[vesche]

Curious if Meta will ever recoup its investment into VR/AR? A quick Google search indicates Meta has invested north of $100 billion into this tech. The public just doesn't seem that interested in VR/AR. A very small percentage of my family and friends even own a VR headset. Most people are busy and don't have time to strap on a headset when they get home. If gaming / "the metaverse" is the cornerstone of VR, why are almost all gamers playing on a PC or console? And on the AR front, has anyone actually seen anyone out-and-about wearing those Meta AR glasses? Anyone remember Google glass? What happened to Magic Leap?

It's unsual, if you would have asked me 15 years ago- I would have told you _absolutely_ VR/AR would be huge. It just hasn't been the case. People don't want to wear headsets and there's nothing that the AR glasses can do that my phone can't. The whole thing has become a money blackhole.

[rhubarbtree]

I got caught up in the hype a bit. I went to meet-ups, tried the tech and was blown away by VR.

Here’s the thing, though. To experience VR properly, you need to be able to walk arbitrarily through space. And houses are small. It sounds stupid and people have proposed solutions like rolling floors, but it’s actually not stupid. Sometimes a technology has a fundamental flaw (hello, there, hallucinating LLMs) which really does mean most of the value is unrealisable.

VR needs neural interfaces. Until then it’s going to be a minor sport.

The short term solution to this is AR. You can walk arbitrary distance subject to physical constraints you can navigate. This will drive the industry forward until neural interfaces are ready. Apple are right with Vision Pro, it’s absolutely amazing for a first product, but like the Newton they are just miles ahead of the curve, too far ahead.

* fortunately for AI companies, hallucinations simply require conceptual developments to fix - they’re not a hard constraint. They just need to stop overfocusing on scale.

[AppleBananaPie]

For me it's been pixel density. The second I can replace my monitor with it and be able to read small text without my eyes hurting I'll buy the nicest one they make.

Unfortunately I've been waiting for 10 years now and it still hasn't happened :(

[rkomorn]

Same.

Trying to play some 3D piloting games (Flight Sim, Elite Dangerous, etc) that had cockpits with text to read on displays also proved disappointing. Had to lean really close to be able to read it.

"Someday", it'll happen, though. Hopefully.

[svoit]

Have you tried the Apple Vision Pro? It seems to have high pixel density. I’m not sure what counts as small text in that sense.

[rhubarbtree]

Vision Pro is good, but more importantly this seems like a relatively easy problem to solve. It'll arrive.

[iamleppert]

There are more issues than just the lack of physical movement while you experience visual movement being uncomfortable and disorientating.

Most people who play video games do so as a leisure activity. It works because it allows you to be put into a world that requires little physical exertion - just eye/hand coordination. You don't need to to use your legs to jump in a video game. You don't even need to have legs.

In the vision of VR you're selling, it requires getting up and doing a lot of physical movement. The bulk of most gamers just want to play their game after work or school and relax. Most of my friends feel the same way about VR as they did when I was young and wanted them to play with the NES power pad when I was younger.

There are better, more entertaining options available on the 2D screen that don't require much physical movement. In fact, I'd say that anything other than eye/hand movement distracts from game play. "Jumping" in the video game isn't fun because you actually have to jump, it's fun because you don't. And that's a feature that appeals to people who will never be appealed to VR.

[zigman1]

> Here’s the thing, though. To experience VR properly, you need to be able to walk arbitrarily through space

This is why racing games are such a good use case for the VR. Seems to me it is the only place where VR is used regularly

[rhubarbtree]

This is a good point, provided you can be sure you're not going to hit anything with your arms.

[idiotsecant]

And spaceship games. Anything with a chair, really

[nervousvarun]

Similarly, what about flight simulators?

[givemeethekeys]

With flight simulators, improvements in haptics to the point where you can wear gloves to feel all the flight controls in VR will be incredible (one day?).

[armchairhacker]

Houses are small, but there's a lot of fairly empty space in the world. Why not more outside VR spaces?

[vrighter]

if by "conceptual developments" you don't mean "a total paradigm shift to some non-probabilistic architecture that hasn't been discovered yet", then yes, they are a hard constraint of current LLM architectures

[cbolton]

> VR needs neural interfaces

How would that solve the walking problem?

