First tried VR yesterday through the Samsung Gear VR CV and Galaxy S7 Edge

Decided to jump on this offer since I wanted a new phone anyway, and the Rift / Vive prices are too much for me.

Totally blown away! it's amazing!

Yep, its pretty damn mad sic aint, it? Been playing around with the rift development kit now for about ~9 months... just got declined by hololens on their development kit as I don't live in merica... bah.

VR is comparative to dial up internet imo atm, AR or MR is the real deal and will be explosive gaming, soo many industries will go tom cruise in minority report imo. Similar journey to that of a typewriter to ipad within a decade imho.

Yeah. This is going to happen very fast.

AR is meh compared to VR for gaming.
For real world applications it's probably better in some fields, worse in others.

Yeah i get what your saying, in the now, we don't even know where VR gaming will take itself yet... I'm just saying VR is blowing ppl away... / VR matures / AR infantises and then hits puberty / gaming as we know it converges.

sorry for derail, just wanted to share.

I can't see any scenario where VR isn't going to be the main thing for gaming. AR/MR is also going to be huge, but the total immersion in a game world that VR offers is going to rule that area.

I just got a Gear VR, with a new phone . And completely disagree.

I have a nice PC, xbox one, and Wii U. And now a Gear Vr.

I completely understand that Gear VR is the worst VR relative to Oculus/Vive/PS4, therefore I know the experience will only get better than that, but using a mouse and keyboard/controller is so much better imo. It's way less physically intensive, which to most means something just due to what I feel is peoples average physical conditioning level (read out of shape) after having the Gear on my head for ~30 mins my face was red and sweaty all while sitting down just watching twitch. I actually think general fatigue will play a huge role in shaping how VR pans out.

"Regular" gaming is far more social as well. Let alone the cost for VR being much higher than any normal way of gaming.

And think of the most popular Esport games, I can't think of a single one, outside of maybe Hearthstone, that would work at all in a VR setting.

I can think of some games that people will want to play only in VR, but like name a sports game/MMO/fast twitchy shooter/MOBA that will work in VR better than it would in a non VR setting. Obv that's kind of a rigged question as we don't know yet but I would be short on VR winning ever in those genres.

All that being said, I think especially after getting hands on with Gear VR, that VR is gonna be cool as hell for a lot of stuff, but will not even come close to replacing gaming as we know it now.

I think VR will come to dominate gaming and looooots of other areas we didn't even think of using it for yet..

Mostly I just want VR porn. And not the crappy stuff that exists now. Interactive with photo realistic graphics.

PSVR to launch in October, $399 / €399 / £349. Does not include PS4 camera (pretty much required) or Move controllers (nice to have). There is likely to be an as-yet unannounced bundle

~50 "launch" titles (between October and Xmas)
- Full OS integration (so doesn't need TV)
- Can play any non-VR game in theatre mode
- Media player updated to play VR movies / photos

I just saw a trailer for the The Climb from Crytek. Looks great and perfect for VR.

Where are his arms?

Everest VR.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/#612a51761d92

"Before I took the first step, I heard the wind whipping around my legs and swore I felt just a bit colder. Suddenly, for only a moment, I felt my legs weaken. With a deep breath of determination, I inched forward across the ridge, heel to toe, and struggled to stay rooted in reality. At one point I even held my arms out for balance, despite actually walking on the perfectly stable carpeted 3rd floor of the Moscone Center.

“This icy ridge isn’t here. This isn’t Class 5 exposure. It’s just carpet! This sheer cliff 4 inches from my shoes is imaginary. I’m not alone at 25,000 feet. 12 feet away a bunch of GDC attendees are watching me.*Right?”

The combination of realistic audio, insanely photo-realistic graphics courtesy of Unreal Engine 4 and some of Nvidia’s VR Works wizardry, the tactility of the HTC Vive’s touch controllers and its accurate room presence, had convinced it of this alternate reality. A reality where I was legitimately terrified."

"If at this point you still think VR is a gimmick, or a fad, it’s either because you haven’t tried it at all, or you haven’t tried the right experience. Screenshots can’t do this justice. Video can’t do this justice. My words, no matter how descriptive and colorful and emotional I make them, can’t do this justice."

