Nokia touts future of virtual reality ads... but who's the audience? Nokia has premiered what it calls a first-of-its-kind immersive virtual reality advertising experience for its new line of digital health products. The advert is hitting two Nokia birds with one virtual stone: the ad shows off Nokia’s own burgeoning line of VR content creating hardware – the OZO camera – and its suite of digital …
The current generation of VR hardware is almost good enough for widespread acceptance. Resolution is good, tracking works great, and the content is ramping up at an amazing rate. Developer's tools already support VR quite nicely, so the software side isn't going to hold it back.
That said, VR won't be that common until we get higher resolution in the headsets (already in the works, from all reports), and cheaper hardware (also coming, but somewhat slower).
The thing to remember is that the "expensive" VR rigs (like my Vive) really aren't, when you look at the total market and the history of computers. I spent about $3000 on a completely ridiculous overkill-type system (Vive + PC to run it) - but when you compare it to the Apple IIe I bought in 1983, it's about half as expensive. The Apple was about $2400, which is about $6000 in today's dollars when you account for inflation.
Right now, that "too expensive" Vive rig is comparable to buying a Commodore 64 with a floppy drive in 1984... and you can buy prebuilt VR systems for about half of what I spent. You can get a Playstation VR system for about $1000.
That's one way to look at it.
Another is that the tracking is not "almost there". It's shit, and might actually be an insurmountable problem. But even if the tracking can be solved, the walking problem definitely can't.
Your physical movement space is limited to about 1m^2 which means walking is totally out. Games inevitably come up with some jank-ass teleport system to move though the game world. With racing or flying game, you're confined to a virtual cockpit, but that inevitably moves relative to your view making it actually inferior to a large monitor. A huge monitor is like looking though a window into a virtual world, with the added bonus of physical controls, and none of this disembodied hands nonsense.
That poses the question: Which as of yet undiscovered genre is VR actually good for? You'd actually need a multi-way treadmill to make this a worthwhile experience, and who wants all that shit in their house? This latest attempt could just as easily trigger a VR winter, killing the technology for another 15 years before they try again.
The current generation of VR hardware is almost good enough for widespread acceptance. Resolution is good, tracking works great, and the content is ramping up at an amazing rate. Developer's tools already support VR quite nicely, so the software side isn't going to hold it back.
Except it isn't. Resolution is shit to be honest. Tracking works to certain extent, but I would not say it "works great". Then there is the framerate. It needs to be silky smooth. It isn't. Not even close.
Sure it has come a long way. In my humble opinion resolution and framerates need to improve a lot. Other commentards also pointed out the obvious issue with regards to movement. Unless you're strapped in a lawnmower man type contraption your movement is very limited.
You haven't actually used any of the current VR systems, have you?
Resolution is not "shit," by any measure. I'd like it to be higher, but it's certainly enough to get past the "suspension of disbelief" part. Yes, the "screen door effect" is obvious when you start playing, but in the middle of a session, that awareness goes right out the window.
Tracking is great on the Vive (not so with other systems). Millimeter-scale accuracy. That's better than you can manage with your own hand.
Framerate on my Vive is 90 FPS, and yes, that's "silky smooth." It's better than the human eye can discern.
And as pointed out above, the current Vive gives you several square meters of play room, not one.
It sounds like you guys have been playing with Google Cardboard systems instead of the real thing...
i think the problem of movement / play room is less what the system can handle, and more the actual physical space you have available. If i were using one of these in my living room, i would have maybe 1.5m^2 walking space to move around in before i start bumping into things i cant see.
"The thing to remember is that the "expensive" VR rigs (like my Vive) really aren't"
We can discuss this again when the goggles are under $200 and I don't have to change any of the rest of my hardware. Until then it's cheap-and-cheerful Google Cardboard or nothing for me (and 99.9% of the rest of the planet, I imagine...)
"Will gamers be interested in things like an Internet-connected thermometer that tracks a baby’s fever?"
I don't have a VR headset myself but as a player of Elite Dangerous I know a lot of people with VR headsets. Given the price of the hardware most of them are 30+ and have families so yes they may well be interested in an Internet-connected thermometer that tracks a baby’s fever but they probably already spent their gadget budget on the VR rig.
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