On top of that so far VR only offers a bigger screen and can’t actually produce high fidelity images. My 4K TV has more pixels and produces a clearer picture with more detail and resolution. Only offering bigger doesn’t feel like a good selling point or revolutionary change.
I think unique games like Beatsaber (which I fucking love and play regularly) are an example of a completely new use case unlocked as a possibility because of VR but those are only compelling to a small percentage of people. VRs big problem is it hasn’t found a similar completely new experience that’s not just a new way to do existing things moderately better (often only in a some areas while being worse in others) and is actually compelling to a large audience. Until it does the potential audience is going to remain small.
That's what I'm talking about - this is a clear use case. Another example I can think of would be remote surgery.
You're exactly right though - the big problem is that it hasn't found the killer app yet. Something will probably materialize eventually, but it's not clear yet.
Fwiw, I’m a VR bear overall, but the idea that it’s somehow “not new” feels wild to me, like saying ChatGPT isn’t new because we’ve had chatbots for ages. Like, yea man but the preexisting stuff sucked lmao
VR so far only offers experiences that are moderately better in some ways (bigger screen, more immersive experience) while being objectively worse in others (heavy sweaty headset, lower resolution, nausea/headaches, high cost or be locked into a FB run ecosystem).
It won’t explode the way LLMs and other AI has lately until it solves the negative factors it has. I say this as someone who uses VR regularly and figured most of this out from feedback from my normie friends and family.
The cost of using ChatGPT vs older chatbots was... nothing.
Once there are downsides, people weigh them and you lose chunks of your potential adoption base.
Oculus Pro is objectively better in all possible ways than other VR headsets (but has trade offs vs substitutes, like regular screens).
ChatGPT is objectively better in all possible ways than other chatbots (but has trade offs vs substitutes, like google search).
VR headsets provide “large scale 2D experiences” and “immersive 3D experiences”. The resolutions on all VR headsets means for the first it’s objectively worse in a lot of ways, namely fidelity and detail. I agree the second one is a new experience and use case (I really like VR and have two different headsets I use regularly), but the only actual new thing is the “3D” part. People find plenty of other stuff immersive. Heck books provide that for a lot of people. That 3D part just isn’t enough, you can ask all of my friends and family that have tried my Index, said “wow that’s really cool” and then never buy a headset themselves.
ChatGPT provides a bunch of new use cases with regard to chat, text editing/manipulation/analysis, and knowledge recall/generation while also being significantly better and faster than Google with regard to finding answers or information. Meanwhile AI image generation has completely changed art and image creation to a ridiculous degree. I have friends and family asking me how concerned they should be about AI taking their jobs in fields as varied as writing, art/design, law, and medicine.
I do think in the future VR could reach the point where it’s that revolutionary, I just don’t feel like the two compare well now. VR is currently more like those old chatbots mentioned.
Literally all of those are possible with your cell phone at slightly lower fidelity. We're not talking about zero to one applications here. Cell phone fundamentally unlocked new applications via mobile connected GPS, computer, camera, screen, accelerometer, internet. Fidelity is not worth as much as people think to as many people as they think. 3D TVs were a flop. People still play and watch low res cell shaded games and movies.