Sadly that's like a 30m diameter so it gets expensive. And you have to switch from being tied to a computer to wearing a giant gaming laptop.
I don't think it would necessarily be analogous to a laptop on your head. You could build it as a backpack and essentially make a typical desktop computer (ie, larger and cheaper components) on a backpacking frame, just with a Li-ion battery powering the hardware instead of a wall socket. I could do this in my living room right now for under $2000 dollars, so if a major company wanted to build a machine on the paradigm of a game console, they could definitely get a good machine with a cost under $1000. I wouldn't put it past SONY to do this, although they'd have to market it hard because most consumers would have to go out into parks to play, rather than in their own home, which won't track well with helicopter parents that use video games as a way to keep their kids isolated from the dangers of the real world without the need to parent.
Sadly that's like a 30m diameter so it gets expensive. And you have to switch from being tied to a computer to wearing a giant gaming laptop.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtual-reality-price-crash/
This article(not that I put all that much stock in it) suggests that as early as 2017 we may see more affordable VR units that do not have to be tethered to a PC.
If by "it" you mean Qualcomm, I don't think this is a promising enough deal that you can ignore their poor showing last year, but if this goes well their stock price is definitely headed back up. A crashing price and improved functionality is the natural antecedent of innovation. Companies that refine rather than revolutionize are going to be the ones coming to the fore now. Oculus is definitely in the "revolutionize" camp and may fall out of the picture soon. They're already not seeing much interest since the high-budget early adopters go for Vive and the common man in want of a cool but affordable toy prefers Gear or Cardboard according to the nature of his wallet. Valve has already achieved their goal of preventing Facebook from having a monopoly, so they'll likely fade from the forefront or move on to other things, and HTC is probably going to focus on refinements and price drops now but they're skilled enough in the area so are unlikely to be chased out.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtual-reality-price-crash/
This article(not that I put all that much stock in it) suggests that as early as 2017 we may see more affordable VR units that do not have to be tethered to a PC.
That is very interesting, and I think it will definitely drive the price down. Part of the attraction with reference designs is that it allows small companies to have a go at implementing their ideas of how to solve some of the 'problems' from a stable, openly engineerable platform, rather than having to either engineer it from the ground up or try it out on a closed off product like the Oculus. They obviously get swallowed up or sell their ideas, but it allows for more hands on the wheel so to speak.
On top of that, having a proliferation of lower cost models will definitely drive the market for 'proper' VR games, and hopefully force down the price of Oculus/Vive to being more consumer friendly.
When it comes to encouraging game development, I think this will help spur progress, but it will add an impediment perhaps larger than the benefit it provides, at least initially. Right now, when you develop for VR, you need to develop for a specific type of VR. That means you might do what (for example) SubNautica has done. You develop a game, and realize it would be great with VR. So you implement it, because you're an excitable game dev. That's a lot of work, but you do it. Then another kind of VR comes out. Is it really worth all the work implementing that?
Now suppose you're a new dev learning code. There's a dozen competing standards, so which one do you use?
We're going to see an anemic content-production market until some things start happening in software and potentially corporate diplomacy. We need major engines like Unreal and Unity to support all major VR headsets and get their stuff working such that when you dev for one, you dev for all, we need popular libraries and APIs like OpenGL and DirectX to make things easier for both the engine devs and game devs who forego an established engine. Until those things happen, no matter how big the market gets, the barrier to entry will be too high for a lot of innovation in the actual media products that consumers would be interested in.
Author
Topic: Virtual Reality Thread: Day 1331: Valve announces HL:VR (Read 39771 times)