As a pilot, I use VR with the XPlane flight simulator and it seriously feels like I'm in a real Cessna. True, the flight controls are a little off (for example, stalls and landings don't feel like a real plane), but other than that, everything is absolutely spot on.
It's a great way to scratch my aviation itch and is also great for practicing procedures, especially when paired with a live air traffic control network like PilotEdge. My brain seriously forgets that it's a simulation when I'm in it.
This could be a way to revolutionize flight training, and make it more accessible. The entire cost of my PC build including VR gear and software is a fraction of what real-life flight training costs.
Since the release of the original Oculus I’ve been curious about this. I fly for a living which is a very rewarding and satisfying way to earn a paycheck but it does come with some monotony and takes away some of the ‘fun’ that can really only be had from GA flying low and slow and taking in the scenery. I’m not able to afford an actual aircraft yet but I’m wondering if a good VR simulator set up could scratch that itch.
I guess it depends what kind of flying you do in the sim but do you find it still provides a fun factor? Like is it immersive enough to go fly around in the mountains? Or hop around some lakes in a seaplane? Is manipulating switches and buttons other than the primary controls cumbersome within VR? I remember the original ‘virtual cockpits’ in MS Flight Sim and planning around go find the right switches and buttons to click really took away from the experience.
I’m really interested in this idea but haven’t found a setup to try out and I’m hesitant to spend a bunch on it just to test it out.
You don't get any of the "seat of the pants" feeling of course, and the graphics, while super impressive, don't compare to real-life low and slow VFR flying (although hopefully MS Flight Sim 2020 changes that). It doesn't replace the real thing.
BUT I enjoy flying VFR in busy airspace with the PilotEdge network, and also IFR flying. For the communications and IFR flying, the mental tasks you do in the sim are identical to what you do for real. After an ILS approach to minimums in the sim, I feel like I got a workout. It definitely keeps my head in the game.
Sure, it's a scratch-built PC (i7 / 2070 Super) with an HP Reverb, which is a lightweight VR headset. I use a physical yoke (Honeycomb), rudder pedals (Thrustmaster), and throttle quandrant (Saitek), but everything else in the cockpit can be manipulated with the VR controllers that come with the headset.
You just interact with the cockpit as you normally would, pressing buttons, pulling levers, and twisting knobs.
In the virtual cockpit, there is a tablet app that displays all of your maps/charts/checklists/reference materials. Works pretty slick.
I find that playing a game in VR is like listing to music in 5.1: It requires a lot of physical space and setup, which then limits the audience to a dedicated niche.
The limitation, in this case, is being affluent enough to have a large empty indoor space to dedicate to VR so you don't bump into things as you walk around; and the desire to calibrate the thing correctly. It's like setting up a really good sound system to listen to music in 5.1; really fun if you like that kind of thing, but "meh" to most people who are happy with a smart speaker.
In my case, when I played a friend's VR setup, he had to have his entire living room completely empty and the system calibrated correctly. Even though his living room was rather large for a Boston-area apartment, it just wasn't large enough, and I kept bumping into a specific wall where his system was miscalibrated.
Such a system will never work in a typical tiny Tokyo, NYC, or Hong Kong apartment; but I could see it selling being a good niche in suburban areas where it's common to have large basements.
I think you have it exactly backwards. VR might not catch on as readily among affluent folks who can afford to have all these great experiences in real life, but will be a great escape for others (yes, I'm aware some will see that as dystopian, but to me it's just a better TV).
The Oculus Quest isn't like 5.1 sound at all. I kickstarted the original Oculus and would agree with your characterization there, but the Quest is entirely different. It's self contained, not needing to be tethered to a computer, and the boundary configuration is a snap. You do it from within the VR, observing your own room with its cameras, and just draw the boundary walls. Many games you can even do seated but "room scale" ones only need about 6ft x 6ft, which most people even in tiny apartments can put together.
I have an Oculus Quest. I like beat saber, but my office doesn't have enough room for it. The kids like Job/Vacation simulator, which sort of works seated, but is much better if you give it some room.
We have enough space if we move a table in the living room, but we have to do that every time we want to play. So to me it seems worse than the 5.1 setup, because you only have to do that once.