[frumplestlatz]

Presumably by leveraging something like REM atonia to disconnect your mind from your motor neurons.

[cbolton]

And providing fake proprioceptive, vestibular and tactile feedback? That would be quite some tech.

[chronic74939]

> And providing fake proprioceptive, vestibular and tactile feedback? That would be quite some tech.

Yes, he’s saying metaverse will take off once humans achieve transcendence.

Only then will Meta recoup their AR/VR investment.

[idiotsecant]

I feel like once the interface is there at sufficient quality the rest will follow

[mrtksn]

It's just that AR/VR is not interactive. Sure they try to simulate interactivity through buttons or hands tracking but its lame and fake.

Even when have indistinguishable from reality visuals the illusion falls apart the moment you try to touch it. The fidelity through buttons is rudimentary and through hand tracking is non existent. The suspension of disbelief isn't there, humans fingers are incredibly sensitive and dexterous and we are trained whole life all the time to know how things feel. AI/AR isn't going to have any success without solving that.

[icelancer]

The VOID VR was the greatest fusion of VR + reality. CAD-mapped laser tag warehouses while wearing a VR headset and backpack computer. Near-perfect immersion. COVID sadly killed it. Was a beautiful thing - so happy I got to try it out. Even ended up buying a lot of the defunct equipment off eBay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oad_t6k3w5c

[fcatalan]

That tracks with how great it feels when you match the positions of the virtual and real wheels when simracing. Peeking under the lenses you see your own arms seamlessly continue into the virtual ones and feels like you are grabbing the virtual wheel.

[jl6]

Maybe VR goggles need to be paired with VR gloves?

[mrtksn]

Maybe? AFAIK there are many people trying to solve this and gloves is one of them.

I think it can work, think driving and flying simulators where you have realistic input for the machine like a driving wheel with feedback - thise can be quite convincing.

[doctorhandshake]

I still strongly believe that all day to day computing happening via AR is nigh inevitable. We have become so accustomed to computing happening via small rectangles, fixed in place, happening with computers that have no clue about the real world we occupy, or of what’s happening now, that the idea of computing sharing our world with us seems six leaps removed and itself unmoored in reality. I think someday within our lifetimes we’ll look back at the way we compute today as a primeval relic and wonder how we ever thought of it as computing at all.

[figassis]

I bought a PS4 VR maybe 2-3 years ago, when it arrived I was excited to try it on, and realized I needed to also buy the camera. I did not think it was worth another 5 minutes on amazon to buy the camera, so the thing just sits there collecting dust. No interest at all. Then there is the price. I pass by a store, and Oculus and friends are $300+. I have bought other things that cost more, like iPhones. Still not willing to buy a VR headset for that, especially when I do not know what I will be getting. I am sure I will be disappointed by the limited ecosystem.

[bambax]

I did buy a Meta Quest 3 and was impressed by its overall quality. I even tried a couple of games, and watched maybe half a movie, and some 3D videos of remote places.

But I never use it. I don't really see the point. It's heavy on the head for no real benefit.

I'm kind of happy I have it though. I open it every six months to see if there's anything new. I'm going to try this Hyperscape just in case...

[Gigacore]

It takes an evolution for humans to adopt VR. We are not hardwired to wear an headset or glasses at all times. VR does have some nice use cases, mostly in industrial/enterprise setup, but not in day-to-day life.

[mike_prixe]

I agree. I can see VR being use for educational purposes for med school surgeons.

[anakaine]

You nailed it. Im a tech nerd by day, rather occasional casual gamer, and besides that - I dont want to interact with more technology than needs be. The thought of having additional nonsense overlaid on my view is actually nauseating.

It could make sense selectively during construction, mining, etc, but even then its a sometimes thing and it needs to be completely unobtrusive. Meta dont seem to be aiming towards or catering to this.

[rhetocj23]

Yeah thats the thing. I believe there is a mismatch between the firm and the tech being pursued. As a result, Meta will make some strange decisions that otherwise couldve been done differently to yield a viable product.

