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Re:Google Open-Sources Cardboard by Animats on Thursday November 07, 2019 @05:32PM (#21478017)
But right now VR is still in its infant stages

It's been there for decades. I tried Jaron Lanier's original VR rig in the 1980s. Autodesk's early one around 1990. W Industries somewhere in there. HTC Vibe and Microsoft HoloLens last year. It's fun for a while, but not compelling for long periods.

Except for Beat Saber. That uses VR right. You get to move your body, but you stay locked to the real world reference frame, so it doesn't induce nausea.

Re:Google Open-Sources Cardboard by OnlineGladiator on Thursday November 07, 2019 @06:03PM (#21478236)
Beat Saber is great, and it gives me hope that great VR games are possible. The question is, why aren't there more great games like Beat Saber? I realize there are some other games that people like in VR, but practically speaking VR is a one hit wonder in the gaming ecosystem right now.

Valve promised to release 3 big titles by the end of the year, and it's November with no news yet.

https://www.techradar.com/news/half-life-vr-game-could-land-...

The problem I see is that VR adoption is so low there's little incentive for developers to target for it since the development is so expensive. And this in turn means fewer people are excited to buy VR - it's the chicken and egg problem. Facebook was supposed to solve this by throwing gobs of money at studios, but considering how much money they spent that was an absolute failure.

The reason VR isn't taking off is because most people don't find VR worthwhile. What it would take to make it more worthwhile - better technology, better price, better content. I think the tech is 2-3 years away from being good enough for even early adopters. So far people that use VR are mostly hackers, developers, tinkerers - not many of them are really consumers first. I think the price is 5-6 years away from allowing it to transition to mainstream. But the content? Honestly this was what I most excited about years ago, but now I'm beginning to think VR is just a dead end. Yes, there's some cool stuff - but very little of it isn't a gimmick.