At this stage most developers have arrived at the conclusion that the sort of disembodied hand route is better for immersion in many applications. Having arms present that aren't being perfectly tracked can mess with your head much more than not seeing the arms at all.

How many here have a first wave Rift or Vive on the way in the next few weeks? looking forward to hearing all about them. I got my PSVR preorder in, but October seems so far away...

I think we'll have foveated rendering and maybe eye tracking within a couple years. That's going to make first gen units obsolete very quickly. I'm going to stick with PSVR for now and see how things are looking in a year or two.

'A couple of years' isn't 'very quickly' in the tech world

My rift is scheduled for May - having patiently waited through DK1 and 2 without buying, CV1 seems like the right time to get in on VR. Given the prior versions, it's not like this is really a first gen - it's just a first gen consumer version.

And yes, there'll be eye tracking, higher fps, better fov, better sensors, more immersion and all manner of stuff coming up in the next years, but that's the case for any tech (well, not those features exactly...). From what I've seen from both the rift and vive, they're more than ready to give an awesome vr-experience.

Forget about all the other stuff. Foveated rendering and eye tracking are the next huge milestones in VR, and they are coming pretty soon. Don't get me wrong. The first gen Vive and Rift will be amazing, I'm sure. The thing for me is (I hate to use the word 'literally'), they will literally be rendered obsolete when these features become available on later gens. This isn't more accurate head-tracking or a better controller scheme or something. These aren't things that are going to improve incrementally. These are big milestones. You will either own a headset that utilizes them or you won't.

If PSVR didn't exist, I'd be all in right now. I have a DK2 and planned on buying a consumer unit day one up until we started hearing so many positive things about PSVR. I just think that will do for now while we find out how a couple of things are going to shake out. Part of it is that I have an odd card (GTX 690) and who knows when I could get any info as to whether or not I would need to swap that out now. There just aren't many 690 owners out there. I really want to hold off until Pascal if I have to swap this out for VR.

Interesting point and I totally agree, eye movement > neck movement.... + glove or finger tip tracking... I would think this makes the experience much more unique and immersive depending on how crisp the user interface is RE fingertips. The eyeball ui would be quite interesting, left blink, right blink, normal blink, squint, wide eyes, ninja stare, cross eyes, roll eyes, endless combos, lol

Anyway, seriously though, just out of curiosity do you know who the market leading trail blazers are RE eye tracking? Or is it case of we've gotta wait for the individual product designers to come up with these aspects on their own? ie samsung provide the Vr 4K screens to most VR head units... for eye tracking... is there a potential supplier equivalent that could lead the way on itracking??? Just wondering if anyone is in the know. Cheers

Sorry for rando questions, I'm weird like that.

ps. Have you been reading about Fove? thier kickstarter + traction in under 12 months is pretty impressive imo but if it ends up being any good, i guess the big boys will just come crush.

We're still talking a few years though which is a long time considering what we're talking about.

I'm not saying PSVR is a bad choice - for a lot of people it's absolutely going to be the best choice. Since you have the DK2, you already have more experience with this stuff than I do and I'm not going to pretend I can tell you what's going to be right for you

PSVR doesn't have Elite: Dangerous though. Or Euro/American Truck simulator. Or a ton of other amazing vr-games and stuff you can only get with pc-vr (yea, I'm not even going to mention vr-porn...). And what it has, it has more limited than its pc counterparts.

I'm in the situation of having no PS4 but having a Rift-ready pc so it's an easy choice for me - especially given that what I'm most looking forward to experiencing in vr is mostly only going to be available on the pc. And that's not even counting the pr0n...

the PSVR will very likely have the pron Haven't tried it, but the current media player can do MKV and MP4 from an exFAT USB stick.

A post from NeoGAF that does a pretty good job of describing what makes VR special:

"Originally Posted by plagiarize

One of the scariest experiences I've had was playing Assetto Corsa in VR with my Logitech G27, driving an old open wheel Lotus. Probably one of the tensest and most white knuckle things I've done. Those old racing cars could go almost as fast as our current ones, but without all the safety features. So you accelerate a bit too much... you lose control. You turn a bit too much... you lose control. You break a bit too much... yep... you lose control.

