I highly doubt it will be. And this is coming from an owner of a GTX 1080 and HTC Vive. There are some really awesome games and experiences, but there is nothing that I really want to keep going back to. No Rocket League or Minecraft (Well, there is vivecraft, but minecraft in VR just isn't that much more appealing to me than the vanilla game.) PSVR might get some stuff but for now it seems like most large companies are just putting their toes in the water by giving out small tech demos.
VR needs a couple of things, and they aren't going to happen in less than a year. First and most importantly, cheaper and better hardware. Daydream is nice, but at most it is good for 360 video and some cheap games. Get some head tracking in there somehow and then it becomes interesting. Also, it needs something like the oculus touch controllers or vive controllers so you can actually use your hands for things.
Secondly, an actual killer app. Some kind of game that only works in VR. Something that you want to keep coming back to.
Lastly - simplicity. Daydream is simple but too limited. The vive has all the features but setting up lighthouses is a pain unless you can permanently mount them. Also being tethered to your computer sucks (A solution for that is on the way, but it will only add to the cost.) Headsets are still bulky and uncomfortable to wear for long periods.
My point I guess is that Apple's typical timing with things would put them entering the market in 2018 at the earliest. This is like the early Windows Phone/PalmOS days before the iPhone (But I doubt Apple will be the one releasing the "iPhone" of VR.)
Tech Journalist Robert Scoble seems to be super certain that the next iPhone this year will be AR/VR and blow everyone away, he apparently has credible sources.
Personally i don't buy it at all and can't wait for everyone to tell him "i told you so"
Maybe. Of course killer apps don't have to spring full formed as launch titles. Visicalc arrived two and a half years after the launch of the Apple II. I don't think we can count out people coming up with something remarkable in 2017 given that there are platforms from Facebook, Google, Steam and Sony.
As for myself, even without a killer app, VR has gotten me saving memories as photo spheres, in addition to pictures and videos.
I know I'm probably a minority of HN users and other tech enthusiasts on this issue, but I'm totally uninterested in VR. I've tried it a few times and my general impression was, "Neat." That's a far cry from an impression like, "OMG this is the most amazing thing ever!" which is what I was kind of expecting to think.
I'm more interested in AR, personally. But it's hard for me to articulate why exactly because honestly I don't have much experience with it yet. It just seems more interesting to me. I'd really like to get a Hololens to start experimenting with, but can't really justify the cost of it right now.
(disclosure: I work for Microsoft, which makes Hololens. Not meaning to promote it, these are my personal opinions)
I work at an AEC firm. We give money and some privilege to 2-3 people at work to experiment with VR. It's interesting to some degree but, beyond being a marketing tool, I don't really see it being useful as a professional tool any time soon.
These things are hard to call though, like anything in future tech (or the future in general). They consider it revolutionary new tech whereas I'm on the side of "shiny new toy" and "wait and see" but the powers that be have no issue spending the money on it while I see some of core competencies and actual training for the future being ignored (transitions to BIM and training in better 3D modeling programs).
I want to buy a VR headset but I currently cannot justify it due to the cost+use of the device.
I, and I think enough other people, already have a $1k+ PC for the huge amount of non-VR games it gives access to.
But the big catch for me is that there just doesn't seem to be enough content that will work with and (more importantly) be enhanced by a VR experience. I simply don't have the cash-on-hand to justify spending ~$800 to make Elite Dangerous slightly more immersive. But if a good VR headset was more in the $200 range (like the very similarly limited hotas I bought for the same reason) I would probably jump.
It does seem like this year may bring the cost of the devices down low enough that more devs and more audience can get on board and bring it in to the main stream because it is very nearly there already.
Not according to Microsoft, VR is going to be a big push for them this year. Granted a lot can go wrong, but they are addressing all the points you just listed:
* Headset Pricing: Major OEMs will be releasing headsets starting at $300 [0]
* Lowering system specs for VR [1]
* Not just a gaming focus: Windows 10 creators update puts an emphasis on 3D and Mixed-Reality, including a 'holographic' interface [2]
I think Microsoft is 2-3 years too early (or maybe that's the plan?). The technology just isn't there yet. Headesets need to double the resolutions on the displays and increase the frame rate by 50%.
