
I've Been Waiting For The Oculus Rift, But Now It's Sitting In My Closet - r0h1n
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/05/27/ive-been-waiting-for-the-oculus-rift-my-whole-life-but-now-its-sitting-in-my-closet/
======
newhouseb
To me, the most exciting thing about VR (particularly on the Vive) is not
anything gaming related but the possibilities around creation and
collaboration that are opened up by being able to program in "the real world."
If you've played with Tiltbrush at all you can see a glimpse of this. Your
brain's implicit understanding of your presence in 3D space is incredibly
vital to understanding the shapes and structure that you see with your eyes.
You can imagine many design fields: fashion, furniture, architecture, etc can
all have a dramatically reduced leap between conceptualization and
realization.

A lot of people are quick to dismiss VR and present AR as the future, but I
think a more constructive way to think about it is that VR is AR without the
walls punched out (yet). Realistically, we all spend the majority of our lives
in a couple rooms (an office and a bedroom), so by moving to AR the largest
benefit is going to be comfort. So many potential new interactions are ripe
for exploring today, even in VR (not to mention the Vive has a front-facing
camera anyway, although the latency can be a bit nauseating).

~~~
madaxe_again
Yup. There's a lot going on right now with people making tools for sculpture,
for design, and even stuff like minecraft is a blast on the vive. I've had
mine three weeks and managed to spend 6 hours in it solidly on Saturday - 30
minutes and you need a nap? Please. Better make some ovaltine and put your
slippers on.

On the other hand, I can't take more than 30 minutes of holopoint - it's
physically intense and leaves you a sweaty wreck.

As to motion controllers "perhaps being more intuitive" \- I'm guessing he
hasn't used them. They're not "more intuitive" _they 're your damned hands_,
joining your head in another world. I mean, I suppose hands are useful in
interacting with the world.

I strapped my 90 year old granddad in, and he was immediately having a blast
flipping burgers in job simulator - and this is a guy who fumbles with his
iPad.

So - motion controllers are not "perhaps more intuitive", unless you count
your hands as "perhaps more intuitive" to pick things up with than your mouth.

Other "game changer" stuff - altspace vr is the nearest thing to Stephenson's
metaverse I can conceive of - it's not like sitting at home chatting on irc
watching a stream of something with others - it's like meeting people and
going somewhere.

It's all well and good going "I'll wait five generations", but a) you're
missing out on pre-september vr and b) if nobody buys devices there won't be
five generations.

~~~
greggman
I agree they're great but they are not your hands. I was still pressing the
wrong button all the time. I need gloves not wands

~~~
madaxe_again
I don't think the neural remap is that hard - i mean, you can type, and it
doesn't work through a pen and text interpretation.

Having used the controllers and leap motion, the controllers I prefer, as
grasping nothing is less immersive than grasping a controller - in my view,
anyway.

Now, gloves with feedback, those will be interesting - but are a way off.

I was recently thinking about 3d printing trackable objects to get around the
whole topic, and allow leap motion/manus/whatever to be that much more real.

~~~
greggman
Yes I can type. I took a 6 month typing course in 8th grade to learn how.

------
onewaystreet
There's been a lot of fighting between Vive owners and Oculus owners over
which HMD is the best, but they both miss the reality that the biggest
challenge to getting the average person to adopt VR isn't room tracking or
motion controllers, it's getting them to even want to put the things on. There
is very little compelling software at this point that would make anyone but an
enthusiast want to use either of them for more than a few hours.

~~~
MatthaeusHarris
Literally every person I've put into my Vive has been blown away by it. Sure,
there's probably some selection bias, but I've been buttonholing anyone who
sets foot in my house, including my 70-year-old in-laws.

So far, of the 20+ people to whom I've shown it, one has taken it off
voluntarily, and all had variations of, "Holy shit, this is really amazing."

~~~
imh
I had that reaction to my brother's Vive too. It was really amazing. But that
doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't spend more than $30 on one. Despite being
blown away, there are no compelling games and it gave me a headache.

~~~
jobigoud
> it gave me a headache

This is possibly because the interpupillary distance wasn't correctly
calibrated for your eyes, which means you didn't get the correct scale and
depth of things (hard to notice explicitly except that your brain doesn't like
it).

------
kranner
It's especially a problem if you live in a hot and humid climate like I do. No
matter what I did I could not prevent the lenses from fogging over and I tried
everything from antifog sprays for ski masks to stuffing paper towels into the
sides of the headset.

The steamy, foggy, bad-smelling experience contributes as much to the nausea,
or at least it exacerbates it in my experience.

