Is VR dead?

[Richard Dastardly]

VR is pretty massive for the flightsim guys too - as a consumer product I think it's still too bulky/low res/hard to support, but that's true of a lot of technology in the early days. It's hard to imagine a killer app for pure VR; however augmented reality, especially on mobiles, is something that could take off in a huge way and the technology crossover might drag VR up with it. A killer VR console game would also give it a huge kick.

There's new higher-rez HMDs coming, I saw some review of one with much wider FoV too ( which seemed to make the reviewer *really* nauseous ) which would be something good for racing for sure. Eventually ( and I would imagine that being the very near future ) GPUs will have enough grunt that that won't be an issue.

 

[maelstrom]

I would argue that the potential benefit of 3D TVs or minidisks does not match the potential benefit of VR/AR. For that reason alone the companies are probably willing to take more loss on R&D and "public beta testing" now for potential future gains.

I don't really agree. 3D TV and minidisk manufacturers have (had) a much, much bigger budget and a considerably larger potential worldwide userbase than VR and still couldn't gain enough momentum with the products to keep them going.

The Oculus Quest has higher resolution than the Rift and is using much lighter weight processing than the Rift and is somehow managing to do it all by itself.

But with graphical compromises. There's still a lot of "never mind the resolution, feel the immersion" comments from people who've tried it. Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to connect anything other than the Quest controllers to the headset so racing wheels and flight sim joysticks would seem to be non-starters. Also, it appears that the games have to be written to work on the Quest which, again, begs the question about whether or not developers will be prepared to spend the time doing so without knowing if it will be worth their while.

There seems to be an assumption that the Quest will appeal to gamers who don't want to (or can't afford to) spend a lot of money on a PC to play in VR. I think this is misleading. Gamers don't buy a PC to play their favourite game in VR - they generally already have a gaming PC and just buy the headset. The Quest is targeted at a completely different market to the Rift so is still unlikely to get VR into the existing, massive mainstream gaming marketplace. As relatively popular as PlayStation VR has been, it's still only sold to a small percentage of PS users and the platform should have been ideal for VR gaming with a really massive userbase. Even the fact that it's much less expensive doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to uptake. In my opinion, the Quest, and to a lesser extent the GO, are just fillers to try to keep VR in the public eye until they can come up with something that really revolutionises gaming. However, I think the longer that takes, the less successful it's likely to be.

 

[maelstrom]

VR is pretty massive for the flightsim guys too

But, just as with racing sims, the number of flight sim enthusiasts (another interest of mine) using VR is relatively small and resolution is much more of an issue. Reading small, complicated flight displays and spotting features on the ground (like runways) at long distances is very difficult. Plus, the potential motion sickness problem is even worse as you're moving in pitch, roll and yaw to a much greater extent than you do in a car.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

I don't really agree. 3D TV and minidisk manufacturers have (had) a much, much bigger budget and a considerably larger potential worldwide userbase than VR and still couldn't gain enough momentum with the products to keep them going.

Well, minidisk died thanks to portable solid state storage; 3d tv is just bad though. VR is good at what it does, there's just not an awful lot of "does" yet. If everyone had a HMD we might see virtual 3d showrooms and all sorts of small things like that, but that's a bit of a chicken & egg situation.

But, just as with racing sims, the number of flight sim enthusiasts (another interest of mine) using VR is relatively small and resolution is much more of an issue. Reading small, complicated flight displays and spotting features on the ground (like runways) at long distances is very difficult. Plus, the potential motion sickness problem is even worse as you're moving in pitch, roll and yaw to a much greater extent than you do in a car.

Yep, and both sim markets are small to start with ( even if you include space guys also ) - that's why I don't consider sims a killer app. If someone could work out how to make a good 3D shooter that actually benefitted from VR then it might go wild.

As long as there's *some* market for high-res HMDs ( architects? other 3d designers? would be great if there was a good ffb glove to go with the display so you could model by literally sculpting ) then there will be displays for simmers, but not cheap ones...

 

[RCHeliguy]

Exactly, 3D TV was worthless for most people. When I'm watching TV with my wife, petting a cat etc... I don't want to wear goggles. I know some people like to watch movies in VR together when they can't physically be together, but the whole 3D TV experience was yucko.

I say that as a person who just saw Alita: Battle Angel in IMAX 3D. I was the target audience for 3D TV. I have a 75", 65" and 50" set right now (media room, den, bedroom ) I even have 1 or maybe 2 TV's and BD player with 3D TV capability, but I never bothered to get the glasses for them. No interest.

