I used to consider myself a pretty good judge of technological revolutions, and whether or not something was destined to change life as we knew it, or fizzle and die as a footnote in fad history. I had many a long argument with friends and strangers on the evolution of social media platforms regarding whether or not something would 'make it' or not. For example, I:
- Judged that the winner of the digital disk format wars would be Blu-Ray, rather than HD-DVD, while following the news of which major companies pulled out or backed what. The decision for Sony to bung a Blu-Ray player in the PS3 was a death knell.
- Determined that the humble mp3 player would be yuge, while urging people to keep their eyes peeled for music being able to be played on their phones.
- Told people that, yes, the smart phone would be what people would be getting from now on, and the Apple iPhone was just the beginning.
- Defended touch-screen tablets as being useful, and that they would slot neatly between the desktop PC and the smart phone, and that we would soon see dockable keyboards or hybrid tablets with the power of the laptop.
- That Sony would not dominate the handheld market with the PSP.
- That everyone who replaced all their DVDs with Blu-Rays were wasting their money, because everything would be digital before long anyway.
- That the DSLR market would be dominated and likely even surpassed by the growing MILC, M4/3, and even Advanced Compact markets.
There might be others, but those are the ones I remember.
I considered VR to be a fad. Following a number of tech blogs, reading the level of public interest, it seemed to be that - based on the tech demos - it wasn't something that we would see as prevalently as consoles were, or tablets, or smart phones. It would be a unique thing, mostly the domain of enthusiasts, but would never dominate the landscape and thoroughly as expected.
It seems, however, that my track record has been ended.
I was at a mate's place with a couple of other friends. I'd had a beer and some fucking delicious home-made sliders, and found myself sitting in an office chair, with a contraption strapped over my head - a couple of low-quality screens pressed up against my eyes. The game was Playstation Worlds - a small collection of mini-games - I was smashing a floating ball with the controller in the main menu, and I felt totally immersed.
Ze goggles! Zey do everytink!
The game - Playstation VR Worlds - contains a small number of immersive games, including a rail-shooter like game, a deep-sea adventure, shooting ranges, and a Tron-like tennis game.
Every little detail fascinated me. The way the Playstation controller was visible in my virtual space, but not just visible - actually responding to my movements in the real world in a way that totally matched my sense of proprioception between the real and virtual worlds. The way the ball you could hit responded so flawlessly. The way my brain was so quickly absorbed and fooled, that I would forget that my feet, which went to kick the ball on numerous occasions, weren't able to make any contact.
I tried to find a decent image of the balls, but came up empty. This is the best I can do.
As I went to different parts of the menu, the ball took different forms - a ball of water you could splash and dip your head into, a rocky D-class planet that gathered miniature asteroids around it, which you could gently brush about, and more. Curious point about the immersion here - on a couple of occasions, I even felt convinced that the small asteroid particles that were so close to my face could be breathed in, and I nearly felt like I was about to, engaging in a physical reaction to pull away and prevent myself from breathing particles in.
I must have spent a good five minutes just playing around in the menu. One of my friends, I can't remember who, commented on it, but the other, who owned the rig, said "To his credit, everyone does that." I'm not surprised.
Into the game itself, though - I first played a series of shooting galleries. They involved you using the Playstation wands to pick up a hand gun in one hand, load clips in another, and shoot targets. I missed the start of the game because I was so busy marvelling at the quality in the virtual hands and the gun itself, and just how fluid and responsive the whole thing was. When I actually started the game proper, despite the occasional glitches, I found myself trying to hold the gun in the stance I was trained to each time I visited the indoor range, but kept realising I couldn't do that with the device I held.
The desk and gun in question. Like every good virtual reality setting, I looked at my VR hands and said "... whoa.."
The actions of reaching out and picking up each new clip and loading it into the gun seemed as fluid as you could expect, and even though there was a lack of tactile specificity, my brain found itself being tricked into accepting it in a way that no mouse and keyboard could match. I even went to put my controller down on the virtual table, only remembering at the last moment that there wasn't anything there.
