It's Becoming Increasingly Unlikely that We'll See a Major Shift To Virtual Reality Any Time Soon (theoutline.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: VR was supposed to be a revolution, with companies like Oculus pioneering a whole new way for gamers and non-gamers alike to be immersed in digital environments -- but that excitement has markedly cooled. The media has gone through several cycles of fawning, optimistic prognostication, and... wishful thinking? -- but for all the hype we have very little consumer interest to show for it. Oculus sold off to Facebook and has become little more than a parlor trick Mark Zuckerberg shows off at every F8 event. As Ben Thompson recently noted, the bet on the company is an awkward fit for Facebook that strays from Zuckerberg's strengths in several ways.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is now tooling around on right wing defense projects, while co-founder Brendan Iribe has just left the company amid rumors of future headsets being shelved. Several prominent studios have shut down or ceased VR efforts, including Viacom and AltspaceVR, and Microsoft is a steadfast "no" when it comes to dipping its toes in the water via the Xbox. Sony has boasted about sales of the PSVR hitting 3 million in two years, but there are 82 million PS4 units in the hands of consumers (and keep in mind that Microsoft sold 35 million Kinects but still discontinued the product). With cumbersome hardware (which, let's be honest, looks really stupid to most people), absurd PC requirements, and nearly no AAA titles to lure the curious into the world of VR, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that we'll see a major shift to virtual reality any time soon.

Also worth noting: if you're looking to Magic Leap for a kind of bridge to the future with its AR efforts, don't get too wound up. Brian Merchant's excellent and detailed feature story for Gizmodo on the company's struggles to get around the same hardware, software, and consumer adoption issues that plague VR make it clear there is no easy answer in this space. In my opinion -- as someone who watched this new generation of virtual reality emerge from the earliest days, and was one of its biggest fans -- VR adoption will only happen when the barrier to entry is akin to slipping on a pair of sunglasses (and even then it's no sure thing). Most people don't want to wear a bulky headset, even in private, there's no must have "killer app" for VR, and no one has made a simple plug-and-play option that lets a novice user engage casually. Everyone I know who's tried a VR headset is blown away by the experience, but no one really wants to go deep on it except for what amounts to a rounding-error percentage of enthusiasts. Further reading: 'We Expected VR To Be Two To Three Times as Big', Says CCP Games CEO.

Comments

Paperless office

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Yes, and I remember when computers were going to usher in the "Age of The Paperless Office"....the result was that paper usage went up about 500% because suddenly anyone and everyone could print whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted...and boy, did they ever.

Canon, Xerox, and Boise Cascade pretty much defoliated the Amazon rainforest to keep up with demand for that sweet, sweet paper.

Re: The reason is that it sucks.

[GrpA]

This is actually the real reason that VR is dying/failing. There's no recognition that VR needs to occur in a chair for most of us. There was this idea that people would make a VR room and walk around in it, and this was driven by the idiots at Oculus more than anyone, as a means to lock out competition. Well, it worked - the competition stayed outside and so did the customers.

Yet, there's absolutely NO way to "float" around a room-scale VR solution at all while seated. VR games lock you into a "step/jump" approach to movement, or force you to just not play at all, since it's "for your own good that you don't get sick"... What a load of crap. ANY time that an option or decision isn't available to you, it's an indication that the developers don't want you to have any choice.

Probably the only time we'll ever get a half decent title will be "VR Wheelchair Simulator" and I bet they will still try to make us "jump" from scene to scene.

Meanwhile the problems with optimizing the solution leaves developers VR-shy and we get even less choice.

Aside from this, there are problems - such as low resolution, poor tracking and the likes, but generally most of these can be forgiven. What can't be forgiven is this whole room-scale/Sitting difference that should never have existed before as anything other than a check-box on the controls that were handled by the VR platform itself and not the game. And this doesn't exist and will likely never exist.

Because, fundamentally, people don't like walled gardens. Not even VR ones.