1. Oculus is a display, therefore it should work with almost anything (aka modern devices that put out HDMI, etc). A 4k monitor doesn't require me to buy a whole new computer to use it. I don't understand why Oculus (or any other VR display) needs to be proprietary to the point that I may end up owing one device (Oculus) for PC and another (Morpheus) for PS4 gaming. This makes as much sense as companies launching nearly identical video formats (BluRay vs HD-DVD most recently). And again, this is a display not unlike a 4K display and should work similarly universally, I would think/hope.
2. It seem too big to me to be truly immersive. To lose oneself you have to not notice you are wearing this, which at its current size seems unlikely.
3. It needs to be wireless, any cables will detract from the immersive experience. I'm sure they are working on this.
4. The controllers they created look pretty interesting but I don't see how they will be conducive to touching, picking up, grasping items which would seem to be a more important thing than re-inventing FPS controllers if VR is truly going to take off this time.
5. I worry that too much focus is being placed on adapting FPS to this (and other) VR tech. While it would seem a 'natural', and probably will prove to be the easiest style of game to adapt, it's also lazy. It will be far more challenging (and I think rewarding) to adapt VR for other purposes such as viewing live events (concerts, sports etc), driving games/sims, sports games/sims and action adventure games such as Witcher and Dark Souls, just to name a few off my head. Maybe the new controllers will work great with those types of games/activities but my gut is these are really optimized for FPS, which is a shame.
It's exciting times for VR but I sure hope it doesn't get overtaken by FPS games because there are so many more potentially awesome applications out there to also focus on.
To react to all your points view with my points of view:
1. It's not a display, it's a device that contains a display. It has motion and tracking sensors. What the rift wants to achieve is the latency from input (moving your head) to photon to be really really low. This problem is hard. And to solve it you need to create your own solutions first. In an ideal world everyone would work together to make the best "Rift" that works on all devices, but that is not how capitalism works. This does not mean that we will not see this in the future. Some companies will win the VR battle, and they will probably be the ones to provide the best HMD for multiple devices. Hopefully we will go to a world where we have a HMD standard, but that is just not how new technologies evolve.
2. The Rift is lightweight, and people who have tried the Rift don't even notice the HMD on their head after a couple of minutes.
3. The technology isn't there yet (or too new/not mature) to do it with as low latency as with a cable, but like you said it will be eventually.
4. Agreed. Although they have a grasping button I'm not sure if it will mimick grasping convincingly enough. Playtesting with the actual device will tell us more I think.
5. I think we will see a lot of games that are not FPS oriented to be honest. I didn't see any FPS announcements (except for the dogfighting in space game but that's not really FPS to me). I'm personally not too worried about this.
@evo-9, All of your observations and concerns suggest a really superficial understanding of VR in general and Oculus in particular.
Do a Google search for recent lectures by John Carmack. If you have any serious interest in the field, you won't find a more rigorous or illuminating introduction.
1. Oculus is a display, therefore it should work with almost anything (aka modern devices that put out HDMI, etc). A 4k monitor doesn't require me to buy a whole new computer to use it. I don't understand why Oculus (or any other VR display) needs to be proprietary to the point that I may end up owing one device (Oculus) for PC and another (Morpheus) for PS4 gaming. This makes as much sense as companies launching nearly identical video formats (BluRay vs HD-DVD most recently). And again, this is a display not unlike a 4K display and should work similarly universally, I would think/hope.
2. It seem too big to me to be truly immersive. To lose oneself you have to not notice you are wearing this, which at its current size seems unlikely.
3. It needs to be wireless, any cables will detract from the immersive experience. I'm sure they are working on this.
4. The controllers they created look pretty interesting but I don't see how they will be conducive to touching, picking up, grasping items which would seem to be a more important thing than re-inventing FPS controllers if VR is truly going to take off this time.
5. I worry that too much focus is being placed on adapting FPS to this (and other) VR tech. While it would seem a 'natural', and probably will prove to be the easiest style of game to adapt, it's also lazy. It will be far more challenging (and I think rewarding) to adapt VR for other purposes such as viewing live events (concerts, sports etc), driving games/sims, sports games/sims and action adventure games such as Witcher and Dark Souls, just to name a few off my head. Maybe the new controllers will work great with those types of games/activities but my gut is these are really optimized for FPS, which is a shame.
It's exciting times for VR but I sure hope it doesn't get overtaken by FPS games because there are so many more potentially awesome applications out there to also focus on.