Sony, Facebook, Google, Samsung, Apple, and Microsoft Now All Have a Hand In VR

An anonymous reader writes The Oculus Kickstarter breathed new life into consumer virtual reality when it raised more than $2.4 million just three years ago. Now, at the onset of 2015, some of the world's biggest tech companies have a vested interest in the growing consumer virtual reality industry. Road to VR takes a look back at VR in 2014 and the path that lead these tech giants to start taking it seriously.

Comments

No thanks.

[BarbaraHudson]

No 3d for me. I only have one good eye, you insensitive clod!

Re:No thanks.

[Junta]

It's about more than stereoscopic vision. The fact my head moves and the environment perfectly tracks my head movement is the real significant chunk. If you don't have stereoscopic vision in real life, then no you don't have stereoscopic inside a VR headset. Either way you judge 3d by head movements and that is very much helped in a VR context.

Re:No thanks.

[Junta]

Close one eye. Move your head left or right. Congratulations, you perceived 3d information by parallax. Same thing works in reality and VR. If you can't see it in reality, then of course you can't see it in VR, but your perception of reality continues to have you understanding depth.

Two eyes provides depth information without head movement for a few meters. Moving the head provides the information over greater range and works with one eye or two.

VR

[ledow]

3 years ago and, apart from some prototypes and some old games converted to "use" it, what do we actually have?

90's-style VR with upgraded graphics?

Sorry, but VR needs to find some kind of use case. Gaming, apparently, just isn't enough on its own to justify it.

Three years and many millions of dollars to basically strap two screens to your head like we did back in the days of VRML and flat-shaded polygons.

Re:VR

[Junta]

Gaming, apparently, just isn't enough on its own to justify it.

Given that this time around the designs are generally based around slightly tweaked mass-market products, the price is in the neighborhood of a game console or high end desktop GPU. Gaming is enough to sustain those markets (yes, gaming consoles can do more now, but people would buy a sub-50 dollar product if they didn't care about games, and yes higher end desktop GPUs can be used in professional graphics, but that's usually a distinct product family).

That said, I do enjoy the experiences that are more mellow and aimless that people are bothering to do for VR that they didn't bother to do in a conventional display. Sure, gaming is great and so is watching a video in an apparently large screen (could use better resolution), but I like calmly exploring nice environments.

I don't think Facebook's 2 billion dollar investment will be justified, but I do think it's a viable market and my wallet is ready for the next step after Oculus DK2 (have the DK2 and have gotten more mileage out of that gadget than any gadget in remotely recent history.

Re:VR

[Alioth]

While I don't know whether "rebirth of VR" is hype or not I can say this.

Elite Dangerous through the Oculus Rift is mindblowing. VR that came before simply doesn't compare, it's like trying to compare a modern Lamborghini with a model T.

Re:What's different from 20 years ago?

[kelemvor4]

You know, when VR was in the spotlight the first time?

The headsets are slightly smaller. Not much, but slightly. Maybe the name should be changed as with client-server becoming cloud! With a name change everything old is new again.

Re:What's different from 20 years ago?

[Junta]

Displays that can be refreshed 75 times a second? Displays that can turn off between refreshes? GPU and software stack that can provide reasonable detail at high resolutions and high FOV? When VR was in the spotlight, 3dfx hadn't even released the voodoo 1, n64 and ps1 didn't even exist. Given that utterly primitive GPU technology by our standards today was beyond their grasp, it is pretty obvious a great deal has changed.

Also, the proliferation of high quality mobile devices with accelerometers has provided the core pieces from evolved mass-market components. 20 years ago, it was all specialty equipment from the ground up.

Re:overrated

[Applehu Akbar]

In your mother's basement, nobody can hear you scream.

Re:Oh boy! More crap to push at us.

[ArcadeMan]

It's going to change the world!

Like most technologies, it does change the world when it reaches a certain point.

Like... touchscreens..

The first touchscreens (resistive) didn't change the world because the technology wasn't good enough. Capacitive touchscreens, on the other hand, changed smartphones in less than a decade.

Like... tablets...

Tablet really changed things. For casual Web browsing, instant messaging, email and video calls they're more useful than stationary desktops or laptops.

Like... webcams...

Ever heard of video calls? Or that thing called "YouTube"? Neither would exist without "webcams".

Like... sixteen different branded "social media" attempts by everybody and their brother...

I'm also getting old, so I can only agree with you on that one. I understand forums where people share a common hobby but I don't understand social media at all. What pisses me off to no end is when a company gives us a Facebook URL instead of their own website domain.