| IMO Cardboard / GearVR is so different from the Vive / Rift+Touch right now that it is more useful to look at them entirely separately even though they are both technically "VR". Cardboard and GearVR are relatively convenient and inexpensive but do not seem to be a very compelling product, since it is inconvenient compared to a monitor and frequently causes motion sickness, while offering few advantages. I have both and barely use them. Vive and Rift+Touch are incredibly expensive and inconvenient (cumbersome set up, tethered, not portable). But a lot of the content basically never causes motion sickness (even for sensitive people). I think there is at least the beginning of a compelling product since I've had a chance to let a variety of non-technical people use it. Even if they're reluctant to try it at first, there is usually one of the programs they enjoy and keep using for quite a while. I don't want to oversell the Vive - there are a lot of problems starting with the low resolution. But the problems with the high end systems will inevitably improve over the next few years - there will be more content, the resolution will improve, the cost will decrease, it will be more mobile etc. Also, I'd expect the Vive to be a relatively low capability device in the future - there's a lot of tech being shown off these days with eye / facial expression / body tracking that hasn't been integrated into a mass market product yet. It will be interesting to see what applications benefit from those. The current low-capability systems seem like a dead end though, they've been available for a while and don't seem to have taken the world by storm, and once more capable mobile systems come out that will be the end of that UI paradigm. Simple things like reaching out and picking something up or moving it aren't possible, for interactive content the differences are really fundamental. As far as the comfort issue goes, the weight distribution can be improved a lot without waiting for next-gen display technologies. PlayStation is the best this generation with a rigid band the headset hangs down from, and LGs upcoming one can flip up without taking it off all the way. Certainly putting all the weight on the face is a bad idea though and harder to avoid for phone-based systems. |