Agreed, I find the current resolution on VR headsets a huge letdown. Actually made worse by the fact that everything else I have these days is retina, 4K, etc so at a very high resolution.
VR could find use in other market segments that existing technologies are insufficient for at a scale that make it affordable.
Take theaters for example. They have been looking for a market for years but since people have screens and streaming at home they don't tend to go as much. However they could find a new life by purchasing VR headsets in bulk and selling livestreams of plays/musicals/operas, and possibly sports games as well. These will always be experiences better seen live, but VR would be a significant step above television.
That way someone could enjoy VR at a very low cost, and possibly spur them to buy a headset themselves, when the price is right.
I think ebay is the last place I'd buy pretty much anything. Especially when the price discrepancy between those listings and fully legit stores is so different. Just a personal observation.
Buy from the sellers with good reviews and lots of reviews, and you will be fine. And if you pay with PayPal, eBay guarantees to return your money if something goes wrong.
Enter Google Daydream. Only need $650 phone (much cheaper ones were just announced that support it I think) and a $80 headset. And most importantly they are building it correctly so that many/most high end VR games will also run on Daydream.
I have a computer that can run vr (i7-6700k + 1080) enough disposable income to afford a headset and I'm still not interested. There just hasn't been anything released for vr that doesn't seem like a gimmick.
Fair enough. They've never cared about the sort of gaming commonly done on the sort of computers that will be able to do VR in 2017. When we get to the point where the iPad/iPhone can do high quality VR then I'll re-evaluate my statement.
I'm not sure about that. It seems to me that VR is ripe for a high-end offering that is vertically integrated and quality assured. The VR landscape is already a bit fragmented and it probably won't get less so.
They'll have to stick better graphics cards in their computers, but that's doable.
Probably their biggest challenge would be coming up with a headset that is "Apple-y", given that the design issues involved in creating them right now still create something fundamentally klunky. (VR is starting to take off not because anyone's figured out how to make it not klunky, but because it transitioned from intolerably klunky to tolerably klunky. Along with the latency improvements.)
I'm not saying they're going to do it. But they could.
Yea. Google is taking amazing steps to kill it in this market with Daydream. I have it and for the price (diff vs non high end phone) and $80 headset is it perfect.
The problem I see is that VR would be great with dual 2K screens and 120+hz , but we don't have the GPUS to push that many pixels today (in any remotely affordable way...maybe quad TitanX would work).
Cheaper, lower-quality VR headsets will leave a bad impression on consumers. I don't think that's the direction we should be going. I'd rather see HTC and Oculus release higher-res, faster refresh rate HMDs, but I doubt they'd do that with no single GPU able to run those today.
When you get to scale, you can start doing things like manufacturing displays with higher PPI near where the lenses are centered. That way you have the same number of total physical pixels but a higher resolution contributing to the image.
You can further reduce the computational costs by using foveated rendering(http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/johnsny/papers...). You can use low-latency eye-tracking to spend more time rendering the portions of the frame that the user is actively looking at.
I think the combo of falling gpu prices, and clever hardware design means we will probably see headsets with effectively higher and higher resolutions sooner rather than later.
You'd need a new lens design for that really. Right now the lenses that are used aren't really good if you start looking to the side too much. When I get going in VR I generally just look with my head instead of my eyes to avoid those lens issues like chromatic aboration.
a slew of headsets from major PC vendors (HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.) starting at $300.
Wonder if that will help or hinder VR. Personally I think the Vive is just about the bare minimum needed for VR to barely be acceptable. If peoples first impression of VR is something less than that I doubt they'll be impressed enough to actually use VR for more than 15 minutes over the first 2 weeks after purchase.
