Games

I got a quest 2 a few years back, and it blew my mind. We ended up getting my wife her own so we could play together. Now, my daughter plays a lot of gorilla tag, but other than that, they collect dust.

For me, the biggest thing that prevents me from using it more, is the isolation. You need to find an empty space and remove yourself completely from the world.

On my phone or Xbox, I still know what's going on around me, and I can hop in, play for a bit, and still know what's going on in my house. I can walk away for a moment and get back to what I was doing. In VR, it feels like more of an investment. If I'm not sure that I have plenty of time to disengage from reality, I'm not going to bother putting on the headset.

Also, I'm a sweater, and a soggy, foggy headset is just eww.

This is why there hasn't been a refresh on the Valve Index: not enough interest, not enough games. Half Life Alyx is still one of the few major games with any depth to them in the market, and you can't access it easily outside of the Steam ecosystem. In other words, it's unavailable for a lot of VR headsets. They aren't going to dump more resources into more VR games if people aren't buying the headsets or the games.

Steam Deck on the other hand? Huuuuuuge market, people want that shit.

I imagine the insane price to entry is a big thing.

I had some disposable cash so I went with the index, I love it don't get me wrong but, 1k is super fucking steep for an enjoyable system, and that's ontop of the requirement they do it right when they make a game, many of them take vr as a minority and you can tell when a game puts it on the side burner

It needs to either become a generic commodity like a TV, or it will die.

We can't have this fragmented system. Imagine if you needed a Sony TV for PS, one for Xbox, one for PC, a standalone one that could run it's own exclusive content...

It's good tech, and the immersion is unparalleled, but greedy company are going to burn it to the ground it so they can rule the ashes.

It's fucking madness that you can't even use it to watch 3D movies on Netflix etc. There needs to be a generic box that accepts USB or HDMI input from all devices so you can at least use it for things other than gaming, even if it just puts it all in a big virtual screen.

Half Life Alyx is like if we got Super Mario 64, and then four years later the games influenced by it just didn't come.

I think it would take off if Facebook wasn't involved

I blame Meta. My Oculus Rift CV1 was working great until some random software update and now for some reason it won't read my sensors as being connected via USB3.0 cable despite them being so, instantly rendering my expensive VR device a giant paper weight.

I'm still salty about Oculus starting out crowdfunded then selling to Facebook. What a fucking betrayal.

It's only that way because developers don't seem to be, you know... Developing shit for it.

Like, I love a lot of what's available and the tech itself is great; but there is no killer app. There is next to nothing but novelty bullshit being made. Even if Meta wasn't the one with the cheapest headset, people wouldn't necessarily be buying into VR because there's not really much to do with it yet.

One Half-Life game, a chatroom, and a bitching rythym game isn't enough.

Sony gave up on the VR2 before it was even released. No promotion, hard to even find the games in the store, no free VR games in PS+, barely any investment in developers and exclusives. I don't understand why anyone would expect a better outcome.

I think that the biggest problem is the lack of investment and willingness to take on risk. Every company just seems to want a quick cash grab "killer app" but doesn't want to sink in the years of development of practical things that aren't as flashy but solve real-world problems. Because that's hard and isn't likely to make the line go up every quarter.

people choose consoles over pcs for comfort

people choose pc for its capabilities (and for some, a different kind of comfort)

people choose vr for the experience only - and it can get old quite quickly because the market is too small - not enough 'content'

I bought a second generation of Rift (no idea what model it was, but it was the second retail one, not including the CV1 or whatever dev build it was) - and it was fantastic. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

The moment they forced the use of a Facebook account, it stopped getting used. The visor, controllers, and sensors have been sat in a cupboard for a year or two.

I really should see if it has been jailbroken, or if there's a way to utilise the Rift features without any Meta bollocks.

I've long been skeptical about VR as a mainstream platform. I think the technology is quite cool, but much like those people who used to say "In ten years everyone will have a 3D printer!" and the like, no, I just don't see it happening. The hassle factor is too great for it to be for everyone. Hell, most people seem to be fine with stereo sound, even though surround sound setups have been available for decades.

Whether it's space, cost, or lack of software support, it all seems to combine to make it a bit of hobbyist kit at best. If your goal is to sell millions of copies then you need to target a broader market than hobbyists, and it looks like a lot of companies have ploughed enough cash into this that hobbyist sales aren't going to be enough.

There's just too many edge cases in VR for it to be a real platform. Movement is hard, there needs to be a lot of space around a person, form factors aren't great for the hardware, there's more graphical requirements, etc.

I imagine when you treat VIRTUAL REALITY BEING REAL NOW as a fad, develop like two or three games for it, then never do anything with it again.. yeah I imagine the market would decline...

Let’s be honest, any manufacturers/developers willing to embrace porn will successful. Everyone else is just picking gnat shit out of pepper, hoping it’ll turn to gold.

I personally don't feel like spending 700 or how many euros to play beat saber on my ps5.

Other games that might be awesome in this is ones were you don't need to move around but benefit from being able to look around, so flight sims, driving sims, but there the chair setups are better imo.

Can't really think of much else, that's why VR is on the decline, really limited number of fun games to be had, or it would require some paradigm shift, like a strategy game but you are playing on the inside of a globe, but then that game would have to survive on being a VR exclusive.

Wearing a headset isn't appealing to me. I'd rather get a curved screen or more screens to be more immersed.

I mean the hype has died down but I think it's rather that VR is too expensive right now. I want VR but I don't want it $500 much to get a novelty item.

I think using it as a big ass screen would be nice and I really want to Serious Sam and Subnautica on VR. The immersion is really good for VR and I've liked it a lot every time I've played it.

Still, you need a decent space in the living room. A good graphics card for the frame rate and the expensive headset and motion trackers to get the full experience. That's a lot to ask for with the current economy.

Anybody that says vr is a gimmick haven't tried a vr racing rig. Not only the fun factor but I'm definitely a better driver now for it.

My flight sim would say otherwise if it had a mouth. Also if it had a mouth..... Uhhhhh.... It might be another kind of sim.....

I use it for sim racing sometimes and it's amazing to feel like I'm in an F1 car or something. Until I get nauseous after 15 minutes or something. It's also a bit of a hassle to set up. That being said, maybe it would be cooler if I got into beat saber or something.

Was it over hyped? Maybe. But it's still a cool technology and I'd be sad to see it fall into nothingness. I don't see a future where everyone is wearing VR glasses, but it's still a very neat thing to enjoy every now and then.