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Nick Wingfield reports at The New York Times that for the last couple of years, the companies building virtual reality headsets have begged the public for patience as they strive to create virtual environments that don't make people physically sick. “We’re going to hang ourselves out there and be judged,” says John Carmack, chief technology officer of Oculus, describing what he calls a “nightmare scenario” that has worried him and other Oculus executives. “People like the demo, they take it home, and they start throwing up,” says Carmack. "The fear is if a really bad V.R. product comes out, it could send the industry back to the ’90s." In that era, virtual reality headsets flopped, disappointing investors and consumers. “It left a huge, smoking crater in the landscape,” says Carmack, who is considered an important game designer for his work on Doom and Quake. “We’ve had people afraid to touch V.R. for 20 years.”
This time around, the backing for virtual reality is of a different magnitude. Facebook paid $2 billion last year to acquire Oculus. Microsoft is developing its own headset, HoloLens, that mixes elements of virtual reality with augmented reality, a different medium that overlays virtual images on a view of the real world. Google has invested more than $500 million in Magic Leap, a company developing an augmented reality headset. “The challenge is there is so much expectation and anticipation that that could fall away quite quickly if you don’t get the type of traction you had hoped,” says Neil Young
At least one company, Valve, believes it has solved the discomfort problem with headsets. Gabe Newell says Valve has worked hard on its virtual reality technology to eliminate the discomfort, saying that “zero percent of people get motion sick” when they try its system. According to Newell, the reason why no one has gotten sick yet is thanks to Valve’s Lighthouse motion-tracking system, a precise motion-tracking system that is capable of accurately tracking users as they move around a space. In the meantime the next challenge will be convincing media and tech companies to create lots of content to keep users entertained. “Virtual reality has been around for 20 years, and the one thing that has been consistent throughout this is that the technology is not mature enough,” says Brian Blau. “Today there’s the possibility for that to change, but it’s going to take a while for these app developers to get it right.”
(Score: 4, Interesting) by rts008 on Friday March 06 2015, @04:50AM
Imagine VR where you are playing something like Battlefield 'X', or Call of Duty 'X', etc.
You are running, dodging, crawling, crouched/duck-waliking, jumping and so forth.
How many gamers will have the physical and mental attributes to actually play more than the beginning, where most would say 'fsck this!' and find something less strenuous.
*Hint: For ex-military, think boot camp and AIT compressed into one day(with all of it's misery too), then add your worst nightmares, and then add in your hardest physical challenges rolled into one, then multiplied by 6-10.
If you are another combat veteran, then I don't have to explain anything to you. :-)
And to PAY to do this for fun. That's a very niche market.
I will be the first to admit that I find the concept of a 'Star Trek: TNG' holodeck too cool and awesome for words, I would doubt that I would use it for anything like the games I play.(maybe if I was 30-40 years younger!)
Sometimes dreams and fantasy are best left to the imagination, afterall the imagination can be a powerful tool.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Friday March 06 2015, @05:01AM
Imagine VR where you are playing something like Battlefield 'X', or Call of Duty 'X', etc.
You are running, dodging, crawling, crouched/duck-waliking, jumping and so forth.
How many gamers will have the physical and mental attributes to actually play more than the beginning, where most would say 'fsck this!' and find something less strenuous.
I think you would be surprised. i think some Gamers would actually get in shape by playing games if they switched over to being physically demanding. however, what would be required is a headset that doesn't trap heat and/or sweat.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Friday March 06 2015, @04:27PM
You may be right.
We can hope so, anyways.
As for myself, I'm old--have had a heart attack and a stroke, so my interest would be VR games using a controller while my worn out butt is parked.
I am also a combat vet, so the ultra-realistic combat has no real appeal to me...been there, done that;not pressing my luck any further. :-)
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday March 06 2015, @05:34AM
I'm just imagining a sniper fest where half the people are laying around. The other half are switching between walking and awkward shuffles depending on how tired they are.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 06 2015, @05:54AM
I'm imagining Leisure Suit Larry, which was originally pixellated and that was cool because that's what being drunk is like anyway.
Walking into a bar that smells like ass and cigarette smoke. Hearing a joke that you wouldn't get until buying the hint book explained stuffing a vagina full of ice-cream. Flatulent noises in the restroom. Stinky cabbies. Vegas-style marriages. All the stenches and background music. Trench-coat bums flashing. Buying prophylactics from the liquor store or dying mid-game.
I don't want fucking Second Life or Counterstrike on VR. I want Leisure-Suit Larry. And the first person that gets a convincing Leisure Suit Larry on VR is going to be a rich sonofabitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @05:43AM
Paintball with added PTSD tho
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @09:50AM
I assumed the idea is you still click your touchpad or whatever to go forwards, backwards, etc, but you can now "look around" by moving your head independent of your direction of movement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2015, @06:35AM
That will make you motion sick, which is parents point. When the brain does not get the same motion input from the eyes and the balance organs, the brain will trigger your built in anti poison vomiting.