that your "end goal" is scary as shit. I want VR to improve (though I won't be an early adopter; I'll leave that for other people), but your end goal is scary as hell.

I mean...think of the recent moral outrages. Music, games, movies, comics, whatever. The standard defense is that this shit is not real, it's just fiction, and it falls under freedom of speech. That flies right out the window once it becomes indistinguishable from reality. This shit will not happen. Any society that lets this shit happen is a society that I will do everything in my power to bring down.

@The_Last_Ride: From what i have heard from the Oculus Rift crowd, they say that the 3d effects you experience in a Rift is very different than what you experience on a 3dTV, When you look at a 3dtv you kinda get this feeling that your just looking at a box with alot of visual depth, in VR you get those 3d effects only in your field if vision without you seeing everything around it and that probably helps a whole lot on the immersion factor, on top of that the camera tracks your headmovements, your hands, your controller etc which really puts you inside that virtual world and there are just so many new and intuitive ways for developers to make a game just because of that. I think the immersion and the sence of pressence will be keyfactors in VR gaming and if you look at how popular 1st person games are and allways has been since they first came out you will get an idea of how many people who value immersion in videogames. In a way i feel that videogames in general has stagnated a little bit, not much new things we see in terms of gameplay these days tbh but in VR there are so much potential for doing brand new things never done in videogaming before and that's one of the reasons i think it will succeed and not become just a gimmick.

i know the difference, i just don't think it's that necessary

@MrGeezer: I do not want to speak so technically that you stop responding, so I shall just say that it is not a tangent, the future of virtual reality is directly related to its current state, and there are contingencies that can be planned before developing the technology as to prevent unethical behavior. Also, the tech is not the end goal as you repeatedly say the same as attending school is not the purpose of earning an education.

Virtual Reality if done right will catch on.

@The_Last_Ride: Only time will tell i guess if it catches on or not but i have my hopes up and i just can`t wait to try it out my self, im actually putting Alien isolation on hold untill i play it in VR:) Hoping that game will have official VR support with the Morpheus.

i won't touch that, and i don't think all on this site would either

This actually is sort of a tangent, because VR worlds which are indistinguishable from reality are so far off on the horizon that they're not really a concern right now. The discussion that we're having right now is entirely theoretical and really has no bearing whatsoever on how virtual reality is implemented any time in the foreseeable future. I would also like to see VR catch on and become popular (though I'm sure as hell not gonna be an early adopter), but given our current technological capabilities this discussion we're having right now is sort of a complete tangent to whether or not VR is a gimmick that's not going to catch on. Maybe VR will catch on, maybe it won't, but I also predict that this kind of Matrix/Existenz style blurring of reality to the point where the real is indistinguishable from the real is nowhere close to happening (and might not even be POSSIBLE).

And I wasn't saying that the tech was the end goal. I was referring to your end goal of being able to create virtual worlds which are indistinguishable from reality. That ain't gonna happen.

I agree. It's a gimmick. For the mass audience.

Not for niche groups. And that's it's main flaw currently. They keep trying to mass-market it. Stop. Just stop please. Only niche groups will ever care enough to buy/invest and that's fine.

The only 'mass awareness' it'd ever get, and we all already know this, is when it gets to the level of the Holodeck from StarTrekTNG and shows up as some part of a Steven Spielberg's GameWorks (if it still exists that far in the future), ect.

@DuaIFace: who keeps "trying to mass market it"? I don't see any commercials, do you? Virtually no one even knows what VR is. Are you confusing high quality VR products, such as oculus rift, with past attempts at peripherals? Assuming that VR is just like those attempts? First of all, no one is pushing anything. VR is getting some attention because of the experiences it provides through word of mouth. If you think VR is anything like kinect, you are going to be very surprised. Don't even mention your argument on the matter if you don't even know what VR is. ESPECIALLY if you are ASSUMING it's just "another quick cash grab". Too many of you people are just god awful stupid.

How is it different?

And that's not a sarcastic smart-ass question. I'm assuming that I actually MIGHT be "god awful stupid", so I'm asking you to explain it to me like a child.How are some of Kinect's problems (like the expense of purchasing it, and lack of meaningful widespread support) NOT also issues that are just as likely to leave VR dead as anything other than a niche product in the near future?