~~~
visarga
Perhaps it needs active ventilation.

~~~
kranner
Forgot to mention that I tried that as well with a USB fan.

Something like this one: [http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-
Portable-Min...](http://n4.sdlcdn.com/imgs/b/u/4/198x232/Persona-Portable-
Mini-USB-Fan-SDL411733852-1-2d34f.jpg)

But yes, an in-built fan (if it weren't too noisy) should help a lot.

~~~
ethbro
You might want to look up fans for paintball helmets. From memory, most of
them run off battery, but you could probably have them to use 5v USB.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=paintball+fan)

Biggest advantage being that they're specifically designed to move air down
through a set of goggles.

~~~
kranner
Thanks!

------
BuckRogers
A few points that stood out to me.

1\. He has the wrong headset. VR needs roomspace or it's just not going to be
worth it. Yes gametime on the extreme end will go down in VR. That's very
welcome by many of us finely aged gamers who don't have much time anyway for 6
to 12 hour sessions anymore (or don't want to invest that kind of time). I'd
rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than 12 hours
of Civilization (which I already put countless hours into during the early 90s
anyway).

2\. He did nail the second thing that needs to happen when he said the cords
were a mess: the need for a self-contained VR system with no cords. Cell phone
VR for the basic setup and a more powerful and immersive but also wirefree
all-in-one VR outfit is where it'll be at in the longterm. Think Powergloves
and the whole deal.

3\. Main issue here is that this as an author who doesn't know what he needs.
But what he needs is a killer app. Once someone figures out what that is,
it'll explode.

~~~
girvo
> _I 'd rather put in 1 to 2 hours a day of insanely immersive gametime than
> 12 hours of Civilization_

I'm not finely aged, as I'm only 25, but I feel the exact same way. One thing
I loved about Quantum Break recently was the fascinating live-action video
that breaks up each chapter of the single-player game. I'm a fan of immersive
experiences, so the 2-3 hours a week I spend gaming have a bigger impact on me
and are more enjoyable.

------
vectorpush
I think the problem isn't so much that the tech isn't ready, it's simply that
the software is immature. Everyone has been rushing hard to get this tech out
the door, but _software_ developers haven't really had time to produce much
beyond "app-store" quality content which tends to lack lasting replay value.
We all know it takes a lot of time to produce high quality software and there
is still a lot of experimentation that needs to happen before developers lock
onto the techniques that provide the optimal experience.

People aren't going to keep putting on their headset just to look at tech
demos, they're going to keep coming back to experience the well designed,
super fun, highly addictive title that they've been playing obsessively, just
like on every other platform.

~~~
exodust
Having owned an Oculus, I can't agree the tech is ready. Personally I won't be
touching the hardware again until it evolves to something like putting a pair
of sunglasses on, and the image covers your entire field of vision, with
better resolution. The black border around the image was disappointing and
prevented full immersion.

I also want an integrated tracking camera in my laptop. The less clutter of
hardware the better. And a brightness control dial on the side would be nice
too. Those little screens are very close to your eyes, having a dimmer would
be great - for those applications that seem to think you want full screen
whiteness flooding your retinas.

~~~
louhike
Do you have the last Oculus headset or one of the alpha version for
developers?

~~~
exodust
I had the DK2, and yes I know the latest model is better... have yet to try it
myself, but I heard the screen resolution is basically the same and you can
still see the pixels etc.

------
wmeddie
VR headsets that are attached to big PCs are very much a solo-thing at the
moment. I can understand wanting to play a multi-player game like Halo while
visiting a friend's house.

I got my Oculus Rift a few weeks ago and absolutely love it. Practically use
it every day. Lucky's Tale was surprisingly good, and I can no longer Elite:
Dangerous without the headset.

There's not enough software at the moment. I still want to see a good flight
simulator and Altspace-like spaces with actual things to do with people.

~~~
exodust
I wonder if 3 monitors side by side would be good enough to replace your
headset with Elite? Combined with headtracking so when you look at left
monitor, the view shifts slightly with your head movement? Or is it that
you're completely enclosed in the world more important?

~~~
Tech1
I've got a triple head setup and a TrackIR v5 and play a lot of flight /
combat (DCS series) sims (with a Warthog HOTAS), ARMA 3, and Elite Dangerous.
It's worth it.

I'm still standoff ish on VR till my setup can be replicated, but I think I'm
an outlier in the target market.