The Tron-like, Pong-like minigame. The key to winning is adding spin!
The rail-shooter game where you shoot bad guys with a finite amount of ammo, while being shouted at by Vinnie Jones
Watching my mate, Shaun, playing the VR mission in Star Wars: Battlefront can't possibly prepare you for what you see when you get into that X-Wing, either. On screen, it looks okay, I guess, but with the VR headset, everything looks like you're really there. The sense of 3D space around you. The level of detail etched into the cockpit. And when you look down, you see a body that isn't yours, positioned automatically in the seat as if it is your own body. And that's only the start - once you're flying around, the bodies of giant ships roaring around you, the crackle of lightning as your ship takes damage, even the shifting glow that moves through the cockpit as lasers fire around you - is utterly awesome, in the original definition of the word.
This honestly doesn't even start to do the cockpit justice. Everything is so valid within the 3D virtual space that you feel like you can touch it.
It does come with its shortcomings, though; the resolution could be improved a bit, as could the comfort. It's a bit hard to find yourself lost in a world when you've got a pinching sensation above your eyes. Also annoying was the cabling, which frequently got in the way, even seated. A move towards a wireless option might be the ticket, but I don't know enough about the technology to know if the signal could be done wirelessly without losing quality.
Honestly, though, were they to sort these things out, I could quite happily find myself lost in Elder Scrolls: VR, or Grand Theft Auto: VR. I might take up flight sims, which could would make great use of the technology, or even in some of the 'walking sims' like The Stanley Parable, or Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist.
Ask a lot of my friends who have known me for a while, and some might tell you that I'm stubborn, and not prone to admitting when I'm wrong. I certainly can be wrong on things, and in this case, I couldn't be happier.
I haven't tried it out yet, really. I want to. Even own one of my own, but prices are too hefty, I can't afford spending money like that for games. If I did have the cash, for sure, I would buy a set.
Amazing review mate. Did well explaining it, you're like VR yourself, you can immerse your readers into the article. I also like the funny comments. Cheers!
Thanks! I was always taught to 'write what you know.' Fortunately, I've got more to write about than 'waking up at 2pm and watching Netflix all day.'
Its a whole new world we are coming into, many exciting technologies like this. i love how youve written about VR i so agree resolution needs to improve, from what ive heard a fair bit of money has been put into it so we should see some great VR sets and games soon.
Go to a local VR meetup or find a local VR headset booth at an electronics store etc, i was disapointed at hopw few VR headset testing booths there are at my local mall, 0, and very few mals ahve em because they claim noone wants to use them...i believe that people wont be able to get ENOUGH of it once the games get bettr andpeople learn tro make some extremely fun multiplayer AR games where you can walk around real life and play others wearing augmented reality holo lense type helmets where you can see treal world AND proejcted augmented reality ovrlayed ontop it
I think there's none here too.
That would be very awesome. Imagine Yugi-OH or Pokemon battles!
great post @nerdfury ... I´ve worked as a musician for over 6 years, then got into postproduction audiovisuals , also sound and music for videogames and for the last 2 years learning VR production on my own... Recently joined Steemit and plan to post quality content in VR. Very glad to see that you are serious about the content also. Will be following you... wish you the best in the journey
Following as well, curious to see what you come up with! Gotta wonder how VR could be married into music production somehow - conducting a virtual symphony? Minority Report-style manipulation of notes on a VR Logic Pro? Virtual instruments that can be played reasonably enough to mimic real recording?
yes you should download the Unity program to learn video game design but u need a supr fast compuer to run it and make goopd games, but u can use golem to render amazing cut scenes without a pixar render farm, and you can do SO much on your own!
some amazng vieogames were made by one person before....and vieogames are amazing things to create and very fun to ork on when youre modeling characters and designing levels and when you have a team to do all the tedious boring stuff, it can become quite the adventure, more amzing that making a movie and you get to tell a story thats interactuive and with VR it makes it even more important to make it high quality
look at the new zelda game, zelda should be used as a template to show what is possible software wise...
