| I still haven't drunk the VR kool-aid. I want to believe. I've used all the software. Played many games. The problems for me are 2 fold 1. I don't have the space. I don't personally know anyone that does. Maybe if you live in the mid-west or the suburbs but there are plenty of cities where people are unlikely to have a space for room scale VR and arguably the non-room scale VR is just not that compelling. Visiting a "VR space" is not ever going to be mainstream so that seems like an issue for mass VR adoption. 2. When I play a good non-VR game I play for hours and days at a time. As an example last month I played Zelda:Breath of the Wild for 70+ hours, 10-14 hours a day. I've yet to play anything in VR that I could stay in for 10-14 hours. In fact many VR games get extremely tiring very quickly. I've played a few where after 10 minutes I'm exhausted. That's doesn't seem likely to become a main form of entertainment. I've also played at a few VR arcades. Again the games have been fun and immersive but the also felt like thrill rides. In other words, 5-10 minutes and I'm done. Neat experience but just like I could not ride a rollercoaster for 10hrs I can't do VR for 10hrs. It's not about the form, it's about the activity. Searching a room, opening draws, pressing various floating buttons, holding virtual weapons. It's tiring not relaxing like non VR games. Those issues don't seem solvable. They aren't tech issues they're inherent to the whole concept. Fixes for the space would require direct brain implants so you don't actually move around, you just think you are. I don't know if there is a solution to the 2nd. It's one thing to push buttons to see Nathan Drake climb mountains. It's another to actually do the climbing. As for the article itself I was a little sad to see VR defined as only > VR… only tracking, rendering, and display. Tracking is the process of recording the user’s location and orientation in 3D space. Rendering is the process of constructing the appropriate image for a user. Display refers to the fidelity with which the hardware can produce the rendered image." Even with the problems mentioned above there seems to still be low-hanging fruit. If you want to be able to talk to people in VR you need to be able to emote. That means you need low-res cameras looking at your eyes and mouth so your avatar can show your expressions. Similarly, 2 hands is not enough. I need censors on my feet and maybe knees, waist, elbows. In many VR experiences I've played things where bumping up against something with my waist or, kicking something away with my feet, using my knee to close a draw etc seem like natural actions that were thwarted by lack of input. |
Same (NYC). Urban centers have been trending for the last 30 years and have become prohibitively expensive as a result. I can't help but wonder if a future (next?) generation of kids will move back out to the burbs in search of McMansions with two-car garages to use as immersive VR environments.