~~~
exodust
Sounds good. I might invest in a dedicated setup like that. One of the
advantages of a triple monitor setup is that our eyes can instantly scan
around the screens with only a small amount of head movement. With VR the same
move requires a larger head turn, and the resolution not as good. Not to
mention the nice desktop area.

------
vmp
I had the DK2 and pretty much the same thing happened, boxed and shelved after
a week, after I tried all the best demos - although for a different reason:
the eye-strain and nausea was too much to bear for me. I couldn't really
explain it since other people, family members and friends, could wear it just
fine for any amount of time. I wear glasses but neither lenses or any settings
offered relieve, guess I'm simply too sensitive to enjoy current-gen VR. Also
the DK2 drivers were glitchy - had to plug in an old 19" monitor because the
only way the rift would run at its designed 75Hz was with a primary monitor
that supported it too, it's been a real hassle to switch from a nice 27" 1440p
display to 1280x1024 and back, only to get really bad judder ingame because
either the game wasn't using the latest SDK version or my GPU couldn't keep up
(gtx 670 with an i7-2600k). Direct-To-Rift mode should have fixed these issues
(judder primarily) but it rarely worked for me. Note that I never tried the
CV1 or any other HMD so far, nor do I really plan to. My DK2 experience has
been sobering but I am hopeful for future generations.

~~~
madaxe_again
I had a dk2, and the nausea was real. Had to put it down and sit there pale
and sweaty many times.

In the vive, at 90fps and all the other bells and whistles - none, even
dogfighting in elite, even stick-moving in minecraft.

That said, a gtx 670 would be marginal at best - a 970 is the official min
spec, and the new generation of pascal cards are essentially built for vr.

~~~
vmp
That's interesting to hear. The Vive has some unique features that make it
sound really cool too. What about screen-door effect? Texts in EliteDangerous
weren't readable at all. I'm planning on getting a gtx 1070 once they are out
for some sweet sweet 1440p gaming, the 670 served me well but just doesn't cut
it anymore for anything higher than 1080p.

~~~
madaxe_again
Sde is still there, just less noticeable - and not noticeable pretty swiftly.

I play ED in the vive, and have no issue with legibility, but I have
supersampling and aa cranked - haven't bothered with green text, which was
practically mandatory on the dk2.

------
jkelsey
I did the Oculus demo at a Best Buy. The technology is incredibly impressive,
but I found the experience annoying. Besides the face sweat, I just can't
envision myself coming home and enjoying my time in a headset the same way I
can enjoy myself in front of a TV or computer, and I think that's because you
can't see around your physical space without taking the headset on and off.

Maybe I'm just being a troglodyte about VR. I can admit that much.

~~~
visarga
Maybe the headset idea is not so great. If we created a spherical room around
the user and displayed the 3D image on it, in all directions, it would be more
natural. Especially if we can still walk inside the sphere in any direction.

~~~
jobigoud
This is called a CAVE and it's the predecessors to today's HMDs.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment)

~~~
jonah
I spent time inside UCSB's AlloSphere this weekend.

[http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/](http://www.allosphere.ucsb.edu/)

In VR headset terminology it has full field of view, zero latency head
tracking, very high resolution, group experience, no fatigue, etc.

Obviously, everyone can't have one in their house but it's a great experience.

~~~
jobigoud
Hmm, I haven't been to this facility, I'm rather skeptical of your points of
comparison to a VR headset.

If it's like the ones have been or worked on, using 3D glasses (active or
passive) with IR reflectors for tracking by multiple cameras, then it neither
has full field of view nor zero latency and I can't see how it would have
group rendering.

The field of view is limited by the glasses, if your eye goes outside the
glasses you see both eyes together on the images projected on the screens and
it looks fuzzy. Obviously you can turn your head 360 but that's the same in a
headset.

In terms of head movement, in a VR headset you have full spherical coverage,
not just 360 horizontally, which seems to be the case here?

For tracking if they use Vicon cameras or similar system, you also have the
usual motion to photon latency: video camera latency + video camera frame
interval + CV algorithms + rendering + sending to screens.

Actually none of the Cave systems I've seen use predictive tracking (like VR
headsets do), where the head pose send to the renderer is not the sampled pose
by the tracker but the predicted pose that your head will have by the time the
image is displayed in the headset.

Group experience? How do they manage that, I'm curious. For accurate multi-
person VR you need a different render for each person based on his specific
head position and orientation. In a Cave that would mean rendering 4 images
per each frame just to get it working for 2 people. So 360fps refresh rate
screens for a 90fps experience for example, (which is what the Rift and Vive
have).

------
bunkydoo
VR is going to be somewhat like the advent of the 3D television in 2010-ish.
Every manufacturer will make one, few people will buy one, and the people who
do will likely only use it on novelty occasions. VR is really only a stepping
stone to augmented reality, and mixed reality mobile operating systems. On a
side note Oculus and WhatsApp seem to be some of the dumbest expenditures
Facebook could have ever made. 13 billion dollars for a messaging app. Thats
13 trips to the moon and back... But fuck it, we will just eat Cheetos and do
a computer simulation of a moon mission in an Oculus. #MillennialLyfe