it doesnt have to have the best graohics it can be low polygon but still high quality and vry artisticly done
imagine a videogame played ovr the steem blockchain, we copuld start with simple 2d games like poker or blackjack or ches or go, played with images in the comments of a post wherethe acount is a bot that awards the winners by scanning the iages seeing what moves were made etc, like how i played chess with my frind @tylersr and we can also make MMORPGs where you can earn steem for quests etc or even have a MUDD steemit RPG game
Welcome aboard, Luis. I've followed you, as I'd like to hear more detail on VR content production.
Nice post man. I have only had small tastes of VR so far but I can see how it's probably the next big step in video game immersion.
I think Half Life 3 is waiting untill VR is ready to handle it. -that's my prediction!
I don't think HL3 is going to get made until Valve releases the rights and someone else does it. I've read that Gaben himself never really liked the franchise. That said, HL3 or any other quality FPS would be amazing in VR. Check out my review of Shadow Warror if you like - it'd be perfect for a loose, crazy VR experience. https://steemit.com/videogames/@nerdfury/far-from-the-pulse-game-review-shadow-warrior-2013-finally-a-game-i-love
Following, Vote up, and RESTEEMED. Love Team Australia. Cheers Mate.
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STOPGreat article! Does any one think it could be a profitable market to invest in? if so who are your bets on the big players being?
Simply great! I like your description of your journey with VR. Last year i said: "Now is the time where everyone will jump on the bandwagon and also will bring his Xmas experience to his company to initiate some crazy projects!" And partly it happened because Sony did a great job although they don't have the best tech they have a great lineup of big game studios and that matters a lot, really great content, content, content! I had my doubts and decided to wait.
Your experience is encouraging for next Xmas. Thank you! I'm curious of games like Battlezone, Tumper, Bound, Batman Demo, Rez Infinite, Job Simulator, Playroom VR. I'll avoid any horror shocking games because i wanna sleep quietly and wanna share it with my kids ;)
animation from giphy.com
I honestly wasn't even aware that there were so many games out. Every YouTube channel I follow that does VR seems to mostly do tech demos, so I assumed that that was all there was. Sony getting this on their consoles will do for VR what they did for Blu-Ray.
i think i follow a link now for a year where they update all the confirmed games. Now we are at number 278!. That's amazing, as that started it was far below 100 and last time i looked at they were just somewhere over 100. Sony had something great accomplished vor mainstream adoption.
This is a great post - top quality content. I just resteemed it. I think you may be right about VR. You sure know much more about these matters that I do but in the 1990s I blasted away a few VR aliens in my socked feet in the first (I recall - or one of the first) VR CAVES in the UK. The headsets were much heavier back then.
Thanks, glad you liked! I remember some of the older polygonal VR games, as well as the ill-fated Virtual-Boy system. I don't think any of those had any impact on my thoughts on VR, though. I grew up in a sleepy town without any of that big city stuff, so I think I might have got five minutes in one.
valuable!
I can't wait to see how this tech will be used 10 years from now!!! the current VR is awesome, but I can only imagine how it will be when it's more widely adopted.
VR blew me away the first time that I indulged. It is certainly going to change the way we play games...and I completely agree on your assessment of the X-Wing experience. For their first real kick at it it sure impressed me. Can't wait for the next round of games and upgrades to hit.
I can't wait to see where they take it next. Personally, more manual manipulation of the cockpit would be great. Also a very exciting future for flight sims, I think.
Virtual Reality (VR) have been there for long time, that is why I think it will continue to grow and change a couple of industries mainly video games, before VR equipment was to costly , VR games machines ( also called simulator) were only available at Arcade rooms, but now are now small size and with the more power per square inch, also more available sensors ,so soon better grafics and more interactions will be possible, and finally if you look the 3 top companies that have products of this type
Google
Facebook
Microsoft
you will see why I think it will be the near future if not already the present .