(Additionally, I don't want the lenses to get dusty, so I keep the Quest in a travel case -- so I have to remember to take it out of its case and charge it during the day if I plan to use it in the evening. The whole thing feels like a bunch of hassle)
Even if you're very affluent, VR can give you some experiences at much lower risk. E.g. flight simulators and racing simulators let you learn planes, cars, airports, tracks, etc. much more cost effectively and without the risk that missing the takeoff or missing a turn will end your life or career.
I don't know if they use VR, but all Formula 1 racing teams have simulators set up, not only for learning the cars and tracks, but also for working on car setups before the race weekends. Same with flight schools -- they're all throwing you in a simulator before the real deal. I can say from experience the crummy "simulator" I got as part of my $150 Groupon "flight experience" package paled in comparison to the realism of $300 worth of Oculus, a $100 joystick, and $100 worth of simulator software. Especially for helicopters, I'd say, you really need the sense of depth.
This is a great analogy. VR takes effort to set up and to get into and it's not as seamless as just launching a game on your computer.
I have a VR setup and I absolutely love VR gaming, and yet I'm sitting here on a Friday night on my desktop computer playing a 2D game because I can't be bothered to go and get my laptop (which is VR capable, where my desktop is not) and clear floor space and plug in my VR headset.
It's not just that it's a universal pursuit which currently has niche appeal. It's a niche pursuit. It's not just about floor space, it's about floor space in which you can relax into your VR space and know you're not going to be interrupted.
The only disagreement I have is the space argument. Once you have your "vr legs" and can stomach free locomotion, you basically never move your feet again and so "roomscale VR" shrinks down to a 1m x 3m window. That's about the space I have available in my office and these days it's generally sufficient for anything I want to play.
This. One of the many misconceptions people have is that you need a lot of space. No longer true with Quest. For those who have not experienced it, initial setup shows you the room you are in through the headset cam and you draw a boundary around the available space which can be as little as 2m x 2m. Then in use if you approach the edge of the space it gives you excellent visible cues (a wireframe wall around the play area) to show you are infringing on the boundary. It's very well implemented and makes playing in a small, non-dedicated VR space completely viable now.
Furthermore, it remembers setup for each space very accurately so setup is a one-time operation for each new space.
Can you project what you see on the headset only Oculus Quest to another screen? For example, if I am playing Beat Saber, can I project my view to TV so that family can watch? Or to a Chromecast/Alex/similar tech?
As someone that lives in a "small nyc apartment" I'd say the blanket statement around vr and small spaces doesn't hold.
There's potential for extremely immersive experiences even in the Vive's smallest play area. Right now, as I see it, the bigger barriers to VR adpoption are cost of equipment and social norms. Right now VR tends to be an isolating experience, and there aren't a lot of experiences that allow for VR and non VR people to interact, let alone have multiple participants in the same space.
I live in a tiny Cambridge apartment and I can set up a small play space just fine without external equipment (inside out tracking through Windows MR). Though I do agree, the activation energy of putting on a bulky headset does prevent me from getting into a game at the drop of a hat.
I own a PSVR, and even though that probably has the weakest software library, the most compelling VR experiences on that platform have all either been sitting or standing -- nothing that involves walking around (this may be due to the limits of the hardware, given that the headset must always face front).
I used to be a casual PC gamer, with a fairly good spec build. Then one day I played some VR games at a friend’s house on PSVR, which blew my mind - not only how much fun I had, but how much fun our non gamer friends had!
After that my wife and me got a second hand Vive for 350, and it’s been amazing. I never play regular games any more, and even she (who never played any games) now enjoys it a lot and plays with me from time to time.
All this is to say that I do think VR is here to stay, it just blows regular gaming out of the water... but it definitely is at its infancy - games look and feel the way PC games did 10 years ago..
The most accurate description that I've heard is that we're at the point where GUIs were in the 80s. The tech was just good enough for it and there were already several products on the market, but designers were still exploring the space and had not agreed on common metaphors yet. Which is exciting to witness, but shows that we're still squarely in the "early-adopter" phase of the curve.
