$600 for the The Oculus Rift?

[Olas]

I'm glad the first major VR product is fairly high-end. VR needs to prove itself as something truly exciting and desirable to people, and that means it needs to be good and work well. If they just pumped out a cheaper but crappier version that didn't work quite right people are more likely to lose interest in the tech.

And just how would VR do that if the userbase is small?

Well, I already answered this for albino poo, but basically I'd expect it to do well for those who favor low risk over large potential, at least in the short term. The potential player base is small, but with little competition any games made for VR have a much better chance of selling well to the base that exists.

And it's not just going to cost $600 to get the OR for the average user, it's going to cost them upwards of over $2000 to get the thing and a system capable enough to run it. For tech that hasn't been proven to have any legs, that's beyond way too much for nearly anyone.

Most of the people willing to drop $600 for a VR headset already have a high-performance PC to use it. If someone is really planning to buy a $2000 PC just to use VR, a price increase from $300 - $400 to $600 probably isn't going to deter them.

OR is only going to be bought by a niche audience only. For devs, that small audience isn't going to be close to big enough to make content that makes the most out of OR's hardware.

For triple A devs you mean. Not all devs are seeking an install base in the millions.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

The number of AAA games on that list is one and that has partial support.

I'll concede to that point, I didn't look it over as well as I should have. I'd mostly assumed there had been more after seeing how well Dying Light implemented most of it in their game (which is where my example comes from, where my friend had actually been able to turn around and look behind him seemlessly while his character was still running normally).

The point I should have made there however is that major engines such as Unreal 4 and Unity already have almost full VR support for developers. And having tinkered around with the Unreal 4 devkit, I can see that as being pretty easy for most developers to utilize. Also, there's a couple of links further down showing VR fully functional in Elite Dangerous (which is already out) and EVE Online: Valkyrie (in development).

There is a huge stepping stone that needs to be addressed and that is VR making you feel as if you are part of the world.

Just being able to see and hear the virtual world isn't enough. You need to be able to feel the ground beneath your feet, the texture of the object in your hand, the wind blowing through your hair.

Limiting the user to just two of their senses is not enough. Otherwise they are just going to feel like a ghost moving through the world, there but not truly a part of it.

There are some pretty feasible ways to simulate at least some degree of touch (at least with VR/Motion Controllers for your hands) by using haptic feedback on physics collisions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD3hhIYr1f4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cH-AlBJi9Q

Still a little limited I'll grant you, but it's not quite as crude as "rumble" action.

I wasn't aware that separating player POV from character movement has been a problem for anyone since the implementation of the player-controlled camera.

Not a problem persay so much as a limitation. It's not something that's usually noticeable in most games, and I hadn't even realized it until that Dying Light example I keep mentioning. After thinking about it a bit, I realized it was a limitation that I'd actually seen before. Games like Dark Messiah, Jedi Outcast/Academy, and Mount and Blade allow players to control the swing direction and orientation. This made for some extremely satisfying melee combat, but the design was hindered by the movement based approach to control those swings (strafing + movement direction, or mouse movement). Largely the only other alternative often available are combo systems, which really... is just a poor way to simulate melee combat. Here's a couple of examples where VR is being utilized as well (Couldn't find a fitting melee example, but this does show how much more situational awareness VR offers than a screen)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tuoblo95j4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iM31NDkbM8

...and then there's the bit where you talk about motion controls somehow making something *less* clunky, which runs contrary to literally every single experience anybody has ever had with every implementation of motion controls ever.

I'll have to ask my friend for more details tomorrow (I really should keep notes when he's explaining the tech details). Gyroscopes aren't exactly my strong-suit

I'm just not seeing what problems VR solves that actually needed solving. Does it really improve immersion? Sure, especially at first, but that will likely break down over time as people get used to the tech and it loses its Wow-factor, especially since, as another user noted, VR is capable of providing feedback to at most two senses. I'm just not convinced that whatever increase in immersion it can provide is going to be enough to make people want to strap on a big 'ol pair of goggles tethered to a computer by a few feet of wire. It's inconvenient. It's expensive. And worst of all (for a lot of people) it looks incredibly silly. Something more in the vein of the hololens, I think, which doesn't require you to completely isolate yourself from the outside world, might have a better chance of success.

That's what I thought for a while too. I thought it was just a more immersive experience and that was that. I had to look beyond that a bit to see how much of an impact it has on your options, both as a developer and as a gamer, for a more interactive environment (and thus, changing A LOT about how gameplay is designed, and how games are enjoyed).

I'll leave you with this final example:

https://youtu.be/OFR7HsTTshI?t=1m1s

 

[votemarvel]

There is a huge stepping stone that needs to be addressed and that is VR making you feel as if you are part of the world.

Just being able to see and hear the virtual world isn't enough. You need to be able to feel the ground beneath your feet, the texture of the object in your hand, the wind blowing through your hair.

Limiting the user to just two of their senses is not enough. Otherwise they are just going to feel like a ghost moving through the world, there but not truly a part of it.

There are some pretty feasible ways to simulate at least some degree of touch (at least with VR/Motion Controllers for your hands) by using haptic feedback on physics collisions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD3hhIYr1f4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cH-AlBJi9Q

Still a little limited I'll grant you, but it's not quite as crude as "rumble" action.

I think that kind of stuff is one of the most important factors. Yes they can make you feel as if you are holding something but a tin can should not feel the same as a lump of firewood.

I've no doubt that they will be able to pull that sort of thing off, but then they encounter another problem which acts as a barrier to VR going mainstream. Will a person want to 'suit up' in order to play a game?

Can the items be taken off quickly? What if the person needs to make a dash to the toilet in a hurry for example.

I think VR is taking amazing steps forward but I feel it has a long way to go yet.