Don't got me wrong, conceptually I'm exited about VR

However, that SONY press conference got me a strong deja-vu back to the days everything was motion controls

It's like a cool new hardware no one really knows how to actually make a game for. it's all just gimmicky demos sold as games.

:/

Yes and No, i would say it's more of an evolution of where motion controls were taking us. It's all a steady step toward the holodeck

I think it's exactly like that. Lots of initial enthusiasm from the press which then dies off. No actual games. Big players desperately afraid of missing out pour huge amounts of money in but the tech fails for basic reasons anyone could have seen coming.

I think so. The fact that no one has truly figured out how to do something as basic as movement without locking you in a tiny room or having you teleport everywhere says a lot about the state of VR gaming. I don't see how you make a decent VR game that isn't horribly limited by the fact that essentially you are the controller (now where have I heard that before?).

In before "Just wait five years they'll figure this all out."

Yeah probably.

That turn out that well for motion controls ... ; )

Was the television the new radio? Well, yeah, yet in retrospect we all know it was more too. I think we all know that being in the middle of a scene in a movie, on the stage of a play, in the middle of an atom in a science class will be useful and entertaining. I think the future of VR is BEYOND promising because VR is a tool we will use for many things. I think in ten years we will talk about how the age of a 2D flat screen is closing and the age of immersive binocular viewing is starting. Our kids will know that some things are viewed on 2D screen and some things (oblivious) are view in 3D VR. Just as our great grand parents knew radio and tv shared that same Venn Diagram, but that TV was going to go somewhere.

....This was a TV when radio was king. So look at that and KNOW PS VR is only at that very stage. These $800 headsets and $1,500 computesr are our first baby steps

Where people who judged TV in 1945 wrong? No, they just were having to deal with the concept of what a 70 lb box with a 4 inch screen was good for in 1945. That is where we are with VR, it is not for everyone now. A 1.5 lbs device strapped to your head cabled to a $1,500 computer is not the end of VR...it is the start.

Personally until the tech is there i think just using a controller for movement seems like the best thing, and use the headset as a more advanced track IR. In order to get true one to one movement they will need those big lawnmower man contraptions which is maybe not so consumer friendly lol. At some point they'll probably be able to map the electric pulses in the brain to control virtual characters, as well as artificial limbs and stuff. Hopefully we will all be alive to see that stuff happen.

@monkeyking1969:

I appreciate your optimism,

Said so, I don't think the parallelism necesarily aplies , there are also examples of new technologies that failed to realise its promises

Even if VR actually fulfilth its promise, it has a uphill battle for social acceptance

Having used a VR headset, I think it is going to be around for a while. Once the price comes down and devs figure out movement, I think it's going to be an integral part of how we experience first person games. Ironically, the sense of immersion that you get from something like the Vive is due in no small part to it's use of highly accurate motion controls.

VR is in fact a dumb gimmick at present, doesn't mean you couldn't do something incredible with it in the future but it's unlikely to happen in the short term.

@gatobolo: The way that VR developers and hardware makers are talking about it is in the sense that VR is a new way to play and experience both games that you've played before and opens up new avenues of game ideas. The Wii and Kinect stuff lacked any real substance aside from the Wii sports stuff. While VR has the tangible ability to give you presence in games. VR is a thing that games will more or less support. You already have games patching in VR support and people using it like they would use a flight stick or a racing wheel, it's just another peripheral that the player can take advantage to get some added enjoyment. An example of this would be the VR stuff from Project Cars, you could play that game just fine with a gamepad but the VR support is for those that want it and you can still have a perfectly good time without it. While other games have made VR the focal point of what the game is about and not having VR would diminish the experience. Job Simulator and Eve Valkyrie are examples of some games that fit into that mold. VR has the ability to have a middle ground of support, you don't need to go whole hog on VR to get the most out of it.

Motion games like the Wii and Kinect sort of fell out of favor because they couldn't offer very much dexterity and developers were technically limited in the games they could make, which is why you saw so much shovel ware or games that were fun but only had you doing a limited number of things. Making those few fun experiences very short lived before you got bored. There was also the issue where you couldn't just insert motion controls into traditional games because it wouldn't translate very well, so developers had to make narrow games that were built around the peripheral you were waggling around. Even things like driving games and shooters, two genres that are generally popular, motion controls failed, because they lacked dexterity, precision, and accuracy.

VR is different in that you can still play the games you want to play but now you have that added option of presence. the various hands-on technologies like, Oculus Touch, HTC VIVE, and Playstaion Move (this was a competitor to the wii motion gaming stuff, but Sony reworked it for PSVR, to good effect it seems), also add another level of depth to games if you want it. If you saw the VIVE and PSVR stuff on the site recently then you can see that with VR and the added dexterity and precision of the new handheld devices there is an option to offer more immersive experiences that don't feel tacked on and feel vital to the game. It's just up to developers to support it in ways that make sense for the game they're making.

Having used my Vive every day since I got it in April, I can say it is not a gimmick in any way. It's amazing. The real hurdle is getting it strapped to enough faces for that to reach a wide audience. Prices will drop, HMDs will become lighter. I just hope that happens soon enough for mass adoption.

