Virtual Reality

[MartyG]

I've no firsthand experience of using them with an iPhone, but from what I've seen, I'd think the screen on the 4 would be a touch small.

I'm using mine with a Sony Z2.

[EvilBoris]

Out of interest, I've seen a lot of these plastic Google Cardboard-type devices; basically just a more comfortable version.

Can that work with an iPhone 4?

I think the screen would be too small to get a decent effect, the bigger issue is going to be that the iPhone's haven't been optimised for reduced latency and the iPhone 4 won't be able to do many games at the 60fps+ that you need for these things to work well. My iPhone 6 And Samsung Galaxy 5 in the mounts that we produce aren't quite as impressive because of latency.

It's a poor approximation of the real thing

[Neon Ignition]

Price tag isn't a surprise, fits perfectly in line with everything else that shows VR isn't ready yet. High price tag and requirements = too low a sales rate = little software support = too low a sales rate = effectively dead in a year or less.

It's not that VR doesn't hold value but once again companies have clambered over each other in a race to market, one where the demand isn't there. You can't pull this nonsense with a standardised hardware ?150 release, let alone something on the scale of VR. Any money made, won't be in the gaming sector.

[Dogg Thang]

I don't think I agree with that. This is a starting place and, yeah, it's a high price. Being honest, I wouldn't have trusted a very cheap price point at this stage in VR. It will go down as VR develops. I don't think this is going to hit huge at this price point but that's not how it happens for a lot of things. I'm not sure comparing it to a console in an already developed market is entirely right. If VR eventually hits where I think it will eventually, it will likely be more like a microwave, eventually making it to every home even if that takes a long time. At least that's how I see it.

But I don't see the big money being made in the hardware anyway. I think it will be in VR software infrastructures that go with it.

[Cornflakes]

$599 sounds fine, I mean it is a display, like a professional monitor/screen. I honestly can't see them charging less for it, and i'm suspecting all the other VR HMD are priced similarily, unless they are planning to sell them at a lost.
I find it kind of strange that they are not selling/bundeling it with the motion controls. One without the other seems pointless.

[Asura]

I've suspected for a while that VR is going to have to start off as a non-consumer device anyway (fairground attractions, that sort of thing).

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, I think you're right. And there are a lot of places it could be used for virtual offices. I know my own business could sometimes do with virtual studios. We have lots of people working remotely now and go back and forth between skype and email. But being able to walk around the person and point stuff out on their desktop, even if that was a game-style avatar, would make a huge difference to the quality and efficiency of the communication.

But that would require touch controls that are very precise, not a gamepad.

[MartyG]

I'm sure there will be buyers at that price, but it's going to remain nich?. PS VR is going to have a harder road to walk down, even if it comes in at a couple of hundred less - software support will quickly die off without the unit numbers making it worthwhile to develop for. At least on the PC the scope is there beyond simply gaming.

Cardboard has gotten me interested, cost of entry is keeping me away.

[Brad]

I'd like to think that I rarely quote myself but my fears are realised:

Maybe vr is launching too early then. I'd hate to see low uptake taken as a concept failure when really it's just cost / affordability.

In addition to that my Overclocked, 3GB GTX 580 turbo nutter bastard isn't good enough and neither is my quad core i5 2500K @ 5.0GHz apparently. I don't believe that last one though. I really want this for Elite but now I'm looking at ?1000 to run it so I guess I won't.

[Neon Ignition]

That's why I don't expect it to work out for gaming. It's a massively expensive peripheral with no worthwhile software support. Peripheral launches really need to hit the ground running from launch and every stumbling block that can exist does so for VR thanks to the premature rush to market the companies have made.


Within the next few years, I do honestly fully expect someone will produce something in VR tech which nails most of the remaining concerns the tech has, such is the rate of progression with it. It's most likely why Facebook bought into OR, I find it hard to imagine they did so because they believed in the money that it would generate from being patched into PC FPS's and space sims. But I imagine it will be like the concerns about 3DTV, by the time the kinks are gone no-one cares because the premature launches will have generated enough weak press consumer interest will have moved on to the next thing.


I still feel it would make more sense for Sony to quietly cancel PSVR, PS4 is doing wonga business (ironically through sticking to a traditional set up) and the last thing it needs is a high profile project associated that fails to succeed at market. At the very least they should hold it back into late 2017 to build software support for launch and eye up the techs progress elsewhere to gauge if it's worth the PR risk.

[MartyG]

But I imagine it will be like the concerns about 3DTV, by the time the kinks are gone no-one cares because the premature launches will have generated enough weak press consumer interest will have moved on to the next thing.

That would be my main concern - I don't think that ?500 is that unreasonable for the tech, but it's a price point which is too high for me, given its potential to end up as a large paperweight as developers abandon it.

[Dogg Thang]

I reckon that, for it to go well beyond a nice display gimmick, the costs will only go up. At the moment, 3DTV isn't a bad comparison. But it's when you get into body control with haptic feedback (getting more costly as it gets better) that VR will actually realise its potential.

[danholo]

$599 sounds fine, I mean it is a display, like a professional monitor/screen. I honestly can't see them charging less for it, and i'm suspecting all the other VR HMD are priced similarily, unless they are planning to sell them at a lost.
I find it kind of strange that they are not selling/bundeling it with the motion controls. One without the other seems pointless.

Good point. I think it just expensive because it's new tech and they want to keep it as high of quality as possible.

[QualityChimp]

I think we need to proceed with caution with these virtual reality headsets.

I saw this one documentary where a guy started entering VR simulations, learned Latin in two hours, then gained telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers and started killing people! Before all that, he just pushed around a lawnmower...

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, the last thing the world needs is virtual reality. We can't be trusted with the reality we've got