VR has been around since the 60's, and has not "unlocked" anything noteworthy.
Sure, this "round" of VR might be the best yet graphically, but it still hasn't solved any of the problems that prevented the original 1960's implementations from taking over in storm.
These being: No "AAA" support, too few games, too expensive of devices, motion sickness, and more!
It's almost like folks think this is the first time VR has come to market... "imagine all the possibilities!" - the same promises time after time after time again. What makes this iteration anything different?
Maybe some folks have high hopes due to the Facebook stewardship - I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble, but Facebook has been anything but a good steward of Oculus.
They have not used their size or bank accounts to convince "AAA" studios to embrace VR, nor have they subsidized Oculus purchases to lower cost-of-entry for consumers. About the only thing they have done is go against all of their initial promises to not "Facebook-ify" VR[1] and turn the thing into yet another extension of the Facebook Social machine.
> The platform has tons of potential in fields such as art [1], manufacturing [2], education [3][4], health care [5] and the list goes on
VR will ultimately do nothing for these fields. AR advances will ultimately be what these industries end up embracing. You lose far too much environmental awareness when both eyes are staring at a narrow-focus screen without peripheral visibility, etc. AR allows the user to work and behave like normal, only their vision is augmented with additional useful information. It's less intrusive and disruptive, and has very few of the issues that plague VR.
AR is already widely deployed and in mass use. Any HUD is a form of AR (this covers everything from airplanes to cars to robots to google glass, camera viewfinders, etc...).
> it still hasn't solved any of the problems that prevented the original 1960's implementations from taking over in storm.
So much progress has been made with VR since then. A lot of problems have been solved.
Motion sickeness has been solved - when your motion 1:1 matches that of your virtual body there is no problem. Where there is a mismatch, there can be a problem (for about 30% of the population who are sensitive to this). So informed developers know how to create experiences that induce no sickness.
Regarding no AAA support / too few games - they are working on it. There will be over 50 games usable for the Vive at launch. There are some pretty big name games, like Elite Dangerous. Google, Valve and other big names are working on/have made stuff.
>What makes this iteration anything different?
Because it's actually at a point where it's usable now. Mobile phone popularity was one of the things that made this wave of VR possible as it drove forward the technology used.
>VR will ultimately do nothing for these fields.
There are VR applications that are currently for those fields mentioned, for example Tilt brush is generally received very well by artists and creative people.
I believe VR and AR will converge somewhat. VR has a headstart, and AR will adopt many of the technology, tools and techniques that VR uses. The Vive has a camera and can do limited AR, as can most mobile VR headsests.
I agree, that for a lot of applications - especially work-related then AR is better.
But when I game, I don't care about peripheral vision, I want to be in another world. Ultimately I want a headset that can switch between AR and VR modes.
>AR is already widely deployed and in mass use. Any HUD is a form of AR (this covers everything from airplanes to cars to robots to google glass, camera viewfinders, etc...).
I would nitpick this.
Regardless, I don't see anywhere near the level of give a shit for AR that there is for VR from the press and investors.
I agree too. "3D" had another push a half-decade ago in theaters and on TVs, and by this point it's reasonable to call it a failure. VR is much in the same vein: it's inconvenient enough to our lives that we're more likely to justify getting away from it than going to it. The Visicalc moment should either have happened by now or be right on the horizon. It hasn't. The demos are still basically reliant on the same kind of "spectacle" elements that 3D movies use, and the track record there is bad for franchise media - that is stuff that sells tourist tickets for theme park installations, but not repeat visits from loyal fans.
But AR, AR stands a chance. It is not hugely different to our existing uses of media technology - one more screen, in a different location, supplementing the existing experience. And it has good cross-over into VR for the remaining experiences that do work well in immersion mode. That might buy VR time to develop gradually for a few decades, like silent film. There are some things that are worth exploring with VR, but the tech really needs to be in mass adoption first.
VR has been around since the 60's, and has not "unlocked" anything noteworthy.
Sure, this "round" of VR might be the best yet graphically, but it still hasn't solved any of the problems that prevented the original 1960's implementations from taking over in storm.
These being: No "AAA" support, too few games, too expensive of devices, motion sickness, and more!
It's almost like folks think this is the first time VR has come to market... "imagine all the possibilities!" - the same promises time after time after time again. What makes this iteration anything different?
Maybe some folks have high hopes due to the Facebook stewardship - I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble, but Facebook has been anything but a good steward of Oculus.
They have not used their size or bank accounts to convince "AAA" studios to embrace VR, nor have they subsidized Oculus purchases to lower cost-of-entry for consumers. About the only thing they have done is go against all of their initial promises to not "Facebook-ify" VR[1] and turn the thing into yet another extension of the Facebook Social machine.
> The platform has tons of potential in fields such as art [1], manufacturing [2], education [3][4], health care [5] and the list goes on
VR will ultimately do nothing for these fields. AR advances will ultimately be what these industries end up embracing. You lose far too much environmental awareness when both eyes are staring at a narrow-focus screen without peripheral visibility, etc. AR allows the user to work and behave like normal, only their vision is augmented with additional useful information. It's less intrusive and disruptive, and has very few of the issues that plague VR.
AR is already widely deployed and in mass use. Any HUD is a form of AR (this covers everything from airplanes to cars to robots to google glass, camera viewfinders, etc...).
[1] http://www.wired.com/2016/02/mark-zuckerberg-plays-zero-grav...