That neither was nor is my end goal.

It was foreseen by Star Trek in the 1980s and Ghost in the Shell along with The Matrix in the 1990s. It is at the center of the discussion because of its relevance. It is not merely relevant because I mentioned it or brought it into the center of discussion.

You say that it is not going to happen, but you do so with a bias of seeking to not allow it to. If your claim to seek complete and utter halting of this technology from becoming like any of the concepts you group together for the purpose of condemnation is fundamentally that you shall not allow it because what may come of it causes fright rather than wonder I wonder how far along this technology would need to be in order for any sense of worry would first be felt by you. To that end, I would like to what you consider relevant about this technology, despite causing anxiety.

There are certain things that need a discussion, now, because foresight of the upcoming inventions is relevant to discussion with a futurist view.

It is a cash grab. Whether you agree with it or not. See the entire 'virtual reality' history.

It parallels 3D movies almost. Becomes a thing. Disappears. Gets slightly better. Disappears. Again and again. Seeing this over n' over again in the last 30 years---the pattern becomes obvious. It's unfortunate stigma has become: 'temporary toy'.

I stand by the remark that until it gets to the level of a Holodeck, no one will really care. Niche groups will. Not the mass market. Which still has me wondering what the hell Facebook thinks they're gonna accomplish with it. -_-

@DuaIFace: Well, have you even tried it?

Here is reason nr 1 why VR will catch on >>

Reason nr 2 >>

Reason nr 3 >> or actually this category may be the biggest selling point for VR to the mass market tbh

i would agree with that

Mass marketing is TV spots, magazine ads, posters at Gamestop. Not a booth at CES or a couple of online articles and reviews. Nobody is trying to push this to the general public yet. If you're not into games or tech then you've likely never even heard of an Oculus Rift or Samsung VR (unless you watch South Park).

It's a fair question, but I see a lot of differences. Price of entry is something that will exist with any peripheral, but the lack of support for the Kinect is a symptom of the Kinect's problems rather than being the problem itself. Kinect had a lot of things working against it from the start (and that -was- something that was marketed pretty hard to the general market and billed as "the future of gaming"). Part of the problem with Kinect is that making an actual Kinect game is mutually exclusive from a non-Kinect game. Games like Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures are Kinect-only games, and if you make a Kinect-only game then you are making a decision to support a less precise control scheme that requires more effort to use, so the novelty of motion control has to be what sells your game (i.e. actually moving in sports games). Attempts to make games in which you use motion controls to replace controler-like controls failed badly (i.e. the new Steel Battalion) because the tech is poorly suited for that. It's the same thing with touchscreen controls. You can try to have it both ways by taking an existing controller-based game and making a "touchscreen controller" for it but all you've done is translate a game to a platform that it's not ideally suited for. The best touchscreen games are games that are designed for touchscreens from the ground up, only if you do that with Kinect you are severely narrowing your market.

With VR, you have entire genres of games that VR support can simply be added for without detrement to the game (FPS games and pretty much any vehicle sim). In FPS games it's not necessarily an advantage, but in vehicle sims head tracking is actually very advantageous so VR (or any headtracking device) can actually give you an edge much in the way you might buy a $300 steering wheel to do better at racing sims. The other thing about VR is that devices like the Oculus (even in it's early DK2 incarnation) are very impressive. Literally everyone I've put the DK2 on has been blown away by the effect (myself included). This ranges from other people my age all the way up to my father in law and my god mother, people who have little to no interest in the latest gadgets and toys. When I put my god mother through an Oculus roller coaster demo, the only negative comment she had was that she was dissapointed that it didn't go faster and she wanted to try more demos. Even just the demo scene that's included with the Oculus runtime blows people away at how real it can seem.

It's the headtracking that really "sells" the effect. Without it, the sensation is "I have a screen strapped to my face" but with it the sensation is "I am someplace else and looking around". The stereoscopic 3d is part of that, but it's the head movement that makes it feel like a real place.

-Byshop

There was a time when mobile phones was only a niche product, there was a time when gaming consoles and computers was only a niche product but over time it gradually took off and i think it will be the exact same thing for vr.