[Antibabelic]

I've never been able to see the appeal of VR and AR. Can you or someone else explain what made you think it would be "huge"?

[krapp]

I think a lot of people are too wrapped up in nostalgia for science fiction to realize VR and AR aren't as objectively superior to the paradigm of screen and input as they assume, and that these technologies will only ever be niche. And that's fine. I have an Oculus Go collecting dust and an Oculus Quest I only use one app for and I doubt I'd ever be willing to get a third headset. The gimmick of being able to turn my head in a virtual space just isn't worth it.

VR probably hit its peak with VR Chat, and AR probably hit it with Pokemon Go. Just as we're never getting the Jetson's future with Rosie the Robot, but we do get roombas, we're never getting the cyberpunk future where everything happens in VR, but we do get furries hanging out in digital Taco Bells.

[rsynnott]

> we're never getting the cyberpunk future where everything happens in VR, but we do get furries hanging out in digital Taco Bells

The interesting thing is that we kind of already knew this; 20 years ago, Second Life had a very similar "hype cycle->some niche groups kinda like this" story. I'm unsure why people thought that "like second life, but you have to strap this thing to your face" would necessarily be _more_ appealing.

[krapp]

> I'm unsure why people thought that "like second life, but you have to strap this thing to your face" would necessarily be _more_ appealing.

It is more appealing, just not "world changing paradigm shift that renders all other interfaces obsolete" appealing.

[rkomorn]

I don't see too much appeal to AR, but VR has a very fun/enjoyable immersive aspect to it.

One of the things I very much hoped for was to be able to "hang out" with friends who have grown geographically distant in a space that felt more our own.

But I don't think that makes it truly "huge" in a mass market way unless it's at a very affordable price point.

There are some pretty cool AR demos out there too, but for me they're not worth wearing the headsets I've seen.

[k__]

Could replace/enhance all things that are just audio or visual.

[paulmooreparks]

The only killer app for me, when it comes to VR headsets, would be flight sim, and I have been too busy for the last year to even sim on my 4k monitor, so I haven't taken the headset plunge yet. Still, that's the only thing I can think of that would make sense for me. Maybe there are others.

[AngryData]

It is a good use for VR, but I also imagine most serious flight sim users already use TrackIR which seriously hampers their adoption to VR. Im not sure if I was offered one or the other for free if I would even choose a VR headset despite being a much higher monetary value because TrackIR already works so good, doesn't restrict vision from my actual controls, and doesn't isolate me from other things that might be going on around me.

[martindbp]

VR is in the trough of disillusionment phase right now, but I can almost guarantee you we'll see a slow but steady climb from here. The big question is if Meta will continue to invest into the space or if other smaller players will fill its place.

[frumplestlatz]

For 35 years, I’ve been hearing similar pronouncements about the inevitability of VR being just around the corner.

What’s different this time?

[martindbp]

What's different is that Meta has sold 20+ million headsets, and there is a decent sized user base, albeit much smaller than people expected 5 years ago. This is not a dead technology just because you don't use it. In 2023 Meta Quest had roughly 6.3 million monthly active users.

According to this, 1.63% of Steam MAU have a VR headset which translates to roughly 2 million MAU: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

So, in some sense not a lot, but it has a decent foothold of people using it often. It's clearly different from VR in the past where there were literally a handful or maybe on the order of hundreds of headsets in the world. VR now also has a ton of different niches and use cases beyond games. I also think a comparison with gaming console hardware is more apt than comparing it to something like PC or smartphone sales.

[rsynnott]

There are kind of two ways to look at VR. One is "no-one wants this because it is a bad idea". The other is "this is a good idea, but no-one wants it because the tech is grossly inadequate". _If_ option two is correct, then maybe eventually it sees adoption, as the hardware finally gets good enough. Personally I suspect that option one is correct, but I've been wrong about this sort of thing before and I wouldn't be _totally_ shocked if number two comes to pass.

(There's also number three: "this is magic and will change everything, and you'll do all your socialising and work via VR", but this is just bubble-pumping nonsense and I doubt anyone _actually_ believes it. And option four, which is like option two except that "good enough" is essentially technically impossible.)