[padobson]

Are headsets the only path to VR right now? I could see this vastly altering the gaming market, where very few experiences are shared unless a network is involved. But I don't see VR being a paradigm shift on the order of the smartphone unless you can easily share the experience with someone who walks in the room and asks what you're doing. These bulky headsets don't afford that.

[FLGMwt]

I own a developer kit (DK2) Rift and AFAIK all games mirror what the wearer is seeing onto the primary monitor. Which is good for sharing an individual's experience, but doesn't do much for group experiences.

I'm pretty excited for more asymmetrical games and experiences along the lines of http://www.keeptalkinggame.com/ (which is hilariously fun). I don't own a WiiU, but I've heard it has some pretty good asymmetrical examples as well.

[VikingCoder]

The SDKs are starting to support "Direct Mode," which puts the contents only on the HMD, not mirrored onto the primary. That may or may not be optional, and may or may not have a performance hit if you turn it off.

I think something like livestreaming to a Chromecast would be cool.

[saturdaysaint]

Among other things (books spring to mind), the web was quite a paradigm shift well before it constituted an experience you'd quite want to share with anybody (heavily text driven sites that loaded at a snail's pace). Yet unfettered access to an intoxicating amount of information in one's home was a potent/addictive experience. Likewise, if the VR experience of "presence" is successful at giving people exciting/intoxicating new experiences at home, it won't have trouble catching on and making a cultural impact.

Besides,here are a lot of ways to "share" an experience - playing an intense game of VR ping pong with a friend across the country sounds like an addictive shared experience to me. I don't imagine that it's lost on Facebook/Valve/all of the gaming companies that multi-player gaming will be a huge hook for VR's adoption. And many of the VR movies are shorts that are bite sized enough to pass back and forth and bask in an experience with a small group, albeit not simultaneously.

[hacker_9]

There's no reason why the game couldn't also be output to a TV, so the other person could see what was going on. Also smartphones are far more convenient at the moment sure, but as the VR tech gets better, smaller, lighter and cheaper over the years there's no reason why it couldn't become just as big too.