Are VR Headsets the next big thing?

[pcslookout]

What do you think?

 

[zink77]

Nope. Not anytime soon anyway. The reality is you need a killer app to drive it and the problem is it's competing with mobile phones, consoles and PC's that offer a better experience.

I don't see VR becoming popular until there's advances in materials science that can shrink it to the size of sunglasses where the electronics is super small and embedded.

It will largely be a technology for a small minority of early adopters and will be used in industry. The real problem with VR is lag, in the real world processing images have delays. On a computer, mobile phone or console, the lag time is minimal but increases as you want to interact with things.

Virtual objects lets remember are just arrays of values and numbers the computer has to store and process in memory, so more complex objects = more hardware power and more delays.

Everyone forgets the processing power involved in making objects interactive. The promise of VR is basically to interact and modify objects in a virtual environment like our real one but that has serious consequences.

 

[Sgt. York]

I hope not.

 

[Midwayman]

No. Not for the masses anyways. It is really isolating and no matter the fidelity that is a huge problem. Then there is just the problem of the HMD. People don't want to wear a big box on their face. Its part of why 3d TV failed so badly. Having to wear special glasses is a PITA. The biggest chance going forward Is AR. (augmented reality) I think a lot of people would put up with the hassle of wearing something for the day to day usefulness of it.

 

[ImpulsE69]

There are some very good things to be implemented in VR. However, the cost, the 'fake' cheap VR (like PS3, Phones) cheapen the overall take on it into nothing more than a gimmick. Many people don't care about the headset, it is more about the tethering, and what is required for good fidelity. Look at the whole phone thing. People don't care about isolation. It is all about the killer app. If the killer app comes to VR, the masses will accept it. That being said, if it isn't mobile, less people will care about it. They want to be able to still do the 'look at me' every minute of the day.

Thus, most likely it will only ever be niche.

 

[marees]

Who knows

But there is a new one rumoured to launch

This is a PC (but maybe you can think its a console too?)



Speculation heats up as Valve may reveal new gaming gear this week:

1. a redesigned Steam Controller with finger tracking,
2. a high-end VR headset codenamed Deckard, and
3. a console-like device called Valve Fremont.

Mocked-up images of a new Steam Controller appear, as speculation rises around Valve revealing new gaming hardware this week​

A new VR headset? A new gaming console?


The speculation seems to originate from trusted leaker Brad Lynch (SadlyItsBradley), who stoked the fires overnight by sharing an AI-generated mock-up of what he says the new Steam Controller will look like. Notably, the haptic thumbpads have moved towards the bottom of the controller whereas they used to be towards the top. Lynch claims there's full finger-tracking in the grips, and that the controller can detect how far away your hands are from the handles.

It's also Lynch who suggested a reveal date of 12th November, according to a coherent round-up of Valve hardware rumours on Reddit. As you can see from that post, the bulk of the other patent-related rumours revolve around a new VR headset, which is believed to be codenamed Deckard - although it's also sometimes referred to as Steam Frame. That name - Steam Frame - may also refer to a new operating system developed for the device. The information suggests we're about to see another high-end VR headset priced at around the $1200 mark, possibly more.

The console rumours, meanwhile, revolve around something codenamed Valve Fremont, a games-capable box that features custom AMD processors and a Radeon graphics card. Again, the rumours originate from Brad Lynch, who highlighted the device's appearance on cross-platform benchmarking site Geekbench earlier this year.


https://www.eurogamer.net/mocked-up...valve-revealing-new-gaming-hardware-this-week

 

[right_to_know]

No. Not for the masses anyways. It is really isolating and no matter the fidelity that is a huge problem. Then there is just the problem of the HMD. People don't want to wear a big box on their face. Its part of why 3d TV failed so badly. Having to wear special glasses is a PITA. The biggest chance going forward Is AR. (augmented reality) I think a lot of people would put up with the hassle of wearing something for the day to day usefulness of it.

Africans literally carry luggage on their heads but relatively small VR systems are too much trouble?
It reminds of the people who couldn't handle the Wii complaining moving a controller around was too much effort.

A different problem is a lot of VR systems trying to lock them into a walled garden instead of treating it like a monitor you wear on your face.