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More myopic reporting from pundits

cybernettr
Superstar

Opinion piece onCNET:

It's time to break up with VR
Commentary: More than two years into the current virtual reality era, it feels like we've hit a brick wall.
From the article: 
Virtual reality may yet become a massive mainstream hit, but it's not going to happen with this generation of tech”
The author makes two false assumptions in this article:

1: That the current generation of VR has to be a “massive mainstream hit” right from the beginning; and

2: If it isn’t a massive mainstream hit from the beginning, then it’s a failure. (Well, those aren’t the only false assumptions he makes, but those are the main ones.)

Reality: The personal computer (originally called the “home computer” or the “microcomputer”) was for several years the exclusive domain of geeks and tinkerers. Early cellphones were so expensive with such crappy service that they faced stiff competition with pagers and were originally used only by businessmen. 

As is is increasingly common with articles in the mainstream media, which are afraid of dissenting opinion, the original story doesn’t allow reader comments. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/its-time-to-break-up-with-vr/
62 REPLIES 62

JakemanOculus
Heroic Explorer
He's not wrong.  But this reads distinctly like some one who had incorrect expectations for VR.

I knew from day negative 120 that I would only use my Rift for stationary experiences and 3D movies.  I knew locomotion would never work well so I didn't even go there.  Game developers should have known better than to try to employ locomotion in first gen VR.  You need inside-out tracking for consumer locomotion.  Yet here we are today with Skyrim in VR.  Such epic fail.  So to hear this guy talk about locomotion as a reason why VR failed is just dumb.  That's like saying the Toyota Yaris is a failure because it can't race.  Inappropriate application bro.

But yes, mobile VR is the future.  Carmack has always been right about this.  Santa Cruz will be the first good VR platform to support locomotion.

Anonymous
Not applicable
LOL - if VR as we know it right now was going to fail, it would have failed 5 years ago at the outset of the original DK1.

It might be a slow growing tech - as far as general consumer adoption goes. But it still has shown noticeable growth over the last 5 years - and the upcoming expansion into the mobile market with high quality headsets that don't require phones if successful should cement VR as a day to day experience for general consumers.

To this end I think that Oculus has the right strategy of developing the Go for general VR experiences like movie watching or Google Earth for non-gamers but also offering a game ready system with the Santa Cruz for the gamer audience as well.

The buy in for a premium VR experience is a little high for most people due to the need of a fairly powerful PC - which in a world where most people are moving away from computers and towards mobile platforms like tablets and cell phones is definitely a barrier to entry.

I only hope that as VR becomes more popular - that Oculus continues to support the PC VR scene that the Rift and Vive operate in. I am a total nerd when it comes to most things and VR is no exception, I want to be able to tinker and play with off-market software and mods for games. I still like the official stuff too - but I mean, being able to play No One Lives Forever or Doom 3 in VR is incredible, and one of the reasons I bought into VR at this stage is because it is possible to get those experiences.

JakemanOculus
Heroic Explorer

But the biggest issue holding VR back is the games, or lack thereof. It's true, there are actually hundreds of virtual reality games available from Steam, Oculus and even Microsoft's Windows App Store. The vast majority are simple low-budget indie projects that range from pure dreck to forgettable filler, with just a handful of gems along the way (and a few interesting non-game experiments). That's because the big game companies -- the publishers behind hits from Grand Theft Auto to Call of Duty to Madden NFL -- have barely dipped a toe into the VR waters.


For EA's Star Wars Battlefront and Activision's Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, impressive VR levels were released as free downloadable content. When both those games got sequels for the 2017 holiday season, neither got a new VR level. That doesn't say much about how these big game-makers feel about the commercial appeal of virtual reality.

Yeah.  And if those companies had put serious investment into VR games then the author still would have complained about locomotion.  He is trapped by his incorrect expectations of first gen VR, and he wants the big developers to be trapped as well.

falken76
Expert Consultant


Opinion piece onCNET:

It's time to break up with VR
Commentary: More than two years into the current virtual reality era, it feels like we've hit a brick wall.
From the article: 
Virtual reality may yet become a massive mainstream hit, but it's not going to happen with this generation of tech”
The author makes two false assumptions in this article:

1: That the current generation of VR has to be a “massive mainstream hit” right from the beginning; and

2: If it isn’t a massive mainstream hit from the beginning, then it’s a failure. (Well, those aren’t the only false assumptions he makes, but those are the main ones.)

Reality: The personal computer (originally called the “home computer” or the “microcomputer”) was for several years the exclusive domain of geeks and tinkerers. Early cellphones were so expensive with such crappy service that they faced stiff competition with pagers and were originally used only by businessmen. 

As is is increasingly common with articles in the mainstream media, which are afraid of dissenting opinion, the original story doesn’t allow reader comments. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/its-time-to-break-up-with-vr/



Any organization that claims to report on tech and does it negatively that has no comment section on their articles are always terrible.  I agree, the author doesn't want those comments on because if this article is any indication, he's terrible at what he does and doesn't want to be called out for being an idiot.

falken76
Expert Consultant
I won't be interested in mobil VR until they have the equivilant of a 1080 or better GPU in them and they're affordable.  Which would mean $500 or less for the entire thing, GPU and HMD in one.  But I want to play DCS which is locked to an actual computer, they'd never waste time developing it for a headset, where would you even install 60 gb worth of content on a headset with no computer?