~~~
colmvp
I think 3D television was a mere incremental improvement whereas the immersion
of VR is the next stepping stone of entertainment. Though, I think the full-
room experiences are a bit of fad as seated experiences are more comfortable
and relatable to how we've always consumed various forms of relaxing
entertainment. Instead of the simplistic interactions, I honestly wouldn't
mind it if I used a keyboard and mouse interface but wore a VR helmet at my
desk, since I never look down anyway. And I'm also betting that VR porn has
the potential to be hugely addictive. The reviews of initial explorations are
fairly lukewarm but it's still way too early to discount that effort.

~~~
PeterisP
There is quite big market for non-seated entertainment - Wii, Kinect, etc have
shown that. It is a _very different_ market from the people who currently have
high-end gaming PCs suitable for VR, but the number of people who like and
want full-room experiences is quite large.

~~~
usrusr
Maybe I am completely missing some niche where Wii and Kinect are celebrating
long term success, but my current impression is that they are more examples
for short term novelty success than for a strong long term development. Better
than dance dance revolution mats, but only marginally.

------
greenspot
Not sure but the current and next VR gen might be the next smartwatch.
Overhyped.

Why =>

1\. You need an highres screen which must be pixel-free. Even if you throw
Samsung's ppi front runners Note 5 or S7 into a Google cardboard you
definitely see pixels; it's not crisp, it's not clear, it's just annoying and
those monster phones have already 500-600ppi, more than any Oculus. So we need
screens with 1000 ppi minimum because they sit so close in front of your eyes.
We are used to crispy Retina noteboks and even higher res smartphone screens
for years and shall now go back?

2\. People are annoyed by Androids micro stuttering here and there, even the
mainstream users and now we believe some milliseconds latency and stutter
won't hurt VR? So here we need minimum 60 fps and even more since head
movements can be quite quick and morever, even subtle movements which happen
with your head all the time must be reflected with same sensivity. Didn't see
this yet.

3\. 1000ppi at 60fps? Ok, let's try to get hardware for this; you need
hardware with the best avail GPUs, coolers, heatpipes, and fat cables to your
lovely headset since batteries won't help. So we talk about a non-mobile
product, something with cables keeping you at one position. And a price tag
far away for the mainstream user.

Once this thing can be sold next to the Playstation for few hundred bucks at
the quality mentioned in 1 and 2 + killer apps we are ready to go and we can
talk again about mainstream adoption. To get there I assume that we need min.
10 years if not more.

And even then, if we are there and have 1+2+3 fulfilled I come up with my 4th
point:

4\. Great about games is that I sit on my sofa and can conquer the world
without moving at all. All is done with my fingertips on my controller. Moving
is exhausting--and thats _the_ point of video games: to not run yourself and
climb mountains like you do in Uncharted 4 for days--even moving my head can
get exhausting after a while and anyway head movements are also much faster
done with my controller's right analogue stick. So, what's the point? Why do I
need an headset when a large screen and my proven Playstation controller can
do the same? Better immersion?

------
symlinkk
> The headset doesn’t always fit quite right, and the experience can be
> straight up exhausting

I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get
really tiring after a while. I hope - and believe - that as game devs get more
experience with VR, they'll design VR games differently to take into account
its strengths and weaknesses. This is actually one of the reasons I think
Oculus has a good chance at succeeding in the VR world - they've had the tech
for quite a while and have had time to figure out how to make a good VR
experience. The camera on a rail in Lucky's Tale is a good example of Oculus
Studios thinking in new ways about how to design VR games. It's a new medium,
and it's going to take some trial and error before we figure out how to use it
correctly.

