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Valve's "Room Scale VR Survey" Finds a Lot of People Play In Their Bedrooms (itworld.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the never-leave-the-bed dept.

itwbennett writes: Earlier this week Valve published the results of a "Room Scale VR Survey" completed by 2008 members of its VR Community. The findings: 860 (~43%) of respondents said their gaming PC was in their bedroom and 1,393 (~69%) said they were not willing to move their PC to accommodate a VR experience. The average space respondents feel they can devote to VR is about 8.5'x 9'. Why does this matter? Well, last March, Valve and HTC debuted the HTV Vive virtual reality system consisting of a VR visor, a couple of custom controllers and a tracking system the allows the user to wander around a 15'x15' area. 'While the Vive system certainly sounds impressive I've had questions about how practical it'll be,' writes Peter Smith. 'How many people have a 15'x15' clear area in front of their PC? Turns out, not many.' 'According to this survey at least, using all of the 15'x15' space the system can track is going to leave most users frustrated,' adds Smith.

3 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Well, obviously by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Informative

    When you live in your parents' basement, your gaming room is also your bedroom. And it's hard to get enough space for VR with that damn washer and dryer in the way.

    1. Re:Well, obviously by rioki · · Score: 1, Informative

      Not everybody lives in US suburbia where space is plentiful and the houses are made of cardboard. (Yes, I know, wood beams and drywall.) I live in an apartment in a beautiful old building. The apartment is 90 m (968 sqft) but only three large room (plus bath and kitchen). Being a family of three you get my child's bedroom, the living room and bedroom. In out case the bedroom also doubles are office.

      Once you are over a certain age, social convention has it that you don't have a PC in the living room. Many have an office, but that commonly gets converted into a bedroom for a child once that's on the way. The result is that, unless you are exorbitantly wealthy and you have a dedicated office, the PC moves back into the bedroom.

  2. Re:Please.... someone.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the very start, Valve has been drilling into developers to develop with the constraints of two yoga mats pushed together. I remember this from a talk at the beginning of the year. As it turns out, this /is/ the amount of space commonly available in consumers homes.

    The Vive's lighthouse tech scales from a single base station sitting on a desk to being able to fit out an entire warehouse/building with them. Static objects (walls, couches, beds, cabinets etc) can be mapped out easily so you don't bump into them. Moving objects could be tracked with a small wireless puck-shaped thing, though that's still TBA. IR cameras that are tracked in the lighthouse's range also become a lot more useful for depth tracking, that's still early stages.

    The tech is far more thought out than you think.