VR is the only reason I'm gaming at all right now. It works. Can it improve and become cheaper? Sure, but it succeeds at its objective right now.

Most people play racing games using a game pad, does that mean Heusinkveld isn't selling out their Sprint Pedals? They are a company that is sized appropriately for the market and they appear to have great products, great support and seem to be doing well.

That's the whole point. Technology appropriate for the market.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

So the size of VR market will be the size of HE pedals and OSW user base with small garage shop companies servicing that small niche?

My wild guess is that next gen consoles with proper VR will be the main push to the market, not those exotic PC offerings or mobile nonsense.

 

[BrunoBæ]

One thing though: I was under the impression that VR is not reaching the numbers that would make it commercially lucrative for the big companies and it is a foreseeable investment hole and therefore the development is stagnating as companies and their executive boards are not willing to take that risk. Especially with the development curve still very steep.

You are probably quite right with this impression.
My own estimate is that at the moment VR is at a crucial point.
Hopefully not just like 3D TV 1 year before the big companies pulled the plug because of lousy numbers of sold 3D TVs.

Because conserning VR then its like the chicken or the egg.
None of the big companies have gone 100% into development of foveated rendering because the numbers of sold VR is too small(= missing profit).
100% the man said
And the numbers of sold VR is small because the graphic quality is poo even if you are willing to buy an extremely expensive graphic monstercard.
If the numbers of sold VR kits were a lot higher then it would not be smaller 3rd party companies that were driven the development of foveated rendering.
Why I focus on foveated rendering is because this is the main thing missing in an acceptable VR that is able to run in something like 4K quality on todays high end g-cards.

EDIT: Even poo looks better in 4K

 

[RCHeliguy]

My wild guess is that next gen consoles with proper VR will be the main push to the market, not those exotic PC offerings or mobile nonsense.

Did you miss the fact that PSVR has over 1 Million headsets out there?
Consoles already have more HMD's than Oculus + Vive + other.

VR is building momentum as evidenced by Steam's recent numbers. VR users on Steam doubled in one year. The question is how that looks year over year. Is it something closer to linear growth which would be bad, or is it closer to exponential growth ?

So the big question is whether next year Steam sees something close to a doubling of the VR users out there or if they see an increase closer to what they had the previous year.

The short answer is that there are a number of companies that are thinking about the long game and are willing to take a loss for a number of years so they are positioned better in the future and their motivations are extremely different.

Oculus and Steam both want to take a cut off of software sales, so they want a larger base. FB has their own agenda past that for turning VR into a social media.

Samsung is a monster of a company and they seem to be sticking with it. They introduced the best of the WMR headsets and have iterated on it one year later and they have released a patent on a curved display for future HMD's.

HP surprised me. Their WMR headset was a flop which they basically liquidated. So what did they do? They are doubling down on it and coming out with an 8K or 4K per eye headset next.

It's obvious that a number of companies are reading the tea leaves differently from those of you who thing VR is dying. I'd say it is on the cusp, the bigger players are starting to smell blood in the water and they are trying to position themselves for what they believe will be a large feeding frenzy.

This is nothing like 3D TV's. They bombed because no one wanted them. The issue with VR is exposure. Most people who come over and try out my Rift are VERY surprised it is as good as it is. Some of them have gotten their own VR systems after being exposed to it.

 

[RCHeliguy]

There seems to be an assumption that the Quest will appeal to gamers who don't want to (or can't afford to) spend a lot of money on a PC to play in VR.

Who do you think is making that assumption, because it is all about ease of use and expanding the base of VR users in different areas, NOT about replacing PC based systems.

Lets say you are on a road trip and people in the back seat want to do something interesting. Lets say you are stuck in a hotel room with nothing to do. Lets say you are visiting Grandma and want to show her a bit of VR.

The Quest also allows people to play against or with each other in an open space. So play tennis against someone else or even play teams with 4 players or play on the same time doing something completely different.

But that is still completely off the mark for what the target really is.

What Oculus and Parent company FB want is a VR Social presence. You pop your Quest on anywhere, bedroom, den, car, Doctor's office waiting for an appointment and you meet up with some friends at a common hang out as an avatar. You and your friends or family meet up somewhere and do something fun while all over the country or world. FB wants to build the next nexus of social interaction in VR and they will spend many billions to achieve that.