Thanks for the in-depth, I was pretty sure VR would be huge, I just thought it would've happened a long time ago honestly. It's been around a while, I remember being a kid and playing in the arcade of a movie theater. There was helmet like thing on a gimble and you played a soldier defending a hill, it was crude but fairly immersive in it's 360 degree action. There were shows like VR troopers and others . I hope this isn't too long of a comment! I just yesterday played a mobile VR app on my phone with my niece and nephews, FREE to download all you need is a relatively cheap VR headset designed to hold your phone. I picked a shark app and ended up at the bottom of the ocean surrounded by sea life, it only gets better from here, another hint, Ready Player One a sci fi novel from 2011 is now soon to be imo a hit film. VR is here to stay for sure. Great article!!
I don't know about VR, but good looking post, ty
Thanks!
Super post ... I agree - VR is coming - the superior viewing experience will also be enjoyed by musicians and artists etc. who need more screen real estate to work with.
Resteemed!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the read! I agree, finally. Once they nail down the comfort and resolution, we'll see a sharp rise in household electricity bills and a sharp decline in exercise.
great post
I've seen VR being used in art as well. I have got to give it a try!
Not really into VR but this was an interesting read for me. Thank you for sharing.
A few years ago I got the chance to try the occulas rift prototype glasses. Primitive but still amazing experience. VR is still in it's infancy. mage quality will get better and the interface will become more convenient.
If it's as good as it is now, the next gen or two will blow us away!
I really appreciate thought-provoking tech posts like this and I look forward to more of your content in the future. Hoping we can connect and continue to evolve and learn from each other! Remember, be yourself, because nobody else does it better -- Full #Steem ahead @nerdfury :)
I don't think you're wrong that VR is here, but I still think the mass market timeframes are misrepresented. That said, I'd love to be proven wrong :)
Much ❤
@Tayken
It's no different to any technology. Smart phones, mp3 players, consoles, tablets - all started off super expensive, but with exposure comes cheaper alternatives, and with cheaper alternatives comes down the price to compete.
The public doesn't really seem to be fully on board, considering the rigs cost nearly $1k USD. However, the tech companies have floored ahead anyways and are determined to make this happen, for better or worse.
This could be hugely transformitive tech, or it could become another room in the matrix. My biggest qualm with VR, and any high tech peripheral, really, is the fact that they are owned and developed by everybody's favorite enemy: The Corporations.
ExxonMobile= Bad
Facebook/Oculus Rift=Good
McDonalds=Bad
HTC=Good
That said, I really like the prospect of VR and when I get a better machine I plan to start developing FOR vr.
Like other tech, we'll see a drop in price once other companies make cheaper alternatives, and their rivals lower the price to compete. The cost is a bit high for me now, especially as I'm unemployed, but I'll be investing soon, I think.
Yay the free market :)
Really looking forward to the price dip. I almost bought a setup last year used, but passed due to computer (lack of) quality.
I love picking up subtle Simpsons quotes in articles...'ze googles, ze do nathinggg.' My cousin recently got a VR set, I'ma have to hit him up soon now to check this out for myself. Nice post and congrats on owning up to being wrong for once :)
I regularly own up to being wrong, but it's just that a lot of my old friends accuse me of never being able to ;)
And definitely abuse your family ties to get a set of goggles on you! I can't account for any other companies, but if PSVR was any indication, you're in for a treat.
I know what you mean. I also thought this was a fad until I was amazed by the experience. Have you also tried the HTC Vive? I heard resolution/quality of image is a bit higher. Definitely something I plan on investing in when price is right.
Playstation VR was my one and only experience with VR, outside of the far less impressive 'smart phone on a pair of goggles' experience. Definitely keen to compare the competition some time, though.
Do you think it will break through to mass market adoption any time soon though? I love VR, but I still think it is missing something before it becomes most people's go-to entertainment rather than a cool curiosity.
