Do people actually care about VR?

Eventually. With better hardware and cheaper entry into VR it'll become mainstream over time. It lends itself very well to certain genres. It'll eventually get its Mario 64 moment.

Only when it becomes wireless.

The best way I can react to any new innovation in technology goes a little something like this: "wow, that's some really cool sci-fi shit I'd like to try." But just because these might be concepts previously explored/inspired from science-fiction, does that really mean they're practical for growth?

I think the Wii really captivated that idea and people ultimately got over it, because practical implementations of motion controls didn't really make gaming any more enhanced than what a regular controller or mouse-and-keyboard offered. It was just a neat diversion for a period of time - at least for the games that did motion controls justice - but motion control never took over how we prefer to play games.

I see the same possibility with VR. There will be amazing examples down the road for the true VR experience, but how much will it be integrated or will it eventually die-out too?

Right! Right now VR is in its Betamax\VCR\Cassette Player stage. It still has to move to its CD\DVD mode in quality and eventually get to the direct download stage of tech. The software needs to run off the headset itself and not a PC or console. The industry will not pick up until the day comes when you can purchase a VR headset that only needs an internet connection, game cart\SD card reader, runs off 5Vs & cost less then 200$ ready to play out the box.

For gaming, no not really.

Wired or wireless doesn't make much of a difference to me because the times I got into trouble with the cable = 1. But yeah I do care about VR! I think it's amazing tech, but it would sell wayyy more if it were easier to set up and less expensive.

The consensus I'm picking up so far: it's building up to its potential, and that potential is enough to have our interest, but as of right now it's not there yet to justify current value.

@jaydan: Yeah it's incredible already but it's also easy to see how even more amazing it will be in 15 years.

For example haptic feedback, less screendoor, higher res, individual finger feedback and heat dissipation/air vents or smaller form factor, and lenses you can easily order in different prescriptions at a local optician. If they can find a proper way to let you move when not in a vehicle, that would be a very big deal too. And I think there will be solutions for it that we haven't thought of yet.

Yeah, wireless will be great, but in the meantime I'm doing just fine. It's all about setting up the wires correctly. I attach the main wire to my hip, thus keeping it off the floor where my feet are. And the wire from the headphones to the headset I drape over my shoulder. Zero problems with this setup.

I don't care for VR now but in time I probably will...

@xhawk27: already there. https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwib1p-d6YfYAhXESg0KHfTIC50YABAdGgJxYg&ae=1&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESEeD2Qwr2_FIjwj2H1wTWVnab&sig=AOD64_2wOe7FgkhSyAcC_hp99vJiiYyJWA&ctype=5&q=&ved=0ahUKEwjXy5md6YfYAhWhQd8KHUGhDk4Qwg8IJg&adurl=http://clickserve.dartsearch.net/link/click%3Flid%3D92700024886765214%26ds_s_kwgid%3D58700002198860237%26ds_s_inventory_feed_id%3D97700000000000031%26%26ds_e_adid%3D183190174684%26ds_e_matchtype%3Dsearch%26ds_e_device%3Dm%26ds_e_network%3Dg%26ds_e_product_group_id%3D353710354774%26ds_e_product_id%3DN82E16826906001%26ds_e_product_merchant_id%3D8438988%26ds_e_product_country%3DUS%26ds_e_product_language%3Den%26ds_e_product_channel%3Donline%26ds_e_product_store_id%3D%7Bproduct_store_id%7D%26ds_url_v%3D2%26ds_dest_url%3Dhttps://m.newegg.com/Product/index%3Fitemnumber%3DN82E16826906001%26ignorebbr%3Dtrue%26nm_mc%3DKNC-GoogleAdwords-Mobile%26cm_mmc%3DKNC-GoogleAdwords-Mobile-_-pla-_-VR%2BAccessories-_-N82E16826906001%26gclid%3DCjwKCAiAvMPRBRBIEiwABuO6qRK3LRl3VikP0d6fD1YxCGDU6PTOlkQDgV91SvjDFdk8AYUjU37gKRoCkv8QAvD_BwE

That's kinda funny and sad at the same time. The cost to enjoy VR as of right now comes with the compromise of managing cumbersome setup. I can see it now: the day VR goes wireless, the selling joke in the marketing will be we no longer have to tuck wires down our pants or sling them over our shoulders to avoid tripping over them.

@xhawk27: @xhawk27: already there

https://www.tpcastvr.com/product-vive

I care about it. But i find gaming on it too early.

I dont. I mean, I would like to try it just to see how it is but I'm pretty sure its just another gimmicky after the novelty wears off. Most VR games look like tech demos rather than actual full fledged games. Sooo, 300€ to play tech demos? Hell, no!

