Could this be a cautionary tale for another recently turned VR-maker tech giant?
I’ll just come out and say it, VR is a neat trick but doesn’t solve any problems people have with computers.
Most people have zero interest in wearing screens on their head and cutting themselves off from the outside world.
Further once you’ve strapped it on and played a couple rounds of beat saber there’s not much to do with it.
Consumer VR as currently envisioned is not going going to ever get out of the niche it’s in.
For gaming, it’s one of the more immersive experiences ever. But I haven’t put on my headset in about a year because playing flatscreen is just so much more convenient
There’s also a staggering lack of good content. That, and a bunch of QoL problems have yet to be fixed.
Yeah, I got a Samsung Odyssey HMD cheap (for a VR headset, ~$300) while they were in production and I used my headset to play Half-Life: Alyx, Phasmophobia, and Boneworks. Alyx was very well polished (for a VR game) and nothing came close to that. The rest is varying levels of jank and it will take about 20 mins to set up the headset every time when I could boot up any other game in less than a minute.
And on top of that anything that wasn’t those 3 games just didn’t feel like it was worth the work to play for me. Boneworks got close to Alyx in terms of polish but if someone was prone to motion sickness at all it would be unplayable. I haven’t ever been motion sick in my life but my stomach turned the first time the game “dropped” me down a hole. And Phasmo while it was far more immersive and scary in the headset it just wasn’t worth the hassle of setting up the headset only to get a headache in 20 mins of playing because the glare was not great on my headset making dark rooms hard to see in. Better headsets might fix a lot of those issues but the price point, ease of use, and QoL features are not in favor of it ever being more than a party gimmick.
The average person isn’t going to want to pay what I did for a few good games that might make them motion sick and a lot of janky garbage. And now most headsets are more expensive than that unless you want the Meta ones that are locked down.
The Reverb G2 can be had for also $300 on sale and the experience isn’t nearly as bad as you describe. There’s also tons of great VR content out there, it’s just not advertised.
Some of my favorites:
Vertical Shift: fairly short and barebones but it’s got a full range of powers for you to play with around an open world. Fun VR mechanics worth the sale price, despite the minimal gameplay.
You mentioned Boneworks and Phasmophobia which are also both a lot of fun, but motion sickness and multiplayer can make them not as convenient to always be ready to play. Of course, if we mention Boneworks then we have to talk about Duck Season. Blade and Sorcery should be on the list as well, it’s just too good to pass up. And well, if we’re talking about B&S we can’t ignore GORN.
Pistol Whip is basically a rhythm John Wick simulator. Very worth the cost of the game, lots of content, multiple free content updates - just a stellar game through and through. Also much more engaging than BeatSaber IMO, never been a fan of flailing my arms to slash blocks on beat. But shooting and dodging? Give me more!
Bonus: They just released a map creator. The life of the game is virtually infinite now, so that’s exciting :)
Superhot VR pre-content removal. Still a great game without the ending though.
V-Racer Hoverbike is a great VR game oriented Hoverbike Racing. Great sense of speed and feel, motion sickness is somewhat a given given the nature of the game…
Rez Infinite for anyone who remembers Rez for the PS2.
Pavlov VR is also a good popular fun game for your VR FPS itches. For more, there’s Into the Radius, Arizona Sunshine, ARK and ADE, Naked Sun, Bandit Point, Risk of Rain 2 VR (mod).
Speaking of mods, Subnautica in VR…
And one of my favorite pass-times, Holo-ball! It’s basically racquetball :)
There’s a couple party games that are fun as well, Wii Sports style with Pure Bowl VR, NVIDIA’s VR Funhouse, Tennis Arcade VR. All pretty decent (particularly compared to others that are available). Oh, also check out VRNoid which has brickbreaker and Hyper Psychic Gauntlets for a unique game. You can also play all your NES roms in VR with 3DSenVR which is pretty awesome. While we’re here, give Metroid Prime a playthrough with Dolphin VR, or all 3 if you get it running :)
Then there’s the whole world of productivity/not quite gaming programs.
I love, love love SynthVR. It’s just one of the smartest uses for VR, period. Create your virtual environment and just make it a giant music setup. Absolutely stellar. Similarly, Vinyl Reality for using your own music to DJ and mix! There’s also a drumming program called Paradiddle which is awesome for the same reasons. For painting, Vermillion.
If you’ve got a HOTAS or a racewheel there’s also a number of games that work great in tandem, Elite Dangerous for your space trucker sims (for this one, be sure to get SCRCPY for your android phone and run XS Overlay or OVR Toolkit to bring your phone with you in VR), Star Wars Squadrons, Drone Hero.