> telling them to spend $600+ on a headset right now would just be madness,
> given the relatively small scope of the software at present

I think the author should have expected that there's not much software out
there, after all this is a totally new market, there's not going to be many
games for it after all. I remember the day the PS3 came out there were very
few games for it, and that was Sony's 3rd console. Give it some time.

Overall, I think VR has enormous potential. Give Virtual Desktop a try, or a
deep VR game like Elite: Dangerous, or even something simple but polished like
Lucky's Tale.

~~~
reustle
> I agree, moving your head around all the time to look at things does get
> really tiring after a while

Is this really the day and age we live in where needing to mov e your head
around is considered a con? You move your head around all the time while
walking around, driving, etc and nobody complains about that

~~~
startling
generally you move your whole body, at least a little bit, when you move your
head, though.

------
cheerioty
Wrong headset :# I could spend days in the Vive and Google Tiltbrush alone.

------
Viper007Bond
Honestly the only reason I'm excited to get one is for racing simulators.
Rather than trying to sit close to a big TV or having multiple displays, you
can just use one of these for the immersion. Plus you can look around like you
would in a real car.

Great example (with a bit of augmented reality via green screen mixed in):
[https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk](https://youtu.be/LlFKjWGxZqk)

~~~
bencoder
Yeah, I use my DK2 pretty much solely for a flight simulator (FSX with
Flyinside).

I'm learning to fly in real life and it turns FSX into a realistic way of
training for GA flying, rather than only instrument procedures - being able to
look around out the windows makes all the difference.

~~~
usrusr
If you are into flight simulation, then you are likely to have experience with
the old head tracker / desktop monitor combo as well. How do those experiences
compare?

(I'm asking because I have spent quite a bit of time doing headtracked virtual
piloting, zero with a VR headset)

~~~
bencoder
I only have limited experience with the headtracker + monitor combo but I much
prefer VR.

With the headtracker it more felt like just a convenient input method for head
position, whereas with vr, well, it's like you're really in the plane. It
doesn't feel like there's some translation between me moving my head and the
camera on screen moving.

The loss of visual acuity is an issue, but since I fly only GA this is not so
much of an issue - I'm mostly looking out of the windows and try not to focus
on the instruments, just like in the real world.

If anyone you know owns a headset (DK2, CV1, Rift), I'd highly recommend
borrowing it and trying the free version of FlyInside (15 minute demo limit)
to get an idea: [https://flyinside-fsx.com/Download](https://flyinside-
fsx.com/Download)

------
Aelinsaar
The Vive has issues, comfort issues especially, but it's a good setup. I can't
say the same for the Rift, and the controls don't help.

------
RyJones
I'm in the same place - I probably got 12 hours of gameplay out of it before I
unplugged mine. It is exhausting and frustrating to use.

~~~
hesdeadjim
The Vive is an infinitely better experience currently. Hand controls and sub-
millimeter tracking precision in a room up to 12x12 makes all the difference.

~~~
chj
My two cents on Vive after a short experience:

1\. Video quality is better than google cardboard, but not much. Yeah, I am
surprised too. 2\. Headset and Control don't fit very well, at least for me.
3\. You need a large empty room. Otherwise I can see myself running into
things.

Bottom line: no way I am going to buy this.

~~~
jobigoud
The problem with video quality (if you are referring to stereoscopic 360
video) is coming from the content, not the headset.

To make a video that leverages the GearVR pixel density for example, you need
6000x1500px. Per eye. Videos are usually a far cry from that. H.264 encoders
won't even let you encode it.

~~~
chj
I am referring to games. I only tried two though.

------
creed
I think the fact that we don't know how to use any of this at the moment just
shows how new and game changing this all is.

You can't just copy/paste any of the old stuff onto this new medium, it just
doesn't work that way and you certainly _cannot_ compare this to 3D
tv/cinema...

..and I think the people that got hyped the most also completely
underastimated the tectonic shift needed in order to make any of this really
entertaining.

I think of the "visual" component of the VR problem as solved and am now
looking forward to seeing how the "interactive" component of the problem will
be solved. Because you need to perceive the world, check, but now you need to
be able to interact with it: not solved yet.

But people got waaaay to excited seeing only the visual aspect solved...

------
reedlaw
I know a few people who feel sick just playing a FPS game on a regular
computer monitor for more than a few minutes. Even on a high-end system 3D
environments can cause motion sickness. So I believe it will be a long time
until VR technology overcomes these problems.

