Why didn't VR get more popular?

submitted by dbdr from self.AskSaidIt

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[–]ExplodingToasterOven 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Primarily, nausea issues. Most need to drink a bit of ginger tea, ginger slices, etc during the first few months of acclimatization.

And as an extension of eyewear, you need to sit there and tweak the settings a lot. You need a new headband, because most stock ones suck and poorly balance. You need a PC with enough of a graphics card to be able to drive a PC-VR setup, and then know how to set avatar culling depending on the limits of the hardware.

Its a long, long, long assed learning and setup process. And while in the middle of this learning process, not a lot of VRC instances, or Resonite instances, or Hangouts instances are happy to have another green user to try and educate.

Add to the fray, the collection of underaged pranksters crashing instances, the "neuro-divergent" who do ok in VR communities, up to a point, and then start to fritz out. People who are physically mute for whatever reason, and then able bodied people who get all butthurt because they see people chatboxing back and forth when they're in the middle of a DJ set and are no longer the center of attention.

[–]unagisongs 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Consumer VR is still in the novelty, experimental and enthusiast stage. The total cost is still too high. Computer hardware requirements are still significant. Headsets are still too heavy and cumbersome. The sweet spot between price to quality has yet to be met. VR motion sickness turns people off. User fatigue has a real impact. No killer app to bring in the masses. Sim gamers are probably the only crowd I see consistently using VR hardware and even then I hear the same complaints.

Apple's VisionPro headset clearly missed the mark which did not trigger price drops from the other VR competitors or panic to catch up. Valve collaborated with Apple on the prototype stage for the VisionPro. Based on Valve's success with the steam deck I suspect the Index two will be a marriage between the steam deck and the original Index. Valve's hardware launches tend to hint at future releases. This may be the killer hardware combination the finally gets VR over the hump.

Currently the only headset hardware sized correctly in my opinion is the Bigscreen Beyond. However it's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness. Custom goggle that fit your face and your eyes means the single enthusiast gets the full experience while the lay person doesn't get jazzed enough to buy their own. It decreases adoption by masses slowing down future development of goggle style VR.

A steam deck that can run VR googles about the size of Bigscreen Beyond at a consistent reasonable FPS and a high enough refresh rate and that are portal, affordable and sold on mass. Which is why I'm looking at the Valve Index Two to possibly break that mold. However this is Valve time we're talking about so maybe they get around to replacing the Index when it stops selling in a decade or two.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Because VR is a shitty concept invented by shitty people to be used by people with shitty brains.