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Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung, Sony Join Forces To Create Global VR Association (techcrunch.com)
Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung, Sony and Acer have teamed up to form the Global Virtual Reality Association (GVRA) in an effort to reduce fragmentation and failure in the industry. GVRA aims to "unlock and maximize VR's potential," but there are little details as to what this may mean for consumers. TechCrunch reports: What many in the VR community have been thirsting for is some unification of standards in terms of software and hardware. Games bought in the Oculus store don't play on the Vive or PS VR. Sensors for the Vive don't work on Oculus. Sony doesn't play nice with anyone else's standards etc. etc. Valve, which makes the Steam store and SteamVR platform for the HTC Vive and others, is notably not a member of this collective so any hopes of a unified standard (like its OpenVR platform) emerging from this collective is likely not in the cards. From the GVRA press release: "The goal of the Global Virtual Reality Association is to promote responsible development and adoption of VR globally. The association's members will develop and share best practices, conduct research, and bring the international VR community together as the technology progresses. The group will also serve a resource for consumers, policymakers, and industry interested in VR."
Want to bet whether said standard will include a patent from each?
Am I just paranoid when i hear these guys get together for this project or that?
VR is a joke. You cannot solve the problem of motion sickness caused by the disconnect between what the eyes see and the inner ear senses. VR is a dead end, but AR has promise.
VR tech is showing up even at the local Office Despot, but I don't see it getting anything other than "that's shiny" of market penetration. Is there any significant use for the technology that Joe Sixpack would bother using it for, or will it fall into the same category as a 3D television?
"reduce fragmentation and failure in the industry" means "make sure Linux never gets any of our shit"
Is Rayzor/OSVR included? They have been working on interoperability for some time.
Same players, same game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance
Has a beginning
Sounds like someone who's never tried a Rift or a Vive. The band thing you put your phone in doesn't count. Not even a little.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Funny how this comes out one day after this https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-announces-vr-standards-initiative
So its still going to be a format war. Love my vive. Sure would like to just play games and not worry about this crap.
IMO this is the first hint that the player in the VR game see the writing on the wall if they don't get their shit up : in spite of many sales of rift/vive/PS, they are probably under plan, not many software is sold, and the fragmentation is hitting them harder than expected. I am betting this is a fad which will be gone. So far from all the occulus game/app I have tried, none justify the price. I am betting that in 2 to 3 years it will have dwindled to a niche.
"The goal of the Global Virtual Reality Association is to promote responsible development and adoption of VR globally. "
Got to hand it to Carmack and friends, separating Zuck from a huge bag of windfall riches was a really slick move, but face it, VR remains a boutique niche and that isn't changing in the foreseeable future. This is the business: selling expensive hardware to early adopters willing to spend hours a day standing up waving their arms around while wearing a heavy, sweaty headset. With the hype died down, that is exactly what percent of the market? Worse thing is, everybody wants a piece of that nonexistent market. Reality: your hundreds of dollars of VR gear is going to end up gathering dust in the closet right next to your Guitar Hero controller and you will be back to couch potato status with your PS4 controller or keyboard and mouse if you are in that segment that can afford a sufficiently powerful laptop or gaming PC. It's about that standing up thing. After the initial thrill, it just isn't going to happen for more than a few minutes a day.
So Zuck got the idea that everybody would be reading their fake Facebook news on a VR headset next year? I wonder why.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
https://xkcd.com/927/
So - we now have SteamVR, Oculus, HTC, OSVR, and whatever the hell this is.
Until these guys agree on specific standards and protocols, this all means shit.
When will they learn that the battle for control is always everyone's loss, including theirs.
What that means for us, the consumers? That means that two of them get to pin us down while the others rape us, our wallets, our dogs and each of our household appliances.
Business as usual.
Hate to be the lone voice of positivity, but have you guys tried today's VR? It's truly immersive. Latency and resolution problems are a thing of the past. Head position tracking cements comfort. Game designers now have a variety of techniques to address reference-frame disparity that causes sim sickness. The problem is price. Complete systems including computing are at least $700, mobile included because that one-of-a-kind cellphone ain't free! But in a few years, cellphones with that power will be ubiquitous, standalone headsets will be cheap and they'll run on all computers. And only VR offers true virtual worlds, the applications of which aren't just games but architecture and travel and training and tons of other things AR won't do. AR will have its place but will always be more expensive and less good at virtual worlds.
As Techcrunch mentions, "Sony doesn't play nice with anyone else's standards". They never met a standard they couldn't ignore in favour of their own proprietary approaches unless said standard was already too well entrenched to ignore. Sony was doing the 'all your interface are belong to us' thing long before Apple adopted it, and I find it hard to believe that they can ever be a viable member of a standards organization.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.