And when you lose control the car goes spinning into a barrier at well over 100 mph and your subconscious mind is going 'oh **** we're going to get injured or killed' no matter what your conscious mind knows.

It's amazing. Racing simulators have never done it for me in the past. I love your Forza Horizons, and your PGR4s and other similarly or more arcadey racing games, but the accurate realistic games, I just didn't see the draw.

VR made me buy an expensive racing wheel and I've not regretted it once. Dirt Rally and Assetto Corsa are incredible (hopefully it won't be long before both have CV1 support). The sense of speed, and the sense of danger in both is unmatched by anything else I've experienced in a racing game. That cliff on the edge of that hairpin bend on a lose gravel surface when you're playing Dirt Rally and trying to drift the car around it, when you experience it, you'll get it.



Your subconscious brain will convince you. When people talk about presence that's kind of what they're talking about. It's that moment where consciously you know that what you're seeing isn't real, but your subconscious mind doesn't care what your conscious mind is telling it, and your subconscious mind is in charge of your physical reactions to certain things (think heart racing, adrenalin pumping, muscles tightening, sweating, etc).

Playing HL2 for the first time in VR, something happened which had never happened to me any time I had played the game before. There's a moment early on, where you have to jump down off the roof of a train to the floor. I've played this section of the game probably more than 50 times, and there I was playing it for the 51st time or whatever, and when I got to the part and was supposed to jump down off this train...

I hesitated.

Because part of me was saying... hey, look, we're up pretty high here and I don't know if it's safe to just leap off here. Consciously I knew 100% that Gordon can fall that distance without hurting himself... and yet still... still I hesitated.

It was only for a brief second, but it was a moment I'll never forget, because even a virtual world I knew like the back of my hand was speaking to me on a completely new level. I'd never thought twice about that moment before, all those times I played it.

I know a lot of people tell gamers who hope their favorite games get ported to VR that it's not really what they should be excited about, and heck I think I've done the same thing myself.

But truthfully, replaying Quake and HL2 and Doom 3 in VR was the closest I've ever come to that feeling they gave me when I played them for the first time. Yes, I knew what was around each and every corner. I knew when I was first about to encounter manhacks during Route Kanal... but I wasn't prepared for how I reacted to them. They were special again.

I'm sure such ports will be limited. I hope everything that's open source gets a VR version (and I expect it will). I hope Doom 3 gets brought up to speed for the consumer headsets. I hope Valve don't abandon their work on HL2 VR.

And sure, maybe only a minority of people can handle such experiences without getting horribly motion sick. I don't know.

But there was genuinely something to finding yourself inside a virtual environment you know like the back of your hand.

Like the DLC for Alien Isolation was the highlight of that game for me. Because while the regular campaign was great, nothing topped the moment where I was playing as Dallas on board the Nostromo, and for the first time I reached the airvents, and Lambert starts yelling over my headset about how the Alien is in there with me.

And I'm experiencing the claustrophobia of that moment for the first time... and something in my brain pops and I find myself thinking 'This is it. This is when I am supposed to die.'

Room scale is something I am yet to try, but I think that one of my hesistations with people calling it the future is that it can't give me moments like that. It's an important step forwards, but we need to get to the point where something can scare me so badly that I sprint away from it, heart racing, without slamming into a wall before I really get going.

That's the end goal. Room scale is a really important step along the way to get there. But teleporting between hotspots or what have you, isn't the same as freely exploring an environment.

I think that's why I'm currently more interested in seated experiences. Most of my favorite games have a sense of adventure and discovery and seeing what's around the next corner or over the next hill. I've talked a lot about games with a real sense of place... and VR is going to enhance such things so much.

Using VR to make new exciting games and experiences is something I'm excited about. But so is using VR to make traditional games even better.

Fortunately it looks like developers are set on doing both. You just don't hear a lot of excitement from the latter, I think because it's harder to imagine what that's going to be like than it is to imagine something like Job Simulator."

http://m.imgur.com/Sgkw38m?r

Ordered a vive because I'm pretty hype for the roomscale stuff, but I could totally see myself getting really into a bunch of cockpit style games. Games like elite dangerous and eve valkyrie and the racing games will probably offer the best VR games initially.