Just think about the possibillitys, not only those 3 things i mentioned above which most likely will be key selling points for vr but imagine for instance sports arrangements, you could have front row seat watching your favourite sports live from whereever you are in the world, this i think will be a major selling point for vr as well in the not so distant future.

If you combine all these categorys that has been mentioned, movie watching, gaming, vr porn and sports that niche market is starting to become kinda big don't you think?

Like i said, only time will tell but when i personally take a look at all the potentials for vr and at the same time take a look at where we are heading there are little doubt in my mind that vr will catch on this time around.

Can you clarify exactly what your ideal "end goal is"? Because I think there might be a bit of miscommunication here. I'm not familiar with Ghost in the Shell. And by your referencing Star Trek, I thought you were talking about the holodeck in Next Generation (I haven't seen more than a handful of episodes of the original series). However, I have seen The Matrix, and that shit was horrible. On multiple levels. I'm not talking about the actual movies (though some could be excused for thinking that after watching Revolutions and Reloaded), but just the overall storyline. The machines' whole beef with humanity was with them being treated like shit because they were created to be slaves and somehow thought that being slaves kind of sucked. Failure #1 on humanity's part. Failure #2 happened when we find out that the VR program is so real that it will actually kill your ass in real life if you die in the Matrix. Basically, ALL humans are stuck in the Matrix, but don't know it. Then some hackers come along, exploit the rules in order to gain superpowers, and kill the shit out of a bunch of people who are just naked bodies born in pods. As absolutely cool as shit as it was when Neo mowed those security guards down in an attempt to save Morpheus, the movie portrays that as just cool-ass video-game shit and completely glosses over the fact that he just brutally murdered a whole lot of real people whose only crime was being born in a pod and not being deemed worthy enough to be rescued from The Matrix.

Anyway, please clarify your "end goal", the ideal goal to which VR is supposed to achieve and which current VR technology is only a stepping stone to that end goal.

And also, I know that certain things need discussions now. I'm just saying that this is kind of the wrong place to bring up such a discussion. If you want to discuss the ethics of virtual reality in general (in particular, when the virtual reality is indistinguishable from reality), then that's more of an Off-Topic Forum kind of thing. That's a hypothetical endeavor which has no relevance to the topic at hand, which is whether or not current (or soon to be released) VR technology is a gimmick.

Well, see, that's actually part of my whole point. You mention that unlike Kinect, VR has the potential to enhance games that people already play. I don't disagree with that.

Problem: if it's only ENHANCING the game (as opposed to being absolutely necessary), that means that the games are entirely functional and playable without VR. And...if the game was perfectly playable and enjoyable without VR, then it's a hard sell to get people to buy VR tech (unless the price is so low that they don't have any qualms about it).

I mean, shit...lots of games are better on a high-powered PC, but that's kind of optional and doesn't stop millions of people from just settling for the shittier console version. I think that people are ABSOLUTELY willing to settle for the inferior experience unless the price of upgrading the experience is inconsequential.

Point is, current VR tech might be amazing as shit. But you've got to sell consumers on it and convince them to buy it. That actually becomes a lot freaking harder when it just ENHANCES stuff that people already enjoy, rather than being a case of "either buy the product or don't get to play the games." The obvious parallel is "system selling" exclusives. Most people aren't gonna buy a PS4 over an X1 just based on the knowledge that PS4 multiplats might be slightly superior to what they could already get on their X1's. Instead, X1 owners are gonna buy a PS4 based on games that can't be played at all without buying a PS4. If it's just a slightly better version of something that they can already play and enjoy perfectly well without spending $200 on a VR headset, then a lot of buyers are just gonna go with the slightly shittier version that's still kind of awesome and doesn't require buying a $200 VR headset.

Anyway, what "sells the effect" is up in the air until this kind of technology has been bought by enough early adopters. As it stands, this stuff is still in the testing phase and isn't ready for mass release. It might EVENTUALLY be so revolutionary that gamers embrace it in droves. But even if that happens, it's gonna be a while before that happens. Wait 5-10 years, and MAYBE enough people have adopted VR tech for this to revolutionize gaming. But current gen? No way.

@MrGeezer: That will not be the case for VR-games to enhance the games people are allready playing, games like Battlefield, Cod would not work properly in VR because they are not buildt from the bottom and up for VR. The pacing is to fast, the scaling is off etc.. compared to what you would see in real life and it would be game breaking in the sence that it would break the immersion and it would probably give you alot of motionsickness.