(As for myself, I tried a friend's Oculus Quest extensively two weeks ago. Now I'm sitting at home, drawing up plans in Inkscape for how to rearrange my furniture to accommodate a room-scale VR area.)
VR-devices are good but still not good enough. New generations are much better than last that it completely ruins the experience with older hardware.
I tested VR-headset directed at professional use: VR-2 Pro https://varjo.com/products/vr-2-pro/
Now every VR headset directed at consumers feels like utter crap. PSVR and Vive experience is ruined.
If you are willing to cough up €5995, you get really blown away until something better comes along and there is still long way to go. Field of view is just 87 degrees for example.
The vive is so non casual though. I always felt like it was a big production to clear the space, launch steamvr, often wait for updates. Plus I’m moving around when I’d prefer to be relaxed on the couch.
On the other hand VR is amazing. I’ve since switched to the quest which helps with most of those issues I mentioned.
"Why we've never fallen in love with 3-d glasses" -fixed the title.
Science fiction predictions of the future are almost universally comically bad. People should know this by now; we completely lack positronic brains, warp drives, moon bases and tricorders. VR is a science fiction prediction of the future, just like positronic brains. The fact that people won't pay lots of money for a cheesy 3-d glasses experience as a proxy for science fiction VR shouldn't surprise anyone.
Not really. I can't just speak to communicator expecting it to understand me and only me in a fraction of a second and connect me to the right person. At least not without "ok google" or "alexa" or "hey siri".
Actually tricorders kinda exist, in that we have personal hand held computers with access to large databases of knowledge and a good number of environmental sensors.
We're just missing all of the sensors (and the accompanying data), but I imagine that's only a matter of time. We're already seeing the basics of biometrics being added in.
> A major issue is that the price of headsets has remained very expensive.
They mention it in passing in a later paragraph, but the cost of the headset is peanuts compared to the cost of a system that can provide a consistent, high-framerate, high-quality image. While cheaper options exist (Daydream/Gear VR, Oculus Quest, PSVR) they just don't have the quality or framerate to really send home the "future of gaming" VR has been sold as.
I'd argue we're still minimum three years away from seeing mass adoption of VR in the household/consumer market. With raytracing still being in its infancy and software optimizations for many-core CPUs just beginning, it'll still be some time before mid-level <$800 systems are capable of providing a good VR experience.
> they just don't have the quality or framerate to really send home the "future of gaming" VR has been sold as
Have you actually played with the Quest? I've had many people use mine, also people who used Vive or Rift before and nobody was disappointed with the quality of it. If realism and frame rate were the most important part of gaming, then Pokemon Go and Candy Crush wouldn't be as profitable as they are. The majority of people want simple, arcade style entertainment, not hyper realistic sagas that take hours to finish.
> The majority of people want [X current product] not [Y under active development].
I've lost count of the number of times people have used that template and turned out to be humerously wrong. My favourite is probably when people tried to use it for Japanese phones > iPhones then the next generation iPhone wiped the competition in Japan.
People want good entertainment more than they want their senses stimulated, but it seems very likely that good entertainment which stimulates the senses more effectively will have a massive market.
We're dealing with something where the output can be strictly better than video in a fairly meaningful way. It'll turn out people want that when someone makes a compelling and high quality game/app. Sure, nobody is going to move over just because the visuals are good; but there is artistic space in VR that hasn't been touched before and some of it is going to be amazing.
I suppose the short version is you are right but we've seen people say that before and it presaged massive changes.
Good VR isn't just about graphics quality. Mobile phone GPUs can deliver a high enough frame rate to deliver an immersive experience. The Oculus Quest is proof of that.
The only downside is that the graphical content has to be stylized. But in games, stylized looks can be a boon instead of a hindrance. A typical good gaming experience is extremely stylized and over the top, anyway (especially in these "realistic" militaristic FPS games).
This is he first time for me where an emergent new technology in the gaming world feels like a proper thing with actual potential, and not a just a novelty gimmick like motion controls, 3D and previous attempts at "VR" were. I had the chance to try the new Oculus Rift S and the HTC Vive over the holidays with some Beat Saber and Superhot and it was a really amazing experience. I have honestly never felt such awe for a game since my childhood days where I'd witness a brand new graphics engine like Source for the first time.