I understand the skepticism, I just think most of it comes from inexperience with VR.

I think VR is falling short of it's full potential because we haven't reached a technological level that is able to reach it yet. They realized the basic VR tech worked and rushed to get goggles and release it to market, which is ok... but it's a small fragment of the VR puzzle.

The method of interaction is still too rudimentary, I think something like VR gloves where you have full finger and arm movement in the world would be closer to optimal.

The movement issue is a big one, and people can say the "teleport" is a good enough solution, but to me it's not. Bringing back analog sticks also is not good, because when you feel the disconnect between your character movement and your own, you tend to rely way more on just the analog sticks and at that point you're not really making good use of the immersion, it's just camera controls.

And frankly, we need a significant jump in computing capacity and AI routines because for VR we need a level of interaction with the world on an unprecedented scale, we need more elaborate AI behavior, most (if not all) objects should be moveable and have it's own physics values (I'd like beds and curtains to feel like beds and curtains, for example), which goes way beyond what is necessary for a conventional game, but would bring a VR space to the next level.

Having tried the rift, I can say it is game-changing. But yes it needs experiences that are more than just demos. Being the first year of VR, I'd say it's too soon to make any hard predictions of whether or not VR will take off. I'm optimistic though. I think PSVR has the best chance of bringing the mass-audience to VR, as the install base is already there and Sony knows what they're doing with regards to compelling software.

The thing with VR is that it just isn't limited to games. Will Smith's the Foo show while being about gaming in the first episode really shows a different way forward to provide content. Also the ability of VR to transport you to different places and put you essentially in the location could be very cool as well. I like my Vive but don't use it every day and do agree that software is lacking at this time but I am happy to own the headset and enjoy the time I spend in it. Currently most of my time is spent in a Vive enabled version of Minecraft and I didn't really play that game all that much over the years I've had it but the VR version is quite a trip to play.

I haven't experienced modern VR so I'm trying to keep an open mind. However all the talk of 'potential', of "we're this far now, imagine what it will be like in 5 years!" always makes me skeptical. Motion control is the perfect analogy, with the Kinect it was "sure these things are limited now, but just wait until the devs figure it out, it's going to be amazing." Then it was "this new Kinect is 595% more powerful, it's going to be amazing!".

The biggest warning sign for me right now is comparing how the Giant Bomb crew was talking about VR last E3 versus how they are talking about it now.

I think it might be, having used the headsets a few times now.

the first thoughts I had were

1. this is very very cool
2. I don't know if I want to do this for an hour straight, regardless of what the experience is. Especially with the vive which has games that require you to physically move/duck etc.

It was the second factor I felt that killed motion controls for me.

Judging by the streams they've done of the games that are out right now: It's exactly like that.

I agree with that. If this technology can secure further investment to be continuously improved, its impact won't be felt most heavily in gaming or even entertainment/ art. Other venues seem even more useful. I'll continue to follow VR with a keen eye.

@baal_sagoth: Eh, I think people are really underplaying the impact VR could have on traditional viewing methods of entertainment. With games, the issue is always going to be software. But what about movies or shows? Right now, we just have the very limited experience stuff, but I can easily imagine a world in which they build some type of film or show with 360 cameras recording everything, edit that stuff, and then let the user just hop into the world and view the experience from a wide variety of shots. It makes sense considering the teleport around stuff as well. VR has way more potential than motion control, which is why ultimately I think it isn't just going to be some gimmick simply associated with gaming.

@devise22: I think we might actually agree?

I tried to express that VR could easily be a technology bigger than gaming and entertainment. Right now I think it is a gimmicky gaming device. I agree that passive media might be easier to tackle than games at the beginning (who doesn't want VR porn, right .... right?).

What I'm really thinking of when I speak of "other venues" are more 'serious' applications in education, medicine etc.

I don't want to underplay VR as a viewing method but I think its potential as an interface for all kinds of things is even stronger.

Kind of, but VR is way better at porn.

I think motion control was an important step in the tech going into VR controllers so I guess they're one and the same.

Yes, it's too early for VR to catch on, assuming it can catch on. If it sticks around for more than this generation of console hardware, i'll be impressed.

No because VR doesn't suck

No, a better example is "It's the new CD Rom." So right now it's the price of the Sega CD and everyone is trying to convince you Marky Mark Make My Music Video is the future when we are waiting for PS1 Resident Evil 1 and FF7 Which is what really pushed the format forward.

I've already used my Vr headset (Rift) way more than any motion control only platform I've owned in the past. The sheer fact that I can transport myself to somewhere else for a while and just hang out, relax, maybe watch a movie or tv show, play a game, interact with other people in a unique way, meditate, etc... Vr just launched in the grand scheme of things. I will straight up admit it's not a financially viable product right now. This is out of the gate, early adopter shit. And I knew that when I purchased a Rift. But just at this point in the overall life of Vr as a platform, I've already had way more entertainment and satisfaction with it than I ever did with other peripherals people seem to associate this with.

One other thing I'll say is I think it's a mistake for us to view Vr in a strictly gaming lens. Vr has the potential to be so much more than a video game platform. And although that's not a bad thing to be, to limit virtual reality to just that is incredibly reductive and shortsighted.