Most of the VR games that will come out will be new ip's made for VR, there are some exeptions like Project Cars and some flight simulators but most VR games will be made for VR only.

Alien isolation for instance has no official vr support but it looks really cool in vr though. Look at that guy in the video i posted, looks like he is about to shit his pants and i don't blame him either,haha.. it looks really immersive and you probably get that sence of pressence which you would never get in a ordinary game on a flatscreen.

I think Alien isolation fits better for VR than without, the abillity to physically lean around corners like that looks amazing in the combination with the slow paced 1st person gameplay and it seems like they got the scaling allmost right as well but it was never intended for vr from the start.

Imagine true AAA vr games like that buildt from the bottom and up, it's gonna be something brand new that we have never experienced before, and we will see these kind of games on this generation of consoles and computers, im positive.

Back in the 1980s people were saying that by the year 2000, television and movies would be replaced with virtual reality.

Anyone who disagreed was told, "you don't understand technology". . . . heh

Yeah . .

like wearable tech i think the first round of vr stuff to emerge in 2015 will be a little underwhelming and lack appeal beyond enthusiasts initially. but i expect the technology to quickly mature in ways we are yet to anticipate fully and find its feet. i can't wait until it does

The Oculus developer community is filled with VR only demos and games so of course that's always an option for developers. My point was that unlike the Kinect, adding Oculus support to an existing game can make it better as opposed to adding motion controls to a controller based game which invariably made the experience -worse- except for the novelty of now controlling the game through motion. Even though Kinect's only selling point was the gimick of imprecise motion control that made existing games control worse, that didn't stop it from selling tens of millions of units.

You seem to be treating this like it's an "either/or" proposition. Either VR will be the next big thing and land in every household or it'll be a flop. I don't think either is the case. You talk about how the average gamer is unlikely to pick this up and I agree with that but it doesn't matter. This is an -enthusiast- perhipheral. High end force feedback steering wheels, head tracking units, HOTAS flightsticks, and other similar peripherals are not the kind of thing you'll find in the home of the average gamer, but that doesn't mean there isn't a market for them or that they aren't considered standard equipment within their genres (i.e. racing sims, flight sims, etc). Hell, there are companies that literally specialize is making nothing but high end steering wheels for PC and consoles so obviously someone is buying them. I see this being big with the sim crowd and if games support it then it could also be big with the horror crowd, but as I mentioned earlier I could also see this taking off with a whole new genre of VR-based games in the same way that touchscreen exclusive games have taken off on mobile devices and tablets.

But again, I still don't think this is an "apples to apples" comparison with peripherals that have come out before. I can show someone my racing/flight cockpit, sit them down with Dirt 3 on my Logitech G27 or set them up with Star Citizen with my Saitek X52 Pro and they'll probably think it's pretty cool but unless they are already into that sort of game/experience then they probably won't be thinking "I have to get me one of these!". By comparison, everyone I've shown my Oculus to has been blown away by the experience. What's more, the Oculus isn't tied to any specific genre of game the way other enthusiast peripherals are. The best steering wheel in the world is pointless if you don't like racing games. VR can be applied to so many different types of games including types of games that haven't even been made yet.

Also, when I said "sells the effect" I meant headtracking is what makes the VR experience believable, not that headtracking will literally drive the sales of VR headsets.

-Byshop

....for starters the games look like shit and for us gamers all that matters.

When we talk VR, we naturally assume a lvl of realism closer to our own yet slightly different. Not some horrible textures and polygons Who the **** would spend $$$ to play a game that they can comfortably play right now in their living room? Immersive BS entertainment is all about how cheap it is and convenience. Facebook didn't buy Oculus because they thought it would succeed or interested. No they bought it for the same reason they have been buying other media platforms and Instagram. They want to have a footing in any new multimedia development as well maintain a dominant position in their industry buy eating up the competition.

@The_Last_Ride: got a bad feeling you're on your way to eating humble pie my friend. in all seriousness i kinda feel that way as well . i personally don't know how often ill use the tech to do my gaming but i do have a feeling its going to be huge because people are fascinated with technologically impressive things in general . i think it will be bigger outside of gaming though .