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Four Factors That Will Push VR Forward in 2016 (technologyreview.com)

Posted by timothy on from the in-my-day-we-had-pieces-of-cardboard dept.

At MIT Technology Review, Rachel Metz lists four factors she believes will mean great advancements for virtual reality in the next year. More and better games; wider adoption of specialized cameras for capturing the deep imagery that immersive worlds require; specialized presentation techniques that supplement VR with physical cues like temperature or direction; and availability of better viewing hardware. That better hardware seems poised to take off. According to the article, Facebook-owned Oculus’s first consumer headset, Rift, is slated for release in the first quarter of the year, while the HTC Vive—a headset created by smartphone maker HTC and video-game company Valve—is set to be available to consumers in April. Sony, meanwhile, is building its own headset, called PlayStation VR, which the company says will be released in the first half of the year.

4 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There was a real chance to garner interest in VR for the second time. Too bad it was overhyped without anything to show for it and now everybody is tired of hearing about it.

    Maybe someone will get it right in another 10 or 15 years.

  2. "Four Factors" by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All four of the factors are porn.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Re:Controller support on PC by malditaenvidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    PlayStation Eye Toy, Xbox Kinect for 360, and PlayStation Move all failed for the same reason: market size. Why build a game to support this hardware which targets 40% of the userbase, when you could have an easier time leaving it out and reach 100% of the userbase?

    Gotta love how you conveniently omitted the Wii, one of the most successful consoles of all time.

  4. Suffering from perfect is the enemy of the good? by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I always assumed VR needed the absolute best hardware and software technology could make -- and I suppose it does, if re-creating insane framerate high end games is the goal.

    But when I got a free cardboard viewer with my NY Times I was blown away with how good even the most ghetto VR setup could be. The NY Times' video content was meh, but the quickie Google Cardboard app museum tours were immersive and I can't tell you how much time I wasted on the streetview cardboard view.

    I'm starting to think they could be doing decent if flawed VR *now*, and building up content, even if it is fairly tame still imagery. As a potential consumer, I could give a shit about gaming but I could easily see spending hours as a virtual tourist.

    I worry basically that they're making the perfect the enemy of the good, which means it arrives late, with high cost and a ton of flaws because they've baked too much into it.