~~~
exodust
Some FPS games make the mistake of limiting field of view, which can cause
motion sickness on regular monitors. A wide field of view and high frame rate
greatly improves things.

With VR, it's a combination of frame rate and as the comment above mentions -
too much movement. In No Limits 2 rollercoaster for example, you can walk
around the park and get on the coaster, ride the coaster, then get off and
walk around again - it's too much. The best VR I saw was sitting on virtual
chair and things happening around you.. or the chair slowly moves through
environment with deliberate and smooth velocity.

------
cm2187
Entirely agree with the article. There is a quote by Clemenceau: "the best
time in love is when I walk up the stairs". I'd say by best time with VR is
the time between ordering and receiving it...

------
frik
I tried various VR, AR, 3D glasses (shutter, anaglyph) and autostereoscopy
displays in the last 20 years.

There were several hypes and fads (like 3D TVs and movies) and VR glasses
seems like another fad - especially as soon as more and more tried them and
cannot imagine to use it for general purpose gaming - it's more relevant for
niche topics. Autostereoscopy displays and AR might get a broader audience in
future. But current prototype AR devices like HoloLens are a far cry what
would be possible, and at the moment a lot of demos are faked to hype
unfinished devices, as the reality is that AR is won't be ready for another 3
years (e.g. [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-
im...](http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Microsoft-HoloLens-im-
Haertetest-3208736.html) ). A problem of VR and AR-prototypes is motion
sickness, that some people have (from my experience often people who have not
100% eye sight) - I never got motion sickness, but I saw some fellows
vomitting on the lab floor (carpet).

Autostereoscopy displays like in the Nintendo 3DS handheld console have its
appeal as there is no ugly glass needed and technically it's possible to
support a group of people, instead of just one person. So in near future our
smartphones and TVs may have such a 3D display. And given a 4k LCD panel one
can still get a 1080p or 720p 3D resolution out of it, that's already enough
and it will be cheap. And with back projection technology even projectors
could be used for 3D autostereoscopy.

------
Negative1
Summary; VR is a great novelty but it wears out and then you're just left with
sub-par looking games lacking replay value and quality. It's super expensive
and the games aren't very engaging (no killer app yet). The competitor
landscape is also confusing and there's a lot of innovation still left to be
done by industry heavyweights (namely Google and Apple).

Basically, VR is here but the experience isn't sticky enough due to lack of
great software. Sound familiar?

------
SystemOut
I have to agree with most, if not all, of what this article is saying. Some
friends of mine brought over their gaming rig and the Vive over. My kids loved
it, it was pretty cool and all but there is no way I'm spending 2K to buy a
gaming PC and the Vive. On top of that, you need a 3m by 4m room to play the
better games so anytime I want to play I have to clear out a room in the house
or dedicate it basically. For a game system? No.

For this to go big, and eventually I think it will, you need the headset to be
wireless, the goggles have to be lighter, and the video card necessary to
power the thing needs to be an appliance. I'm guessing once the consoles can
handle it we might see more traction.

I also would like to see the hand controllers something more along the lines
of a set of light weight gloves or something that allows finger and gesture
tracking. Basically, Minority Report. When I was playing hollow point and
budget cuts on the vive I really wanted something like that.

------
laichzeit0
This is not surprising. VR is currently in the "peak of inflated expectations"
in terms of the Hype Cycle [1]. Sit it out for another 2 years before taking
another look at it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

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yarrel
They need to open up the wire protocol. Let people innovate outside their
walled garden.

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LeoPanthera
The Vive is open, as far as I know. Only the OR is closed.

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Animats
I still think VR headsets are the next 3D TV. Yes, they're cool, for a few
days. Yes, some hardcore FPS gamers like them. There's a modest market for
them. But it may not be that big.

~~~
XorNot
The difference between 3D TV and VR is staggering.

I hate 3D TV (and movies) but was instantly amazed and wanted more of VR.

VR's biggest problem is tech needs to catch up - i.e. the race is towards
doing retina-resolution VR, at which point it's game-over for monitor tech.

3D TV is about as good as it's ever going to get, with a lot of really obvious
limitations.

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partycoder
Well... I was an early adopter for the Amazon Echo. Initially it was about the
same, novelty but practically useless, until new integrations were added and
now I make extensive use of it.

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cm2187
But the headsets are not going to get any lighter with time unless you buy new
ones.