I hope they keep both PCVR and Mobil, but come on.  GPUs are a rip off, nobody is going to pay $1,000 for a card to add into a $700 computer they don't already have so they can be tethered to a box like an Iron lung.  Money dictates everything, I don't think consumers will even really make serious considerations when GPUs are so expensive.  Nobody even owns computers these days, it's all tablets and cell phones.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP
I saw this posted on Facebook and the overwhelming response was that... CNet just lost all credibility lol

I think CNet hit their own brick wall since they used to be good at Product Reviews but now the world doesn't need them anymore thanks to the monstrosity known as: Amazon.

CNet's services made sense back when there were multiple storefront competitors out there. Having a centralized review system was essential. But now Amazon is a centralized seller for "all the things," and their reviews are more meaningful than most outside sources, including CNet.

As such... CNet has resorted to being just another source of "clickbait" articles; another victim of the Amazon enterprise.

Case in point: Amazon has launched their own VR Platform, and it won't be long before consumers across the globe will be able to traverse the entire retail inventory inside a Virtual World. CNet will need to get more creative with their headlines when that happens.

bigmike20vt
Visionary


He's not wrong.  But this reads distinctly like some one who had incorrect expectations for VR.

I knew from day negative 120 that I would only use my Rift for stationary experiences and 3D movies. 


i am not sure why you would think this........ there are some games where locomotion is not great but others where it works superbly well...... From other suns is a good example.  expected to have to use comfort mode but ended up going full loco and will never look back.

other games not so good... my experience is generally steamVR is more prone to sickness (in the rift) than native oculus but this could just be the game s i have tried, that is not to say steamvr cant do proper locomotion
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

Well, there's always a tendency to write articles that are stories. In most cases that means praising things that are new because the story teller is spreading the word, or criticizing things that aren't knew if they haven't taken over the world just yet... or criticizing them if they have taken over the world cos that's an even bigger story. Anyway, I'll take every story as I see it. In this case, the story teller isn't completely wrong.


He says the biggest problem is that the 'big game companies have barely dipped a toe into the VR waters' and I think that's a fair comment. We've had some great games which have been more than enough for me (and most of you I think) to consider myself lucky to have good VR kit to play them on.


But, I'm disappointed with Codemasters not including VR in anything since DiRT Rally. I'd like to have seen a proper full game from Crytek as they've proven themselves with The Climb but I doubt the next Crysis will have VR despite their development of Cryengine V.... and Bethesda are just teasing us with adaptations of existing games sold at full price.


I'm an enthusiast, as are most people here and I think I've always had fairly realistic expectations of how quickly VR would take hold and how quickly games devs would get involved.... so for me, everything is pretty much on-track. But I think many people need reassurance that the big devs are on-board before shelling out several hundred quid on a headset & PC upgrade. I think that will come but it's not happened yet and I don't think reassurance comes from adapting old games to VR regardless of how good the results are. They need to see a good selection of new games having VR options. For those people, VR may seem like it's not happened yet. The problem is that we need those people to adopt because that leads to the big devs deciding there's enough profit to be made from creating new content.


Cheaper PC VR is the other side of the equation. People need less reassurance if they don't have to spend so much money on the kit... or the PC.


That's why, for CV2, I'm a firm believer in not wanting the huge FOV and resolution increases we're seeing touted for some next-gen headsets. Reasonable increases yes, but not the FOV leaps of the Pimax... or 4K that some are touting, not unless fovated rendering keeps the PC load down to the levels that current top-range PCs are capable of.

Anonymous
Not applicable

That's why, for CV2, I'm a firm believer in not wanting the huge FOV and resolution increases we're seeing touted for some next-gen headsets. Reasonable increases yes, but not the FOV leaps of the Pimax... or 4K that some are touting, not unless fovated rendering keeps the PC load down to the levels that current top-range PCs are capable of.



That is one of the reasons a lot of companies want to wait. Gen One has a few problems that gen Two really needs to fix such as lowering the requirements to run VR in the first place, looking better over all, easy setup, and something everyone will want to run out and buy on.

Eye tracking/FOV rendering is going to be the gold goose everyone is running after to find right now. Once we have that - that is going to be a BIG step forward in what we can support in the future. As I said in the past, FOV rendering + Upscaling is going to be a big deal in dealing with the PC requirements going in the future. Basically - it's the true to run current gen One specs at a gen Two level (either it be 2k or 4k or more using that upscaler). With that said - it has the added benefit of allowing it all to look better and that means you can push/sell that eye candy people love and want in their games. 

The bigger questions are:

How can we make the setup easier for people, but still allow the same play area that outside in tracking allows? Right now we are still fighting the idea that VR needs a big play area to be in compare to sitting down game that we currently. 

What can VR do for me that a normal computer can't? What will be easier to do in VR/AR that I can take on the "go" maybe that VR allows? Idk - this one is harder to figure out than the other two. I talk about this a few times already - I don't think VR games are going to really push VR to its max alone. Really, I think this is where the doom and gloom comes from mostly. I don't think VR will despair and I can only really see it growing - but to make it grow faster it does have to replace what another competing technology is offering in that space to really max on the potential customers that are out there.


Then again, I just watch 5hrs of netflix in my headset with out having to get out of bed:) so I can happily say VR is not a waste at all and is the future for people like me that want to watch something in peace instead of having everyone over your shoulder watching with you:)

I see both sides - I am happy with gen one for what it is - I just know gen two really needs to fix some of the current gen one problems and that will help gain more tracking for VR over all. What areas to really focus on is hard to really guess. We could focus more on the software more than anything, but then people will always say the hardware is not good enough and if we focus on the hardware people will always say the software isn't good enough to keep up with the hardware.