All in all - I’m with you. I bought a ton of VR games and these are just some of the most memorable, but they are all very easy to jump in and play, no setup required with fairly minimal issues regarding compatibility or potential for motion sickness.
Especially the hobby oriented one, any music and art programs in VR are just such great concepts that are executed very well.
Oh, and check out the Pod-Racer VR on github. :D
when they’re all big screen vr size then i think it will be a lot more popular
As an OOOOLD geek who has listened to the promise of VR for decades, it’s AR I’m excited about. Give me lightweight glasses that provide an overlay to interact with either everything or even only specific things and I am so there.
I don’t mean something like Google Glass, I mean more like an affordable, compact Hololens. (and I hate MS, but damn Hololens is cool)
Edit: I probably used a couple too many 'O’s there. I’m OOLD, not OOOOLD yet. ;-)
Had the opportunity to try out and develop for the hololens 2. I don’t dig it at all. It’s still big, has a tiny field of view, and when I compare it to VR, it’s so much less immersive. Not that it’s not impressive technology - it totally is. The best IMO would probably be a mix of both - high FOV, direct, no-camera passthrough that can be blacked out on demand. Meanwhile, VR is king, although a bit of a niche because of all the setup, required room etc.
I was just using it as the only example I know of that has really demonstrated some of what AR can do. I agree (based only on what I’ve seen) that it’s not ready for primetime, and plus it’s expensive.
However - my son has a Quest 2, we’ve played it, I love it. But whereas I can’t imagine wanting to spend my day in VR all day every day, even if it were smaller and lighter, I would LOVE to reach the point before I die where everyone has some normal looking glasses (or even contacts) that are adding a functional or decorative (but mostly functional) layer over everything they do all day long - that seems both useful and futuristic in a way that could be a paradigm shift as big or bigger than smartphones were.
VR is cool, it’s fun, and I’m sure it will get cooler and more fun - but while I am guessing it really will finally revolutionize gaming someday, and may also revolutionize very specific industrial or medical uses, AR seems (to me) like it’s got a lot more potential to become ubiquitous and life-changing for more people in more circumstances.
Lol, but I get that. A proper affordable heads up display will add so much more value to my life. I ride motorcycles and that is where it can be really useful. A Kickstarter tried ot a while ago with a helmet,but that flopped badly. A pair of glasses that will fit in my helmet, beaming useful info to my eyeballs could be lifesaving.
I had a long rural night ride a while back and it was bloody tricky navigating with the mounted phone. Not out of choice, more of a needs must scenario. The Gaiman map app was very useful in indicating the road ahead, bit the split attention needed was insane.
Another 90s geek chirping in.
Really don’t agree with you on that. I think consumer VR has a bright future but some big technical hurdles to clear first. Primarily comfort and image quality. It may take 10 years but it’ll get there.
Every single person I’ve shown VR to has thought it was fucking amazing and was surprised how good it already is and this was just a Quest 2.
Same. Whoever tried my Q2 wants to come by to play. They all have loved it. But it needs more polishing for sure
I want a VR rig like the gaming devices in that TNG episode where everyone got addicted to the games. Lightweight, overlaid onto the real world, and beamed directly into your eyeballs.
Hah the weird game with the funnels that hypnotized everyone. Such a weird but amazing episode
Wil Wheaton got to be Ashley Judd’s first on-screen kiss in that episode
I tend to agree, we had some some with the Rift S, but it’s been probably a year since we’ve put it on. When I wanna game I wanna relax, and VR just requires too much movement to be something I wanna do after work. Superhot is fun tho.
I’m only interested in the gaming at the moment, so I’m not necessarily looking for it to solve issues with using a computer. Fully immersive games are pretty cool, and being able to play beat saber is exactly why I like it. Things like that and Half Life: Alyx are uniquely suited to VR, and you can get more out of them than you could on a monitor.
Consumer VR as currently envisioned is not going going to ever get out of the niche it’s in.
You mean, with Oculus Quest 2 being a cheap headset offering great performances and satisfying many customers (10m units sold in nov. 2021), with many good and great games being ported, major video game editors publishing games with VR support, and headset appearing in museums and other cultural places?