There is definitely a bright future for VR as the technology will only get better, cheaper and more accessible with time.
Yes, really, You are the exception. By now there is quite a few people who have tried VR in some place or another and the market has clearly shown sales are not skyrocketing at all. It's a very slow growth, we are talking about a few millions headsets per year, which is just pocket money market wise compared to smartphones or even PCs at large. Also, most of the software is utter crap (with a few exceptions like Beat Saber, Tetris Effect) and not convincing enough for anyone who cares about their spending.
The Altair 8080 is considered the first PC and it was released in 1974. The IBM PC was released in 1981 and PCs became widespread only in the 1990's, when they started adding multimedia features. So about 20 years for mass adoption.
The first touchscreen phone was introduced in 1994, the IBM Simon. Yet the first true modern smartphone to get mass adoption was the iPhone, 2007. And truly massive adoption worldwide happened after iOS and especially Android took off, a few years later.
VR has been around as a purely techie idea for 30 years but we haven't really had the tech for something worthwhile until recently. I'd say that we're probably 5-10 years from mass adoption, once we have some lighter high-performance headsets.
Obviously, we're still at very early stages with this tech. It's silly to compare it with smartphones and PCs, since it's a very different class of product. There are some barriers for entry but, as I said they will eventually get ironed out. The price of a full set with a fidelity grade matching the current high end sets shouldn't exceed the price of a games console in a few years.
There has definitely been a huge increase in interest with titles like Boneworks and the upcoming HL Alyx. The Valve index has been sold out almost instantly and there's reportedly a huge backlog of pre-orders for it.
there is no space for gaming to evolve at the moment without VR. The only thing that next generation consoles are bringing to the table is more advanced graphics. VR offers a truly innovative space for gaming to move into and whilst its not there yet in terms of hardware and software, I can see it being 'the future' as it were.
Sim racing, or for those unaware of it: basically racing games with realistic physics and usually a competitive online racing field, is incredible in VR.
The sense of speed and immersion with a good wheel and pedal setup in VR is unmatched by a monitor based setup. I tried it at a VR arcade and kept adding time to my session to keep playing.
I have a fairly nice and expensive sim racing setup at home right now, but my PC cant run any of the current sims in VR well enough for me to justify getting a headset. Between PC upgrades and headset im looking at $500+ in upgrades that I just haven't gotten around to doing, but you can bet its on my list
Same for flight simulations (I'm using X-Plane and DCS World [DCS World has much better VR, better overall X-Plane is more fun]) with VR headset. With VR headset, it crushes any other simulators I've used, as the immersion increases and it becomes much more natural.
VR simracing can be hit and miss i.e. rf2 looks amazing but is rough around the edges (Hungaroring in the wet in a GT3 car is amazing in VR) but assetto Corsa looks awful.
Don't bother with anything worse than an Index these days, the Vive is amazing in beat Sabre but awful if you want to read the dials.
My experience is quite the opposite, I think it looks excellent, and the only one which looks better in my experience is project cars 2 (but is inferior on every other aspect).
Sure, the text might be a bit blurry (like on every other game), and the dials look worse than desirable but driving at speed I think the immersion is unmatched.
I have a gtx 1080 and oculus rift s. I haven't tested yet ACC.
assetto corsa is great because of the modding community. there are some hybrid fantasy/real life maps that are amazing. You can have these great casual drives through "California" mountains that are inspired by real life. I had a blast playing it with a wheel setup
If you want a more realistic sim, iRacing is supposedly top dog, but it's subscription based.
Truly immersive VR experiences are great. The park I went to in Tokyo recently had some fun licensed ones:
+ A Shin Godzilla themed helicopter raid which required a customized "cockpit" to ride in with rumble capabilities,
+ A Dragon Quest free-roaming VR adventure which required a LOT of space to enable
+ A Mario Kart race which, again, required a customized "kart" to ride in which simulated the physics of every sharp turn I took.
The first and third attractions were about five minutes long each. I don't doubt that there was a lot of engineering effort required to even get to that much content nor the fact that I would likely grow very tired of having to play an extended version of each for, say, an hour or two.
