
A reality check for virtual headsets - prostoalex
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21724863-vr-has-been-more-about-hype-substance-will-change-reality-check-virtual?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2017076n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/44954/n
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agar
The hardware companies investing in VR understand that this is the beginning
of a new market, and success will take a long time (e.g., see Zuckerberg's
statements during investor calls). They also recognize that initial efforts
like today's headsets are required V1's to begin the technical evolution that
will result in a mass-market product.

To look at today's initial products and call the industry dead, or
disappointing, is like looking at an MVP app release and deciding that an
entire market does not exist because the initial solution is not perfect.

This type of contrarianism is seductive, and often results in many clicks for
the media and the reinforcement of curmudgeonly opinions by those with
unrealistic expectations for short-term change (and often who underestimate
long-term impacts).

But it's important to evaluate today's VR with the same eyes as when looking
at an MVP: does it meet its goals? Does it provide value? Does it show
potential if developed further? Is there a product-market fit?

The answer to all of the above is a resounding "yes." Try it if you haven't.
VR and AR have the potential to be truly revolutionary technologies. Yes,
there is some distance to the goal, but it's eminently achievable - if the
tech is not killed off by mis-set expectations, tribalism, paranoia,
pessimism, and negativity.

~~~
tptacek
The problem with this rebuttal is there's no argument you can't apply it to.
Try making it falsifiable. The first Rift Dev Kits landed in 2013. At what
point can we look at uptake of these products and conclude that they're not
catching on? I have no trouble with the argument that 2017 is too early. But
what year won't be too early? 2020?

As for investors, it's important to remember that when you're swinging at a
pitch, it's no more productive to swing too early than to swing too late.
They're both strikes.

~~~
agar
We have a gen 1 technology that you strap on your face and you literally feel
like you're somewhere else. You look down and see your hands; glance across
the table and see, and talk to, and interact with, another person that's
really across the globe; you can build a world and inhabit it.

And we're discussing when to call it a failure. On a site called Hacker News.
OK. But that's kind of my point - people can be so focused on "calling
failure" that they miss the incredibly transformative development that's right
in front of them.

Regarding a "timeline for calling failure" \- who knows? Sometimes success
comes to the sole believer who labors on long after everyone else abandoned
hope. But how often in tech is something truly a failure? Was AI a failure in
the 60's? It brought us LISP and defined the space. The 80's? It brought
important foundational work to CNNs. The 90's? Would we be here without Deep
Blue? Was mobile a failure with WAP? Palm? Newton? Was Internet 1.0 a failure
when the bubble burst in 2000?

All were important steps that got us to our ubiquitously interconnected, AI-
enabled, device-driven present.

So why the focus on identifying something as a failure, or tagging the moment
that "they're not catching on"? How are you defining success? Adoption? If so,
based on what metric - and at what ramp - and based on whose expectations?
Investment success? For whom?

Even if this generation of VR fails to gain traction, I truly believe it will
be viewed as just one more step towards the inevitable. It's that good.

But my point is that such failure will be due more to social issues than
technical ones.

~~~
pandaman
But this is not gen 1. Even HMDs we had in 90s were not gen 1. This tech is
old. Gen 1 was in early 80s. We are on gen 5 now, probably. It has not taken
off before, there is no reason to think it will take off now. We've got better
graphics each gen but otherwise it's the same. Televisions had crappy graphics
initially but people bought them nevertheless. Game consoles had crappy
graphics but people bought them nevertheless. Digital cameras had crappy
graphics but people bought them nevertheless. Do you think people did not buy
VR before because of crappy graphics but are going to buy them now all of
sudden or sometime in the future when graphics will be even better?

~~~
gondo
it is not about the graphics, it is about the content

~~~
pandaman
Exactly. TVs, game consoles and digital cameras I mentioned were sold as
devices to consume and produce content people wanted. The current VR push is
"Look how awesome the technology is now! _Surely_ somebody will make a lot of
tasty content for it. Any time now. Why would not you buy a set so you are
ready when the content hits? It's coming. Get your set now so you won't have
to wait in lines when the content will finally appear and everyone will rush
the stores. This will happen. Just be prepared. Any minute now."