Maybe Apple’ and other « pro » headset sold at outrageous prices are not going out of the niche they are, but affordable VR is a thing many people use. Majors exhibitions now often have VR discoveries for everyone and games are of a great quality for anyone taking more than 2 minutes to find what they like (so beyond beat saber and demos). Meanwhile, AR is nowhere to be seen despite Microsoft, Google and Apple’ big investments in APIs, OS support and hardware.
The move is a wise one from Meta: they focus on affordable yet great quality headset that anyone can buy instead of focusing « pro » market which, in reality, doesn’t have a market. I haven’t heard of any company or cultural places willing to buy any of these « pro » stuff given how expensive they are. They instead buy from the many affordable brands like HP or Samsung and, obviously, Meta.
It’s like connected watch: nobody really needed them, they took time to kick off, but affordable ones are now everywhere, not only for tech-savvy people.
I can see consumer VR having a couple killer apps that could make it (maybe) worth it. The first is walking through driving trips. It’s extremely helpful when going to a new city to be able to walk through your route to get a better feel for what it looks like, how the lanes are laid out, etc.
The second is doing 3D design work. Give me a simple way to scan my house and then let me see what it looks like if I knock a wall out, or move the furniture around. I haven’t found a way to do this easily yet, but it should be fairly straightforward considering how the Quest’s boundary cameras work.
But, yeah, beyond some beat saber or super hot are fun but ultimately not worth it. (And I got mine for free.)
I mean, talking specifically of the Quest Pro, it was too expensive with a lot of half baked features at launch. It’s main feature being pass through, and that’s probably the most complained about thing from reviewers. So this news isn’t really surprising. As for VR itself, it may be a niche, but it’s still a growing market. A veeerry slowly growing market.
As much as I hate it because it’s Meta, they’re the only ones still currently pushing mainstream VR tech forwards, and I like VR. I’d love to buy a headset from any other manufacturer, but there’s no affordable alternative. I’m in a weird position here. I don’t want them to fail out of the VR market because things would stagnate hard, but I also don’t want them to succeed in their vision of it.
they’re the only ones still currently pushing mainstream VR tech forwards
The cost of the Apple headset is insane. I’m really curious to see how well it sells, but Apple product sales are always hard to predict.
I feel like the cost alone pushes it out of the mainstream tech category. It’s not even in the same product class as the Quest Pro, let alone the Quest 2 or 3. Even if it sells well, I don’t think it will bring more development to affordable headsets.
Agreed
Apple’s apparently also targeting cheaper headsets but not at first. I’m real curious what those would price out at and what kind of compromises that will come with compared to the higher end stuff they’re making.
It’s cheap for what it is. High resolution (lower than Vision Pro) VR headsets are already expensive. Just the display from someone else is probably $2K. No one else can pass through the real world in full resolution/color with hyper low latency, either, and all that’s before being a full fledged computer of capability.
It’s not the mass market version, but the pricing is aggressive for the hardware.
PlayStation just launched PSVR2, I’m considering buying one
I gotta say, I forgot that existed but I’m glad you pointed that out! At least there’s another out there if things go south with Meta. I don’t have a PlayStation myself, but it’s great there would still be someone out there innovating.
It’s tethered, uncomfortable (even stock quest2 was more comfortable for me and now I have third party accessories that make it even more comfortable), and you can’t pcvr. Can’t recommend unless you’re a ps5 user, and even then the number of games available is very small.
But… It has content. Good content.
It’ll be hilarious in several years time when they’ve completely abandoned the entire VR multiverse concept, when they have to explain to people what their company name means.
“Well you see, our king lordship decided that we must set fire to several hundred billion dollars, there was nothing else we could do with it, so we did.”
Well, this is too bad. I don’t like Meta but I love my Quest 2. Sounds like features for the Quest 3 have had their scope reduced to cut costs.
I’m hopeful the Quest 3 will do well because the VR space is really cool, and there are not any real competitors at this price point.
They are probably busy copying Apples headset.
It’s a neat, young tech that unfortunately still hasn’t been given a fair shot (it’s being used as a bunch of get-rich-quick schemes by most). I was hoping Meta would continue to develop it and gain some integrity karma, even at least as a very small team/project. At least a lot of progress has been made this round of vr hype. Maybe in 20-30 years, another wave will happen and it’ll actually take root. I’d like to see VR actually take hold and be as cool as the sci-fi stuff in my lifetime, or even proof of concept before I die, knowing that it’ll probably happen.
Friendship ended with the metaverse, now the fediverse is my best friend.
XD
“A conservative estimate for the value of the fediverse is 9001 trillion dollars”
Someone needs to stop me, my prophecies all come true but nobody believes me!