Two wires, dude. It's not too cumbersome, lol. The one I sling over my shoulder doesn't touch the floor--it's the headphone wire. The only reason I sling it over my shoulder is because it tends to swing when I move my head and touches my...well, lady stuff. Kinda uncomfortable. As for the mainline wire, attaching it to the hip is easy.

Two wires might be an easy compromise, but you already expressed your methods to accommodate not letting them get in the way, which is a corner that will eventually be cut. I'm sure it's not that big of a deal, but come the day where everything is wireless, none of us will look back wishing we still did wires.

I must note: unlike yourself, I don't own any VR equipment, and I've only ever put on those goggles once at a Best Buy display, so I have very minimal experience and zero understanding of what everyday implementation feels like.

Gimmick. All the games are tech demos, as you say. There are a few half-assed ports from Bathesda, but they're shameless. They'll port anything to any console for a quick buck.

VR only allows you to play first person titles, but with inferior controls and graphical fidelity.

VR is going to go the way of other recent gimmicks like motion controls and 3D TVs.

Well, don't get me wrong. I don't like wires. I'll be happy when a wireless option is available. But in the meantime I can make do just fine. I'm not really a finicky person. A couple wires, a little management, not a problem for me. I just accept that right now wires are a part of the deal. If that's something that someone does not like to the point that they avoid VR altogether, well, that's fine. It's their choice. And, again, I agree to an extent. Wires do kinda suck.

That is a very shallow assumption that VR only lets you play FPS's.

Think outside the box and you'll realize there are plenty implementations that VR can work for. Imagine playing a game like Divinity: Original Sin on VR, and suddenly it feels like you are looking straight down from the skies, orchestrating battles.

VR will find uses for any genre as long as it's understood that VR is the function of a camera, which virtually every game in existence has.

Yeah, but I want it to be better.

Please give me higher resolution for a screen that is right on my eye, lol.

They care but at the moment it's expensive, once they release consoles with a headset in the box, it will be a whole different ballgame. But it won't even take that long. 100$-150$ headsets are not that far away.

I eventually want to try if out with flight sims, specifically Elite Dangerous. I can see VR headsets working extremely well in these games since you're seated in the cockpit the whole time.

Other than that I really have no interest. I'll get one in a year or two when they have worked out all the kinks and the price drops a bit.

I don't really care about the room scale stuff until they can go full wireless with low latency and no computer in a backpack type stuff.

I'm sure in the future it'll be better and cheaper. Right now I couldn't care less about VR.

I need to find the right combo of drugs to not get woozy. Or more woozy.

@reduc_ab_: The new model eliminates the headphone cord. It just has 2 earbuds hanging from the headset.

I absolutely love my Vive! To anybody that currently thinks that VR is nothing special or just a gimmick, you need to try a room-scale VR game on the Vive. It will change your view about VR and make you care.

@UssjTrunks: You are clueless... The best games I've played on VR haven't been fps games. Play Moss or Bound or starchild for a unique experience.

@moosewayne: It's kinda like the first time you're on a boat. You'll get use to the feeling. The first time I tried VR I couldn't get my brain to understand I wasn't really on the edge of a skyscraper lol. My daughter tried it on an underwater demo and couldn't breathe, even though she knew it wasn't real. It's a bit odd how the brain works like that.

yes but I predict it will be more popular as a story telling tool then a video game (compete with movies) and I think the content needs to come

When I first bought my VR headset, flight sims were also what I was most anticipating, but the novelty of that and all other seated experiences wore off quickly (plus seated experiences make you much more prone to nausea), so the primary reason that I bought my VR headset is not what I ended up really enjoying about it. Instead, to my surprise, what I ended up falling in love with were the games that took advantage of room-scale and had me actively moving around. I really can't stress enough how amazing room-scale is to anybody that has not yet tried it. It's incredible!

They also now have a device from TPCast to make the Vive headset wireless. I haven't got it yet (I will soon), but I hear that it works really well.

You need to play room-scale games. I get woozy too (so do many people) whenever I play a game where I'm moving in the virtual world, but not making those same movements in the real world. Room-scale solves that problem so that you make the same movements in the real world that you do in the virtual world which prevents your brain from getting confused and making you woozy.

Only care when they can make the headset wireless and not so big. The PSVR is almost to the I don't give a shit because it is super cheap territory just to mess around with after this last price drop.

I LOVE my PSVR. Absolutely love it. Problem is, it's not being supported enough for me to play it all the time. Seriously, it needs many more games if it wants continual use from me. Farpoint and Resident Evil VII are great examples of awesome VR titles and there should be more like those.

VR is part of my profession, and it's really immersive. So yeah

Yeah, I know. But I'm not going to go out and get a whole new headset for such a small change. And besides that, I don't use earbuds. I have these freakin huge million dollar headphones.