~~~
ZenoArrow
If you get a chance to play SUPERHOT VR, do. It's the best VR game I've ever
played. The only drawback is the cost of the rig needed to play it.

~~~
pandaman
And here is another issue. The content to sell VR cannot be hyped by "try
it!". You want to sell VR to someone who has not bought it yet so there is no
time/content restricted "demo version" route. You cannot demo it in Bestbuy
either (I don't know many people willing to put a public use mask on their
faces). If a 2D video does not sell it then the only channel left is through
friends and family. Do you have friends coming over just to play SUPERHOT VR?

~~~
agar
Many companies use disposable covers[1] when doing demos at conferences. I'm
not sure if Best Buy uses them for their demos as well (which are available at
many stores), but generally companies do address the hygiene problem.

[1] [https://vrcover.com/product/htc-vive-disposable-hygiene-
cove...](https://vrcover.com/product/htc-vive-disposable-hygiene-cover/)

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davnicwil
I was at Facebook's F8 conference this year and to say they are pushing hard
on VR is an understatement. Personally, I find VR and its potential
applications very intriguing and I welcome this, but it all still feels.. I
don't know.. very much top down and too early. I'm not sure if it's consumers
driving demand for this, or the industry desperately looking for the 'next'
platform 10 years on from the iPhone.

In contrast, it feels like the whole mobile app paradigm was a more emergent
trend that rose from the hardware getting better and it being an 'obvious'
thing to do with software on that hardware. Like, smartphones weren't designed
specifically with apps in mind, but they emerged as a phenomenon naturally, in
response to demand. But maybe that's just hindsight talking, maybe it too was
ultimately pushed from the top down by companies building apps and promoting
them. Hard to say I guess.

If any company can push VR into the mainstream, or at least accelerate the
process, Facebook has to be one of the best positioned, and I hope it works. I
just wonder if the hardware doesn't need to get dramatically (5 years) better
before it becomes obvious that ordinary people will want to incorporate it
into their daiy routine (and then, possibly more in AR form than VR form) -
indeed, to be fair, at F8 a very similar message was delivered in some talks.

~~~
pishpash
The issue is at the content side. 360 videos may give it a good push. That's
user created content so it doesn't rely on studios like the 3D TV.

~~~
was_boring
360 videos are a rather poor experience (currently). You cannot tell narrative
content on them because you cannot control the view like you can with movies
or shows. So what you are limited to is static scenery type of experiences.

~~~
jpindar
Do you play modern computer games? There are "live" narrative sections in many
games now. Cut scenes don't freeze the player anymore. You can turn around and
stare at the scenery if you want to. In some cases the story keeps happening
when you aren't watching, in some the action pauses at strategic moments and
waits for you.

~~~
zimpenfish
> There are "live" narrative sections in many games now.

Do they react to what the player is looking at or where they're standing? I
think what the GP meant was that "you can't have David Attenborough going on
about the lovely penguins whilst the user is staring at some polar bears."

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Animats
I've been saying for some time that VR is the next 3D TV. I've tried VR
systems from Jaron Lanier's original rig with two SGI workstations in the
1980s to the HTC Vibe. Technically, there's been plenty of progress. The lag
problem has been fixed. The resolution is better. The headgear is still
clunky.

There's still no killer app. You can play FPS games. Works fine, for people
who like shooters. You can run roller coaster sims. Works fine, gets boring
fast. You can visit Second Life. Kind of cool, if you like SL. You can visit
High Fidelity, which is a higher-res Second Life where nothing is going on.
Boring. (Worse, the High Fidelity CEO is now talking about "sovereign identity
on the blockchain". If one branch of hype isn't working, pivot to another.)

VR conferencing? Working in High Fidelity and Second Life now. HF even has
gaze tracking and facial gesture capture.

In the early days of VR, there was hope that VR would provide a more natural
interface to CAD programs. Autodesk put effort into VR to try to make that
work. Turned out that trying to do precision work in VR is not only difficult,
but really tiring.

