How do you think the Virtual Reality sales will do now its about to hit market?
quad damage
How do you think the Virtual Reality sales will do now its about to hit market?
Looks like Samsung is the first on the market ($99)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/samsung-gear-vr-pre-orders-open-99-virtual-reality-headset-goes-on-sale-at-best-buy-a6728846.html
Looks like Samsung is the first on the market ($99)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/samsung-gear-vr-pre-orders-open-99-virtual-reality-headset-goes-on-sale-at-best-buy-a6728846.html
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There's been hardly any actual market research. There was one good kickstarter, then everyone jumped on board.... So I dunno... I`ll fully admit if I turn out to be wrong, but for now, I just don't see it.
I'm sure Facebook did market research before buying Occulus. They could have come to the wrong conclusion, but there's no way they went in uneducated.
I'm pretty sure VR will establish a niche with hardcore gamers and for various training applications. Whether it's successful beyond that mostly comes down to whether people find social vr compelling. If you can provide a simulation of sitting in a room hanging out with people that feels significantly closer to the real thing that a Skype call does there will be a very broad market.
there's also the input problem waiting to be solved i suppose. walking around your living room with a headset on or moving by hand gestures does not seem like it will fit the bill for games nor the majority of general use cases. well, it will be figured out in time.
trying on the rift was quite the epiphany for me. first thing that really advances the PC market since hardware accelerated 3D. not comparable to some weak gimmick like 3d glasses for TV. all IMO, of course.
i think any AR tech will have to follow sometime later, can't imagine these to be any good in their first iterations.
Keep in mind the people/companies that have been seeing VR as the future:
John Carmack/Occulus
Facebook
Tim Sweeney/Epic
Microsoft
Sony
Google
Samsung
Disney
These arent people/companies that are making a short term investment and rushing it to market ala 3D films.
All the companies involved, Sony/Facebook/Samsung/etc are just trying to prove that there is a market for a new type of experience which is the goal of these first wave of products. They're not trying to hit market saturation or see sold out shelves. If all the first wave player sell 1 or 2 million of their respective units that proves enough of a point for everyone else waiting in the wings to hop on board and really start getting people involved in VR en mass.
Having said that, could it still fail. Yeah sure. But writing it off as a fad is a little short sighted IMO.
I'm fully expecting for a few years the novelty alone will carry it before people start asking for more quality experiences.
I'd highly recommend anyone here at least try google cardboard and some of the cool stuff like Squarepushers VR thing. There's als oa cool thing called TrinusVR that lets you use google cardboard with your games, that combined with Tridef3D is pretty amazing. But unfortunately you need a recent nvidia graphics card for it to work at it's best so you can use their streaming tech. So i couldn't use it much effectively personally, but everyone else likes it a lot.
I hear there's a shift from the TrinusVR people to focus on the samsung tech cause apparently that doesn't have the drifting issues cardboard has. So i may actually end up getting that when I buy a new card.
It probably would have done better if the tech had been ready when the hype was reaching critical mass about 2 years ago, and Occulus was the only game in town. Now though there's no clear industry leader, and no significant exclusive games to excite people either.
The potential for VR is limitless. Theres already been talks about NFL coaches using vr to train players, surgeons using vr to remotely operate, front row seats to your favourite sporting events, etc. It's beyond gaming really.. also at the end of the day I think it will be great for our field, they'll be a lot more opportunities!
It could be good within the indie community, but for the most part, It's hard to imagine AAA going full force into it when not everyone has one. It's the same reason AAA didnt give a rats ass about kinect / ps move. They were a gimmick. Yes, certain people will/do love VR. But the masses? I dunno. To be determined.
What version? Both hardware improvements and a better understanding of best practices for software developers have done a lot to limit the issues with motion sickness.
i suspect there will be swift progress on both fronts once this thing is really on sale. for one too many designers still thinking traditional IMO. also i expect wearers of glasses will be able to obtain custom visor lenses to match their eyesight at some point. like you can for sports glasses, for example.
and we need better controllers - or better ways to get more out of the existing hardware to allow more finely tuned controls. using something like an xbox pad in the current state is just awful in my experience. personally for now i am developing with a thrustmaster joystick that delivers much smoother movement which can ramp up and down very well and feels a lot more natural to me. would be interested to try a 3dconnexion device for this, too. bit expensive for a mere test on indie budget though.
I mean we still have the navigation problem.
There's all kinds of amazing applications we COULD use it for, but the kind of money being sunk into it, doesn't lend itself to creativity.
However good it has become, it definitely needs games that are designed from the ground up to work for it directly. IE I actually still prefered having mouse movement for almost 100% of the aiming and direction, because having to twist my head up and down basically completely vertically while sitting in a chair for hours made me feel like I was going to snap my neck.
I could see it working well with the various standing/walking treadmill-like input controllers being developed, but those are kind of a no go for someone who lives in a studio apartment.
But im biased as i like more the aspect of gaming with people in my house etc.
For sales, I had a personal goal of 500 sales which I thought I might make as a indie first time developer with a paid app, I've almost doubled that goal and been happy with sales I'm getting.
There's a lot of people paying attention to VR and it's fun to develop but how sales are going to be is another question. It's a matter of numbers and people who have PCs that can handle the high end VR and willing to strap a plastic box to their face.
Google Cardboard as a indie developer is a interesting place to be right now.
NFL coaching/training: http://fortune.com/2015/08/10/strivr-virtual-reality-nfl/
Surgery training: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dont-have-a-real-cadaver-to-practice-surgery-on-try-virtual-reality
On a side note, I just finished the game trailer for End Space VR. If you are interested:
Hope to make a 360 video of it soon to.
oh noes - now we're doomed!
@thomasp When I first did the Vive demo loop I was sweating buckets (it was a good 15-20 min) and the lenses didn't fog up at all.
or is there perhaps any lens treatment they may have done on that device that can be that effective? the standard DK1 certainly fogs up really quickly.
I don't have access to any higher end HMDs, I'm just one guy with a cellphone, laptop, and a cardboard box
I'd like to try out a GearVR, maybe I will try and pick one up. But not sure if there's a demand for my game when I have to compete with all the bigger game companies for it. Eve Gunjack looks to have the space shooter world pretty well wrapped to me. But I have lots of ideas I want to implement to improve on it.