@xantufrog: how is it Incorporated at your job?

@jaydan: I use VR to study memory and spatial navigation

Not me. Perhaps, if the tech encompassed my whole person. But, wearing a brick on my face? No thanks. ;)

I have an Oculus headset and its absolutely amazing but I have three complaints.

1. There isnt really any deep content that I have been able to find. I like games with a lot of depth and I havent found anything that is really deep in VR made ...yet.

2. It is a hassle to set up and move back and forth from a VR experience to a non-VR experience. Its why I dont play Elite Dangerous (non-VR aspect) very often either because it would really require me to get out the HOTAS and then move everything out of the way when I go to play something traditional.

3. I like to smoke while I play games...my problem...but still

but it is very amazing stuff

I love my PSVR, it’s one of the best gaming purchases I’ve ever made. The jump going to VR from regular TV game was similar to the jump of when I played DOOM or Mario 64 for the first time in terms of immersion. The tech is legit amazing. I can’t wait to see how far it progresses in 10 years when we have eye tracking, 8K headsets, and zero wires.

Right now I’m having a blast playing games like Skyrim, Eve Valkyrie, GT Sport, Elite Dangerous, Farpoint, RE7, etc. in VR and I can’t wait to play Ace Combat, Z.O.E, and Wipeout in VR next year. The support from Sony has been great and it seems devs are starting to get the hang of making good VR games. It’s an exciting time in gaming again for me thanks to VR.

This same question was asked for PCs and Smartphones, and look where they are now. A lot of people bashed both technologies, thinking that they would never lead to anything useful for an average user.

We're in the 1st generation of consumer VR. Things can only improve from here on out.

There are actual solid games which are not tech demos:

Lone Echo, The Mage's Tale, From Other Suns, Arktika 1, Wilson's Heart, Chronos, Elite Dangerous, Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, Fallout 4 VR, Project Cars 2 VR, Serious Sam VR and so on.

VR in 5 years will be orders of magnitude better due to revolutionary tech improvements:

With eye-tracking and foveated rendering predicted to be solvable within 4 years by Oculus and Valve, you're going to see the following:

A VR headset in 5 years will be 4k per eye, 140+ degree FoV at 90-120Hz with eye-tracking and most likely wireless.

VR games in 5 years will be easier to run than non-VR games.

VR games in 5 years will outperform non-VR games and be able to produce higher fidelity graphics than the best looking traditional games.

VR today can already produce some spectacular moments. But the tech is going to blow everyone's minds in 5 years.

@blueberry_bandit: You seem to know your stuff, dude. Nice to have you around. We need more knowledgeable VR fans on this forum. :)

It pays to do research and keep up to date with AR / VR. There's a reason why I put out this information as often as I can; because most of the naysayers just don't research the subject. Even some people who use VR don't know how fast the tech is going to improve, or that standalone VR headsets are going to be released in 2018/2019, etc. Another thing that crops up often is people see a game with teleportation, and they immediately assume that's all the game has to offer, when quite a lot of VR games that release these days have multiple options.

I'm also a VR developer, so I have knowledge on how some of the VR tech works and what can be done on the software side.

Yep to all of that. Especially so about the majority of the VR naysayers. It's one thing to just not like VR--that's fine. But you have these certain types (a few notorious ones on this forum) that just flat out don't research anything, and as such don't know anything about the subject, yet it doesn't stop them from spouting false facts like they're the truth.

Anyway, yeah, the whole teleportation thing is a big one. Some people will try out a VR game, experience teleportation and then walk away without even knowing about full locomotion and other options being available. I see that crap everywhere, even from some "professional" critics that are almost wholly uninformed about VR in general. Ah, whatever though. The VR community across all of the headsets is expanding, regardless of the naysayers. It's a great time for video games. VR is revolutionary.

Exactly. I see people who claim they've tried VR and all the games were tech demos. We both know this isn't true; the problem is they didn't research enough or look into the library of games properly.

Another thing that doesn't make sense is the whole AR vs VR debate. I see people saying they prefer AR. That's cool, nothing wrong with that. But then to say "AR is going to kill VR" just shows a lack of understanding, considering how practically every major company working on AR or VR or both know that the end-game is a standalone headset that does both AR and VR.

I think people who have a penchant for the Sci-fi stuff care

You can always spot ignorant people when they say dumb shit like "AR is gonna kill VR". I used to have a friend like that when Oculus and Vive first came out until I explained to him how both technologies are going to merge in the future and how both of them together is the end game. He didn't have a clue about either tech and he was talking based on his feelings. It's crazy how many people on forums and websites talk about VR like they are experts on the subject when they have little or no experience with it. In this forum alone we have many people like this. It's almost like it would kill them to do a little research on VR/AR before talking about it.