It's all been built, and nobody came. Best Buy is removing the Oculus Rift
demo stations from stores due to lack of interest.

~~~
theptip
Are you considering AR as a separate concern, or do you consider that one
doomed to mediocrity as well?

Personally I think that features like virtual workspaces (e.g. multi-monitor
displays / overlays) and HUDs (e.g. vehicle navigation) are going to be game-
changing outside of the entertainment industry, when the headset tech gets to
where it needs to be; this will probably be better implemented as an AR
overlay (a la Hololens) than full VR.

~~~
Animats
AR is a separate line of development. Being able to label the real world has
many use cases. There are many industrial applications. The big technical
problem is getting location information good enough to register the
annotations on the real world. That's not solved yet for big spaces.

In AR, the graphics don't have to be as good. Text and line drawing alone
would be useful. This translates to less-clunky headgear. The Microsoft
HoloLens is far less clunky than the HTC Vibe or Oculus Rift. Being able to
walk an oil refinery or a server farm or a WalMart and have displays of what
everything was and how it was doing would be valuable.

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JauntTrooper
I still remember when the original Nintendo came out in 1988. It was $149 for
the system, the light gun + Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. ($320 in today's
dollars).

I don't think the NES would have succeeded as much as it did were it not for
the Mario Brothers + Duck Hunt bundle. The light gun turned out to be a
gimmick, but at the time it felt like such a huge technological leap over
Atari, and Duck Hunt was the way to show it off.

VR needs a Duck Hunt + Mario Brothers.

I think Nintendo gets this. Wii had Wii Sports, the Nintendo Switch has Zelda:
Breath of the Wild.

They're more than just games, they're brands that through their ubiquity
generate cultural capital for the platform.

~~~
e12e
Maybe vr will turn out to be more like analog flight sticks than the NES.

Today, a vr rig, hotas controller setup and elite:dangerous already _is_ a
killer combination for vr. Put the price is steep and the appeal is much more
narrow than Mario Bros.

[ed: personally I think vr will be more of a paradigm shift, than a game
gimmick though. I think creative tools like tilt brush will combine with
multi-user world's a la second life or croquet/open cobalt. And I think it'll
grow a bit "top down" first: with early adopters and creators / developers.

But one thing that has to go are the wires - probably first by higher
performance/watt and a move to "backpack pcs" to run the software.

Before that, Sony has the right idea: lower ambitions and let players sit in a
sofa. Works fine for driving/simulators etc. ]

~~~
e12e
I suppose an alternative to backpacks would be a hybrid solution with "smart"
headsets (much like cardboard/daydream) and a tradeoff in cpu/bandwidth doing
some work on the pc, and some on the headset - and streaming over wlan. But I
don't know if that's really feasible wrt getting the latency low enough with a
high quality display.

~~~
Zelizz
DisplayLink already has a working wireless adapter for the Vive. I've tried
it, and it's really good. No need for gimmicky backback computers or non-
replacable headset computers.

~~~
e12e
I thought the issue with current wireless technology was getting the latency
down, in order to work with true ~90hz refresh (so when you tilt your head
looking at the horizon, or move your head quickly the display updates in
seemingly real-time, not showing you one or two frames of old data).

Is this still not an issue?

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SwellJoe
It's always fun to watch media before a thing explodes in popularity and
becomes part of everyday life; during that period when the thing still sucks,
but a lot of smart people are working on it because they see some incredible
potential. I'm not _sure_ that VR will be one of those things, but I'm pretty
confident of it. I recently got a VR headset, one of the cheapo kind that you
stick your phone in, just to try it out. It's pretty much amazing.

I mean, it's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are
stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily
to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and
eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all
around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing.

That tells me something really big is going to happen; the Internet started
out the same way. It was stupid. You could watch a video, if it was 1/10th the
screen size, buffered for several minutes, and you didn't need it to look very
good. Regular old television was a million times better. I feel like we're at
that same point right now with VR. It all sucks right now (probably because I
have a cheapo VR headset that uses my phone and my phone isn't well-supported
by the VR players, but it was cheap), but we're only a year or so into the
"anyone can afford it" phase.