That's why this has to be fairly inexpensive and very easy. They want to get VR into the hands of every one. Think of the target audience as being more like the group who are texting, or using social media all day on their phones. Now give that same audience social media in an interesting VR environment. That is the holy grail they are after. Some place that will suck you in to interact with other people, that is fun, possibly addictive.

 

[maelstrom]

VR is building momentum as evidenced by Steam's recent numbers. VR users on Steam doubled in one year.

Yes, but to only 0.43% of the total number of gamers who responded to the hardware survey: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam. You need more numbers and momentum than that to make it anything other than a niche product.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Seems that you are ignoring the large hardware companies dropping big money into this market. They wouldn't do that if they thought VR is dead.

There is a saying, "Follow the money" that can be used in a very WIDE variety of situations.

There is a lot of relatively new money flowing into VR headsets from deep pockets. I don't think I'd be all doom and gloom just yet.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Did you miss the fact that PSVR has over 1 Million headsets out there?
Consoles already have more HMD's than Oculus + Vive + other.

This is exactly why I was suggesting that only consoles can really push it to the market as even with current mediocre PSVR experience it dominates everything else.
But as article suggesting it is not something to get really excited about. It's just a fraction, 3 million PSVR out of 91.6 millions of PS4 sold. Another question is how many really actively using it on PS4 after initial excitement worn out.
May be Microsoft can do something with WMR and the next XBox and reflect all that development on PC Win10/UWP.
Anyway it's better not to get hopes high, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.
3D had much higher momentum on the market and we all know where it ended.
It will be a while before VR can start giving more than it takes.

 

[MarcG]

Did you miss the fact that PSVR has over 1 Million headsets out there?
Consoles already have more HMD's than Oculus + Vive + other.

You might wanna read this:
https://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-claims-4-million-pc-vr-headsets-sold/

..and this:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/16...NvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=7MZgjrt3fcnsdzzNogQUPg

 

[RCHeliguy]

You might wanna read this:
https://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-claims-4-million-pc-vr-headsets-sold/

..and this:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/16...NvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=7MZgjrt3fcnsdzzNogQUPg

Outstanding! Thanks for the good news!

That's quite a big jump from just what I saw a year ago. Maybe exponential VR adoption is finally here

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Outstanding! Thanks for the good news!

That's quite a big jump from just what I saw a year ago. Maybe exponential VR adoption is finally here

You could make a good estimate of how many of those are being actually used ( for gaming at least - I don't believe there's any sizeable numbers being used for anything else yet, other than FPV RC stuff ) by just looking at steam numbers for who's playing what. I don't think exponential adoption is here yet, I don't believe it'll happen without another generation or two of displays, but I definitely don't believe anything is dying.

 

[RCHeliguy]

You could make a good estimate of how many of those are being actually used ( for gaming at least - I don't believe there's any sizeable numbers being used for anything else yet, other than FPV RC stuff ) by just looking at steam numbers for who's playing what. I don't think exponential adoption is here yet, I don't believe it'll happen without another generation or two of displays, but I definitely don't believe anything is dying.

I've been using the AccuRC RC Helicopter simulator for quite a while. They added VR support a while back which makes a world of difference for flying an acrobatic RC Heli near the ground. Have DOF field makes everything much more real than flying on a screen. Considering how lethal these toys can be, it is a very good thing.

 

[maelstrom]

You might wanna read this:
https://www.roadtovr.com/nvidia-claims-4-million-pc-vr-headsets-sold/

..and this:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/16...NvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=7MZgjrt3fcnsdzzNogQUPg

If this is true, I'm very surprised that Oculus and Vive haven't been falling over themselves to make it public. It does say in the NVIDIA article that the provenance for the figures is unclear.

 

[Turk]

This is exactly why I was suggesting that only consoles can really push it to the market as even with current mediocre PSVR experience it dominates everything else.

The problem with the console market is they need big numbers or they consider it a failure. VRs future will be in the hands of the accountants at Sony.

 

[Turvey]

I've been using the AccuRC RC Helicopter simulator for quite a while. They added VR support a while back which makes a world of difference for flying an acrobatic RC Heli near the ground. Have DOF field makes everything much more real than flying on a screen. Considering how lethal these toys can be, it is a very good thing.

What kind of controls are you using for flight sim

 

[RCHeliguy]

What kind of controls are you using for flight sim

For RC (Remote Control) Helicopters I use the same transmitter that I use when I fly at the airfield, a Jeti DS-16.