I'm moderately excited by it. I have an OR DK1 since '13 and it is a promising bit of kit. The main problem with it is the resolution and screen door, which have been fixed in later models (supposedly, I haven't tried it). When you are playing a racing game you feel like you are IN the car, it's amazing. You just can't see far enough forward to actually drive reliably. If they can fix those issues then it can be a winner. As has been alluded to though, you need a pretty good PC to run it at a sufficient framerate, so Morpheus is out of luck. I can't see a PS4 being powerful enough on its own, so it's either gimped graphics or an (expensive and probably heavy) external unit in the Morpheus. Valve's one looks very interesting and should get lots of game support (HL2 already runs well on rift). OR itself has been on such a drawn out development it may never surface as a final product IMO... hope I'm wrong. This is exactly it.. good as these things will be for racers and shooters, that on it's own won't be enough, it needs quality, original gaming experiences. Nintendo would definitely be ones to offer that, but the price of entry of a VR-capable machine would go against the recent grain for Nintendo, wouldn't it?
There's the small issue of Nintendo not having a VR platform and them not developing for anyone aside from themselves. But yeah, if they did make VR games, they would probably be quite fun and make interesting use of the tech. Like all the 3D background and foreground stuff they did in Wario Land for the Virtual Boy.
I don't know if a tecnhology or similar stuff was ever used by only one platform ever. I mean, at least this century. The Wii remote and the kinect being the most notorious, sony managed to cheaply (and badly) copy both...
It's usually the other way around though Plenty of times, other companies have copied something Nintendo did first (thumbsticks, force feedback, four controller ports, motion controls etc) but aside from the unreleased SNES CD, I can't really think of a time nintendo copied someone else.
Nintendo wasn't even the first to do those four things. the Vectrex and 5200 had analog joysticks, Sega arcade units had force feedback, the Astrocade had 4 controller ports without a multitap, and the Activator did motion controls 10 years before the Wii.
Well, did it in just the right way that it made everyone sit-up and take notice anyway. Like, the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone, but it was the first one to do it right and was a big influence on the industry from that point on.
I think it depends on the implementation. If the hardware doesn't weigh too much on your head, does NOT give you eye ache/strain, has great visuals and a good 3D effect, is compatible with good games, is reasonably priced, and doesn't have any real flaws (i.e. if it's battery powered and eats them up, or if it gets warm and makes you sweat uncomfortably) then I think many gamers would love it. I'd love it if it worked as I want it to. It's just that so far the various attempts have been too expensive and/or not fit for purpose. As a first person shooter fanatic, I'd *love* to play FPSs with a set of good VR goggles (and surround sound built in!). Imagine if it intelligently allowed you to turn your head in game to match your real head turning, so you could look around as you moved forward or backwards. It would really help immersion. Edit: One big flaw, that's not the hardware's fault, is that modern and future FPSs are becoming more and more like Halo of Duty clones (two weapon carrying limit, on-screen prompts for *everything* that you can do, rechargable health, etc), and I'm not keen on those. I'd really love it if the Occulus Rift/Project Morpheus etc would work with the N64, original XBox, XBox 360 etc. No chance, of course, but hopefully they will somehow work with DirectX and allow us to play Windows games from the 90s onwards, so Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, etc can be played with the googles.
Yeah, if they don't do all the things that the other failures (motion control, 3D gaming, etc) have done, it'll be fine. And the problem with trying to use VR on older consoles is that in order to make the VR work, the console has to draw two separate viewpoints, each a few "inches" apart (like 3D gaming). The movement could theoretically be mapped to an analog stick/mouse look, but with something like Goldeneye, the N64 was pushed pretty far already, so making 8 viewpoints for a 4 player game is pretty much out of the question. Though I do wonder if an emulator on a high end PC could convert all that into VR.
I have a DK2, its amazing. I wouldnt write off VR for this gen too quick. Im still on the fence about the morpheus headset, it can supposedly take a 60fps source and add frames to enable 120hz, if thats the case it should be buttery smooth. As for teh Vive, 15 foot x 15 foot playroom with sub MM laser tracking accuracy for your hands and head... where do i sign up! Also, this. I could gush forever about these devices, you really have to try it to believe it, its not the 5fps barf inducing crud of the 90's
This is all stuff I can play at home right now, i cant wait to see what the next 5 - 10 years will bring
Kind of related, 1997-1998 picture from an old lan party, I forget the name of the 3D glasses but they were used with Quake at the time.
I think most of the naysayers are people who havent tried it yet. If you think it stinks for gaming thats fair, but it has many other uses. I had a DK1 rift and it at times was amazing, i did end up selling it due to motion sickness. In fact im very reluctant to try it again it was so bad. But no joke, the first time i put it on my head that was showing a demo of a tron grid style room with nothing more than a dummy, a car and a door in the room, i yanked it off my head and was like, nope nope nope, to real, this is the devil! The steam set is looking like it will be using two separate screens which will greatly increase FOV. Occulus is being so quiet i think they may be in the middle of a complete retool which is good. As for Nintendo i recall Myamoto giving an interview with i think EGM back in the GCN days. He teased that he envisioned video games filling entire rooms that we would be able to be interacted with, he then said (but perhaps ive said to much) and changed the topic. Anyone remember the interactive pond demo Nintendo did at one of the game shows around the same time? Im pretty sure Nintendo will be going AR, smart considering they focus on family and kids as best they can. I want VR for racing games, scenic and educational programs. For everything else ill take AR. It just looks more fun. Im really rooting for Jerri Ellsworth.
You cannot compare VR and AR; they are totally different technologies and require completely different techniques.
Luckey saying today that OR probably won't get commercial release in 2015. Sigh. They are really letting that first-mover advantage slip. I'm losing confidence in them at this stage, even with FB backing they can't get this thing finished.
AR is not an overhyped tech buzzword, it can do so much more than VR and games. Check out this youtube link of the presentation of AR at NASA. And yes it will be expensive. http://shop.osterhoutgroup.com/products/r6-glasses