Think how many years it took for the tech to use the full potential of the
Internet took to make it into the majority of homes. I think we're still way
too early to tell how VR is gonna play out, but when I use it, I feel a bit of
that old "OMG, this is gonna be huge in ways I can't predict" feeling the
Internet gave me the first time I logged on.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
_I mean, it 's stupid, all the games and apps are stupid, all the videos are
stupid, interaction is clumsy, almost everything I try to use shifts steadily
to the left until I can't see anything anymore without turning my head, and
eventually turning my whole body around to keep up with the shift, and all
around it just barely works at all. But, it's still amazing._

This sums it up perfectly.

------
deweller
VR was just overhyped early. It will catch on.

Keep in mind that these are all 1st generation products. When an immersive VR
system comes with a wireless headset, costs less than $500 and doesn't require
30 square feet of space, then it will begin to take off.

Remember the first iPod? We are going to be in this early adopter phase until
the technology matures.

VR is __not __3D TV. People who use immersive VR actually like it. 3D TV was
annoying to most people after the novelty wore off.

~~~
tpeo
These aren't 1st generation products. There has already been a VR craze, back
in the 1990s.

~~~
whicks
The VR devices that are out today are incomparable with the devices of the "VR
craze" of the 1990s.

~~~
coldtea
And the VR devices of 2050 would be incomparable with the devices of the 2nd
"VR craze" of the late 201x's.

The question is whether they are enough, not whether they are merely better.

------
kazinator
I tried a VR demo a few months ago. It was fantastic!

This stuff has come a long way. It tracks every slightest movement of your
head and controllers. The graphics and sound will immerse you in a world you
will believe is real.

Very nice gaming is possible, as well as recreation. People could visit
fantastic virtual worlds just to be somewhere else and feel good; a kind of
therapy, if you will.

I don't understand what these insipid nay-saying wankers are blabbing about.

~~~
icebraining
I don't know. I tried the PSVR, found it very cool (significantly better and
more immersible than I thought), yet I wouldn't buy one. A good demo doesn't
make for a good product.

~~~
TuringTest
The HTC Vive feels much better than the PSVR. The room-scale tracking and
"grappling" hand controls really add to the experience.

IMHO walking around is the real thing in VR; games not directly designed with
this in mind are not exploiting the unique possibilities of the medium.

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tekism
Mr Williams, a 32-year-old former marine, was playing “Sprint Vector”, a VR
running game: players swing hand-held controllers to simulate motion. Though
he has been standing in one place, his brain believes he has just run for
several miles.

I wonder if anyone has tried using this tech to somehow trick the body into
activating what happens when one actually goes running? Can I get a workout by
just watching myself run in this VR world???

~~~
glangdale
There are some weird results in exercise science related to this. For example,
if you perform exercises only on one side, unilateral strength on the other
side improves (something that seems like a pointless novelty until you
consider training while injured). There's a huge amount of strength that
relates to 'neural' factors.

Conversely, apparently elevated heart rate due to gaming does not improve
aerobic fitness.

So I'm thinking that, broadly, there will be no such thing as a free lunch
here (as per usual).

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Hasknewbie
I'm on the "will flop like 3D TV" bandwagon, but for another reason than just
the lack of killer app and high price. I think a lot of faithful are just
trying to wish away a significant barrier to entry: motion sickness.

I know lowering the lag reduces this issue, but it does not completely solve
it.

I have a friend who has an interest in VR so he tried the various models being
demoed in shopping malls when he could find them in the US and the EU. Always
the same problem: motion sickness. So he would ask the people managing the
demo kits and would usually get the same answer, a bit more than 50% of the
people who try have that same problem. Then a few months ago I came across an
article that was essentially raising the same point (can't source it, sorry.
The number they gave was closer to 40%).