I think for at least the time being, this is how VR is going to be adopted: As a theme park experience where short novelty experiences people want to have is made available with the space and props already provided to enjoy it.
Stuff like The Void[1], where a complete arena is built to supplement the visuals, with physical features that match the VR ones (like physical buttons on walls that match the VR projected ones, moving platforms), smells, wind, sounds, etc.
The future of this is going to be incredibly cool, I think. Just subtle stuff like blowing cold air on your face when you're standing on top of a VR mountain, will do wonders for the immersion.
While the graphics and sensor capabilities have undoubtedly come a very long way ...
I'm pretty sure I played a VR racing game in a similar sort of setup in the 80s! There were only ever a handful of games, and they were only found in a very few places, but foir my birthday one year when I was a kid I was taken to the Trocadero centre in London where they had a few of these machines. They weren't massively responsive but they were good fun and for the time they were amazing.
But given just how long VR tech has been around, I do wonder if it will ever be mainstream in any way.
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It's a great way to scratch my aviation itch and is also great for practicing procedures, especially when paired with a live air traffic control network like PilotEdge. My brain seriously forgets that it's a simulation when I'm in it.
This could be a way to revolutionize flight training, and make it more accessible. The entire cost of my PC build including VR gear and software is a fraction of what real-life flight training costs.
I guess it depends what kind of flying you do in the sim but do you find it still provides a fun factor? Like is it immersive enough to go fly around in the mountains? Or hop around some lakes in a seaplane? Is manipulating switches and buttons other than the primary controls cumbersome within VR? I remember the original ‘virtual cockpits’ in MS Flight Sim and planning around go find the right switches and buttons to click really took away from the experience.
I’m really interested in this idea but haven’t found a setup to try out and I’m hesitant to spend a bunch on it just to test it out.
BUT I enjoy flying VFR in busy airspace with the PilotEdge network, and also IFR flying. For the communications and IFR flying, the mental tasks you do in the sim are identical to what you do for real. After an ILS approach to minimums in the sim, I feel like I got a workout. It definitely keeps my head in the game.
The controls become second nature very quickly.
You just interact with the cockpit as you normally would, pressing buttons, pulling levers, and twisting knobs.
In the virtual cockpit, there is a tablet app that displays all of your maps/charts/checklists/reference materials. Works pretty slick.
The limitation, in this case, is being affluent enough to have a large empty indoor space to dedicate to VR so you don't bump into things as you walk around; and the desire to calibrate the thing correctly. It's like setting up a really good sound system to listen to music in 5.1; really fun if you like that kind of thing, but "meh" to most people who are happy with a smart speaker.
In my case, when I played a friend's VR setup, he had to have his entire living room completely empty and the system calibrated correctly. Even though his living room was rather large for a Boston-area apartment, it just wasn't large enough, and I kept bumping into a specific wall where his system was miscalibrated.
Such a system will never work in a typical tiny Tokyo, NYC, or Hong Kong apartment; but I could see it selling being a good niche in suburban areas where it's common to have large basements.
The Oculus Quest isn't like 5.1 sound at all. I kickstarted the original Oculus and would agree with your characterization there, but the Quest is entirely different. It's self contained, not needing to be tethered to a computer, and the boundary configuration is a snap. You do it from within the VR, observing your own room with its cameras, and just draw the boundary walls. Many games you can even do seated but "room scale" ones only need about 6ft x 6ft, which most people even in tiny apartments can put together.
We have enough space if we move a table in the living room, but we have to do that every time we want to play. So to me it seems worse than the 5.1 setup, because you only have to do that once.
(Additionally, I don't want the lenses to get dusty, so I keep the Quest in a travel case -- so I have to remember to take it out of its case and charge it during the day if I plan to use it in the evening. The whole thing feels like a bunch of hassle)
I don't know if they use VR, but all Formula 1 racing teams have simulators set up, not only for learning the cars and tracks, but also for working on car setups before the race weekends. Same with flight schools -- they're all throwing you in a simulator before the real deal. I can say from experience the crummy "simulator" I got as part of my $150 Groupon "flight experience" package paled in comparison to the realism of $300 worth of Oculus, a $100 joystick, and $100 worth of simulator software. Especially for helicopters, I'd say, you really need the sense of depth.