~~~
partycoder
I think there will be more relevant applications of VR. Today there is very
few software that is VR specific

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gear54rus
Gonna derail this a bit, but what the fck is up with stock indicators in these
'news' posts? Seeing more and more of that lately.

Who even cares about that:
[https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png](https://i.imgur.com/TI5T7ah.png) when they
came to read a story such as this. Is this some useless bs marketing move or
am I missing something.

Please explain.

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Mayzie
It's Forbes. That's their industry and target audience.

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gear54rus
So maybe someone from that industry can comment if that helps anyone at all?

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newacct23
If there is news about a company and it's recent it might be interesting
information how the stock of the company is affected? It's useful information
for the people that normally read Forbes.

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Dylan16807
It makes sense for breaking news. Looking at a single day's stock movement
doesn't make any sense for a discussion of a product that came out months ago.

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philliphaydon
I was going to preorder but ultimately I opted not to simply because there's
no real use case, yet. It's still too early. I believe in a few years it will
be worth it but I just don't want to be an early adopter on demo ware.

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pdimitar
Damn, an overhyped tech carried by massive paid PR campaigns is not holding
up. SURPRISE! Never seen that before in human history, no sir.

I find Jeff Atwood's piece on VR to be the truest of them all. He nails it at
every point.

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jsprogrammer
Can you link to it?

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shpx
[https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-
ok/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/i-tried-vr-and-it-was-just-ok/)

~~~
jsprogrammer
Thanks. There's lots of great points in there, though I have demo'd an old
oculus with a Leap Motion that could track both hands and all fingers with
ease. Why it isn't bundled and contended by not, I do not know.

Even before this article was published I was saying (I'm sure others were as
well) that the reality that the Oculus lets people share is that of a black
box strapped to their faces.

I guess the reality phase of the hype cycle has now hit.

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dclowd9901
It's been my complaint since the beginning: This _isn 't_ virtual reality.
It's clever, non-sickening head tracking. Great. Now I won't throw up when I
move my head around in a 3D space.

We're a bit closer, but not nearly close enough, to total immersion. You can
play a racing game or a flying game and get some pretty good immersion, maybe
even trick your brain here or there. But VR is a fever dream until we
understand how brain impulses work and can manipulate them directly to
simulate experience.

Of course, by then, we'll probably be questioning the whole thing altogether.

~~~
purplelobster
Have you completely missed the HTC Vive?

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dclowd9901
Not at all. Spatial tracking is great but it's still arbitrarily limited.
You're not walking through an environment; you might as well be in a closet
simulator.

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Blackthorn
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for mine to ship at the end of June / start of
July :-(

I love flight and racing sims, so I expect to get a lot more use out of it.

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cloudjacker
> Despite my surprising lack of interest in VR, I recognize that it is the
> future. This isn’t one company making some gimmicky piece of tech .... and
> lord knows when Apple unveils their own VR headset, it’ll be game over.

oh geez, this means nothing.

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sillysaurus3
Apparently I can't read this article due to using adblock. Neither visiting
the article nor the "web" workaround work.
[http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png](http://i.imgur.com/8LN6ec0r.png)

Fascinating. I wonder what the web will look like in a decade.

On-topic: I was one of the original backers of Oculus, but missed the
opportunity to get a free Rift. I guess it didn't matter much.

It seems like what happened to the Oculus is what happened to many platforms
throughout history: No killer app on launch day = no uptake.

~~~
argonaut
I thought this Sam Altman tweet is relevant: "not enough of us are willing to
pay for news, so we get the click-bait ad-driven news we deserve."
([https://twitter.com/sama/status/736579483923156992](https://twitter.com/sama/status/736579483923156992)).

It comes off (in tone) as a bit entitled when I see people complaining about
how they aren't able to view _free_ (free!) ad-supported content _for free_
because they are using an adblocker. I use ad block. I recognize that I am a
freeloader. I don't pretend I'm not. I know the usual rebuttal is something
like "I'd pay for it if they offered" \- but this is a non sequitur because it
doesn't really change the fact that publications have no obligation to cater
to our every content-gorging whim.

~~~
taneq
I have to agree with you here. I usually don't use an archive link or other
shenanigans to circumvent anti-ad-blocking measures, if a site would rather
lose a reader than allow ads to be blocked then I'll just not read the
article.

This one, with ads, was unreadable anyway so it's a moot point really.