So basically it seems about half of the target audience asked to shell out a
small fortune will have "puking on the carpet" as their most memorable VR
moment... Not really a recipe for success.

~~~
DiThi
I'm guessing your friend tried the PSVR or Oculus Rift with heavy use of a
controller while seated.

Having tracked hands, moving around (instead of turning with a controller) and
using teleport (or just room scale 1:1 movement) reduces the percent of dizzy
people to zero. If you use slow artificial locomotion with comfort features
(e.g. FoV reduction), that number is about 5%.

~~~
Hasknewbie
I am aware that these prevent nausea or dizziness from happening, but what
does it say about the viability of the medium if all of its content must have
that kind of constraints? VR allows experiencing so-called 'presence', except
in practice said presence must not match anything else than that of your
actual body at that moment. We end up quite far removed from the "freely
explore virtual worlds" that VR is marketing.

~~~
DiThi
I'm not sure how are you interpreting the "constraints". Yes, it's difficult
to adapt existing games to VR, but it's possible. Having proper artificial
locomotion for 95% of the public and comfortable teleport based motion for the
remaining 5% sounds like a good compromise.

------
rjvs
VR might take a while to become a viable mainstream entertainment medium but
there are sizeable niches that can sustain businesses as development catches
up with the hype. Location-based entertainment, hardcore home VR games and
enterprise products all seem to be reasonably solid markets, even if they
don't scale up to the dizzying heights some expect them to reach.

We have a design meeting and visualisation tool for engineers and desginers to
discuss projects with their management, clients and other domain experts. This
has significant benefit for our customers and it will not go away anytime
soon.

Perhaps the hype cycle will cause the current HMD manufacturers to exit the
market and VR will retreat to these niches but it's definitely not going away.

------
hoodoof
VR needs good software and the reality is that it is just not there yet. If it
does not come by the end of this year there will be a problem.

I think it will happen though for the one reason that Bethesda is delivering
Doom, Fallout 4 and Skyrim for Sony PS4 VR for this Christmas. That will give
Sony a big reason to keep yelling about PS4 VR and will restore the faith of
people like me who bought a VR headset early that is now just sitting there
waiting for good software to use it with.

The next challenge facing vR beyond that point is whether the three titles
mentioned above deliver on the promise of VR - if they do not then VR is
finished, at least for this round of enthusiasm about the idea.

~~~
TuringTest
Doom, Fallout and Skyrim seem like precisely the wrong games to target for VR,
unless they remake them completely to use instant teleportation instead of
walking.

FPS in VR only works from a static standing point, otherwise the VR sickness
kicks in really fast.

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flavio81
Killer app + low price + user friendliness = mass-market success.

VR still doesn't have the three variables. But it's getting really close!

------
anton69
I don't see this mentioned too often in the critique of vr, but I wonder if
the isolation of putting on a headset is another barrier for adoption. While
the isolation could be an advantage on something like an airplane or even an
open office, I just don't feel like disconnecting that much from reality when
in the comfort of my own home.

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reacweb
15 years ago, the foreseen path was adoption of 3D TV then replacement of TV
by headsets. 3D TV does not exist anymore and people are watching movies on
their phone.

IMHO, the future is the replacement of the screen of smartphones by glasses
with AR. The phone will be in my pocket with my hand and the glasses will be
near my eye, ear and mouth.

------
freekh
What I imagined VR will give, once the headsets and input devices have been
iterated on, is a way to have a true workspace environment on the move.

~~~
yoz-y
I wonder how far would screen/projection technology had to go. I'd love to
have an AR headset that would allow me to summon a huge screen in front of me,
however I want that screen to have the same DPI as my computer.

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sbmassey
I read, when they were pushing 3D TV, that some 10-15% of the population don't
have 3D perception for one reason or another, and therefore don't get the
immersive experience. Personally, being in that category, I don't get much
from these headsets beyond feeling that there is an image in front of my eye
that moves with my head, which is more annoying than anything. The AR thing
sounds potentially useful though.

------
onetokeoverthe
Does anyone have links to Mckinsey/KPMG* type studies (in pdf format) which
forecast VR adoption and segment usage by type?

*Or anyone "authoritative".