Heck, even the most physically immersive VR game out right now (Boneworks) encourages sitting play-- so maybe the huge open area isn't that necessary.
However, my definition of "tiny" might not compare against your definition of "tiny" well.
I have a VR setup and I absolutely love VR gaming, and yet I'm sitting here on a Friday night on my desktop computer playing a 2D game because I can't be bothered to go and get my laptop (which is VR capable, where my desktop is not) and clear floor space and plug in my VR headset.
It's not just that it's a universal pursuit which currently has niche appeal. It's a niche pursuit. It's not just about floor space, it's about floor space in which you can relax into your VR space and know you're not going to be interrupted.
The only disagreement I have is the space argument. Once you have your "vr legs" and can stomach free locomotion, you basically never move your feet again and so "roomscale VR" shrinks down to a 1m x 3m window. That's about the space I have available in my office and these days it's generally sufficient for anything I want to play.
Furthermore, it remembers setup for each space very accurately so setup is a one-time operation for each new space.
There's potential for extremely immersive experiences even in the Vive's smallest play area. Right now, as I see it, the bigger barriers to VR adpoption are cost of equipment and social norms. Right now VR tends to be an isolating experience, and there aren't a lot of experiences that allow for VR and non VR people to interact, let alone have multiple participants in the same space.
After that my wife and me got a second hand Vive for 350, and it’s been amazing. I never play regular games any more, and even she (who never played any games) now enjoys it a lot and plays with me from time to time.
All this is to say that I do think VR is here to stay, it just blows regular gaming out of the water... but it definitely is at its infancy - games look and feel the way PC games did 10 years ago..
(As for myself, I tried a friend's Oculus Quest extensively two weeks ago. Now I'm sitting at home, drawing up plans in Inkscape for how to rearrange my furniture to accommodate a room-scale VR area.)
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I tested VR-headset directed at professional use: VR-2 Pro https://varjo.com/products/vr-2-pro/ Now every VR headset directed at consumers feels like utter crap. PSVR and Vive experience is ruined.
If you are willing to cough up €5995, you get really blown away until something better comes along and there is still long way to go. Field of view is just 87 degrees for example.
On the other hand VR is amazing. I’ve since switched to the quest which helps with most of those issues I mentioned.
For some people, this is a good thing.
The difference is incredible, and even cellphone VR was pretty cool.
I think most people haven't tried PC gaming and are stuck with cheap VR knockoffs.
Science fiction predictions of the future are almost universally comically bad. People should know this by now; we completely lack positronic brains, warp drives, moon bases and tricorders. VR is a science fiction prediction of the future, just like positronic brains. The fact that people won't pay lots of money for a cheesy 3-d glasses experience as a proxy for science fiction VR shouldn't surprise anyone.
They mention it in passing in a later paragraph, but the cost of the headset is peanuts compared to the cost of a system that can provide a consistent, high-framerate, high-quality image. While cheaper options exist (Daydream/Gear VR, Oculus Quest, PSVR) they just don't have the quality or framerate to really send home the "future of gaming" VR has been sold as.
I'd argue we're still minimum three years away from seeing mass adoption of VR in the household/consumer market. With raytracing still being in its infancy and software optimizations for many-core CPUs just beginning, it'll still be some time before mid-level <$800 systems are capable of providing a good VR experience.
Have you actually played with the Quest? I've had many people use mine, also people who used Vive or Rift before and nobody was disappointed with the quality of it. If realism and frame rate were the most important part of gaming, then Pokemon Go and Candy Crush wouldn't be as profitable as they are. The majority of people want simple, arcade style entertainment, not hyper realistic sagas that take hours to finish.
I've lost count of the number of times people have used that template and turned out to be humerously wrong. My favourite is probably when people tried to use it for Japanese phones > iPhones then the next generation iPhone wiped the competition in Japan.
People want good entertainment more than they want their senses stimulated, but it seems very likely that good entertainment which stimulates the senses more effectively will have a massive market.
We're dealing with something where the output can be strictly better than video in a fairly meaningful way. It'll turn out people want that when someone makes a compelling and high quality game/app. Sure, nobody is going to move over just because the visuals are good; but there is artistic space in VR that hasn't been touched before and some of it is going to be amazing.