I would love to be wrong about this though, GTA VR sounds like a game changer.
I think it will. Occulus Rift was never really outside the sphere of influence it had, and the PC competitors were expensive and still a niche interest. By adding VR to the Playstation 4, Sony will do with VR what it did with Blu-Ray. Interest grows, it finds itself in homes, prices come down, competitors jump on it, prices drop further, and everyone starts fighting to be better and cheaper.
We'll see this being the 'new console' by 2020, I reckon.
What you're saying makes sense and I do hope you're right, but I think that the isolation involved will still put a huge amount of people off though. You can't enjoy VR with your family like you do with television or movies. And having stuff on your head which shuts out the outside world doesn't sound like a relaxing idea to most people, not to mention the fact that a lot of parents who hate the idea of their kid isolating themselves with games will be even less accepting of something like VR.
Personally I think that something like Daydream is a much more likely route to mass acceptance, seeing as it has no wires and uses a phone (which nearly everyone has, unlike PS4), and that hasn't exactly taken the world by storm, despite how incredible it is.
Until the family are all in the same world, adventuring together.
i want to b born again in this time.. i want to become 15 years younger again.. to really enjoy the upcoming techs of the world.. the gaming, the virtual reality, times are changing so very fastly.. love the new innovations in science that are changing our life
I still haven't tried it yet, but this might be one of those things that need to be experienced to convert.
Followed, up voted.
The issue is that what you see on your friend's TV screen can't possibly compare with what you experience itself. On screen, there's no immersion. The 3D space is still 2D. When you're in the VR world, though, your brain is tricked into all sorts of things that a TV screen can't possibly match. The low resolution looks okay at first, but the same tricks your brain plays on your eyesight soon makes it second nature. Your sense of proprioception - awareness of yourself and body in space - is fooled into accepting that the virtual movement is the same as physical movement and vice-versa.
It's like a photo of a landscape versus being immersed in the space itself. It really does need to be experienced to be believed.
Oh man, I really need to get me some VR xD
I'm quite surprised it isn't already wireless. That seems like it should have been a UX priority...
Thanks for the great post!
You'd have thought so, but then again I don't know if the signals can even be done wirelessly.
I've been on the edge of Wether to get a psvr or not I think you've just convinced me, but I've been wanting to try one for ages and no shops have the available to try and none of my friend have them either.
With fallout 4 coming to VR in winter, I hope it on psvr (don't see why not) I think I might just make the plunge and get one in the coming weeks 😀
Glad my post could help you make your decision! If I could afford it, I'd have gone to the store the very next day and bought a set-up.
That's really great! This type of ideas will revolutionize the world!
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Youre list of technology "predictions" is pretty funny, i think youre giving yourself waaay too much credit lol. We all knewthe mp3 player would be huge...we all knew touchscreens were useful...come on man hahaha and we all knew Bluray was the winner.....lol did u also predict that trump would win over hillary? Or that the sun would rise in the morning? ;lol just playin with ya, but honestly you made it sound like u had some sort of winning streak or something with predicting winning tech which is more than a stretch LOL
But youre dexscription of VR was pretty cool and made me realy want to just buy some VR goggles, but since im not a gamer i know id get bored and i would wanna wat for cheaper better options and honestly i want a hololens system for augemnted reality which i see more use in, i wanna make it so my actual rom has more stuff i dont wanna havew it so im just lost in fake reality alho both can be cool
i want to have bothbut augemnted reality would be so amazing waking arundyour city and playing a massive lasertag game using the entire city asa battleground!
Was that anyone elses dream as a child? A city wide laser tage game? with augemntd reaity helmets we could finaly have that, massive city cide fights, youd see people on teh streets with AR helmets on shooting at each other with invisible rifles and it would be like watching people playing pokemon go LOL
Great post. I've been a fan of PSVR from day one.
For those wanting to same gameplay of PSVR games I have a channel on YouTube
I freakin love my PSVR! I've been playin Skyrim lately but my favourite is Farpoint with the aim.