I suppose the short version is you are right but we've seen people say that before and it presaged massive changes.
Dead Comment
The only downside is that the graphical content has to be stylized. But in games, stylized looks can be a boon instead of a hindrance. A typical good gaming experience is extremely stylized and over the top, anyway (especially in these "realistic" militaristic FPS games).
This is he first time for me where an emergent new technology in the gaming world feels like a proper thing with actual potential, and not a just a novelty gimmick like motion controls, 3D and previous attempts at "VR" were. I had the chance to try the new Oculus Rift S and the HTC Vive over the holidays with some Beat Saber and Superhot and it was a really amazing experience. I have honestly never felt such awe for a game since my childhood days where I'd witness a brand new graphics engine like Source for the first time.
There is definitely a bright future for VR as the technology will only get better, cheaper and more accessible with time.
Yes, really, You are the exception. By now there is quite a few people who have tried VR in some place or another and the market has clearly shown sales are not skyrocketing at all. It's a very slow growth, we are talking about a few millions headsets per year, which is just pocket money market wise compared to smartphones or even PCs at large. Also, most of the software is utter crap (with a few exceptions like Beat Saber, Tetris Effect) and not convincing enough for anyone who cares about their spending.
The first touchscreen phone was introduced in 1994, the IBM Simon. Yet the first true modern smartphone to get mass adoption was the iPhone, 2007. And truly massive adoption worldwide happened after iOS and especially Android took off, a few years later.
VR has been around as a purely techie idea for 30 years but we haven't really had the tech for something worthwhile until recently. I'd say that we're probably 5-10 years from mass adoption, once we have some lighter high-performance headsets.
There has definitely been a huge increase in interest with titles like Boneworks and the upcoming HL Alyx. The Valve index has been sold out almost instantly and there's reportedly a huge backlog of pre-orders for it.
The sense of speed and immersion with a good wheel and pedal setup in VR is unmatched by a monitor based setup. I tried it at a VR arcade and kept adding time to my session to keep playing.
I have a fairly nice and expensive sim racing setup at home right now, but my PC cant run any of the current sims in VR well enough for me to justify getting a headset. Between PC upgrades and headset im looking at $500+ in upgrades that I just haven't gotten around to doing, but you can bet its on my list
Don't bother with anything worse than an Index these days, the Vive is amazing in beat Sabre but awful if you want to read the dials.
Sure, the text might be a bit blurry (like on every other game), and the dials look worse than desirable but driving at speed I think the immersion is unmatched.
I have a gtx 1080 and oculus rift s. I haven't tested yet ACC.
If you want a more realistic sim, iRacing is supposedly top dog, but it's subscription based.
+ A Shin Godzilla themed helicopter raid which required a customized "cockpit" to ride in with rumble capabilities, + A Dragon Quest free-roaming VR adventure which required a LOT of space to enable + A Mario Kart race which, again, required a customized "kart" to ride in which simulated the physics of every sharp turn I took.
The first and third attractions were about five minutes long each. I don't doubt that there was a lot of engineering effort required to even get to that much content nor the fact that I would likely grow very tired of having to play an extended version of each for, say, an hour or two.
I think for at least the time being, this is how VR is going to be adopted: As a theme park experience where short novelty experiences people want to have is made available with the space and props already provided to enjoy it.
Stuff like The Void[1], where a complete arena is built to supplement the visuals, with physical features that match the VR ones (like physical buttons on walls that match the VR projected ones, moving platforms), smells, wind, sounds, etc.
The future of this is going to be incredibly cool, I think. Just subtle stuff like blowing cold air on your face when you're standing on top of a VR mountain, will do wonders for the immersion.
[1] https://www.thevoid.com/
I'm pretty sure I played a VR racing game in a similar sort of setup in the 80s! There were only ever a handful of games, and they were only found in a very few places, but foir my birthday one year when I was a kid I was taken to the Trocadero centre in London where they had a few of these machines. They weren't massively responsive but they were good fun and for the time they were amazing.
But given just how long VR tech has been around, I do wonder if it will ever be mainstream in any way.