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Reggie Fils-Aimé: VR gaming destined to remain niche until there is a "must play" experience

SlimeGooGoo

Party Gooper
It will never happen.
VR sells the idea of a more "realistic" virtual experience, but it all falls apart when you have to move around or grab things.

For games that only require you to sit and move your head, sure, it works.
For anything else it just feel like a shoehorned solution.
 

Hoddi

Member
HL: Alyx is already a must play experience. It's amazing but it's also the only full-length game I've ever played on my Vive. And I bought that way back in 2016.

I still think VR is fantastic tech but it was always too much hassle to use. PSVR2 seems to solve a lot by making it a single cable but my OG Vive was so dreadful that it largely turned me off the whole thing.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I've had a few what I would call "must play" VR experiences. I think the thing holding VR back is the mammoth piece of headgear you must wear to experience it. For me it's a pain to play in VR for more than 20 minutes or so.
Success:

- $100
- Smaller form factor. I dont expect it to be as slim as sunglasses, but I dont think the average VR set has really got any smaller. Its still a brick on your face
- VR gaming using wrist controllers to simulate grabbing doesn't even make sense. You arent even grabbing like a NES Power Glove. You're pressing buttons to pick something up. Make the control scheme resemble an actual glove with sensors and it'll make more sense
- Great games, including full budget experiences, not $20 demo kinds of games. In other words, the game is full budget quality with good VR modes too. So it can act as both standard game and VR game like GT7. This gives gamers choice to flip flop between which way to play if they prefer one to another

Meta had their own research report that said 50% of VR gamers quit playing after 6 months. So it shows no matter how high tech the gadget is, if the games suck half the gamers bail after only 6 months! The endless basket of cheap $20 VR games isn't enough to keep them interested

Look at Move and Kinect. They already checkmarked some of the above points and they still failed after selling millions. Lousy games and people bailed.
 
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JimmyRustler

Gold Member
So that's 1.7% of the global population? What's that, 136M?
VR already has must play games but it really needs to lower the cost of entry.
VR never has a real chance IMO, even for low cost. It's not for everyone and can take a huge time to get used to. When I tried it the firs time I could not play longer than 5-10 minutes without feeling dizzy as hell. Guess many people will have that problem.
 

RavageX

Member
It is easy for people to say what is, "must play". For example, for me I have very little interest in Half Life and it definitely would NOT make me go and buy a $600 VR headset. It might be fun, but it would not and has not influenced a VR purchase. Beat Saber? Its fun, but again....not a main reason for me to buy a headset.

For me, a full on RPG in VR along the scale of FF or Elder Scrolls (Not a 10/15 year old game put in VR) would lean me towards a must buy. Gran Turismo in VR leans me even further. I bought the PSVR (1 and 2) and I have a Quest 2 not for one game, but what they offer and what they promise in the future, and I feel that by adopting these that further work will be done and eventually....VR will become something great.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Ahem...

hero.jpg


“Labo, I thought that was going to be such a home run. Not only from a pure consumer gamer perspective: I saw a huge potential with Labo in classrooms, and as a STEM education type of product. Globally, it did well, but certainly not to the expectations that the company had. Similarly, the VR experiences [of Labo VR] — such fun, and really immersive, quite different than a typical VR experience.
I thought maybe that was going to be the breakthrough, to help push it over the edge, but it didn’t work out that way. But I’m confident that the company is just continuing to experiment. It is its nature, to experiment with these types of technologies, and to try and figure out how to make it fun. As an experience, parents with kids teaching some STEM and STEAM related skills, there’s clearly an opportunity.”

Thanks for your input Reggie.

Cracking Up Lol GIF


We're on the verge of having this form factor in the next 3-4 years at an affordable price

meta-reality-labs-research-vr-headset-prototype-4.jpg


VR ain't ever dying. It's like saying that cars will not take off because those early ones with steam engines were more trouble than horses. We're going VR/AR inevitably. It's a question of when.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
VR ain't ever dying. It's like saying that cars will not take off because those early ones with steam engines were more trouble than horses. We're going VR/AR inevitably. It's a question of when.
Key difference is cars/vehicles are must haves for getting from point A to point B on your own (freedom with the family) with a ton more benefits than owning a smelly horse or waiting for a horse drawn carriage to ride someone somewhere at 5 mph.

VR is not a must have. And it's an additional purchase to go with starting hardware. And for some people it even gives them headaches. The only benefit it has is whatever value a gamer puts into VR views and motion controls. The rest of it is worse than standard gaming.
 

Chukhopops

Member
He’s right about the niche part but I think there are already a couple must play games overall.

I actually believe the Oculus Quest 3 could be the big break of the medium depending on price and ease of use.
 

Bragr

Banned
Alyx, Astrobot, or Beat Saber are not must-play. They are great but don't be ridiculous. There is no way anyone can believe that those games are must-play for such expensive hardware.

Must-play is like stuff Doom, Super Mario 64, Half-Life or Halo.

It's gonna come to VR eventually, but it's not there yet.
 

k_trout

Member
I have played these games in the past 4 years and they were all amazing experiences, surpassing most flat screen games imo
I still think its about price and size of the device

HL Alyx
Alien Isolation
HL & HL2 VR
Lone Echo 1 & 2
Torn
Red Matter 1 & 2
Asguards Wrath
Boneworks & Bonelabs
Moss 1&2
Stormland
Obduction & Myst
Doom3 vr
Hubris
Proze
Seeking Dawn
The Walking Dead
Wanderer
 

Deerock71

Member
Key difference is cars/vehicles are must haves for getting from point A to point B on your own (freedom with the family) with a ton more benefits than owning a smelly horse or waiting for a horse drawn carriage to ride someone somewhere at 5 mph.

VR is not a must have. And it's an additional purchase to go with starting hardware. And for some people it even gives them headaches. The only benefit it has is whatever value a gamer puts into VR views and motion controls. The rest of it is worse than standard gaming.
Let me sum up: comparing VR to cars is stupid.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
He's right.

But, I love vr and I'm in the low percentage...as long as people still invest, but it needs to be on open platforms where developers can play with the hardware and create unique experiences.
 

hyperbertha

Member
It's not about the games anymore. You can already play aaa games like re8 in full vr. It's about cost and barrier to entry.
The headset needs to be smaller, and rather than having to buy both a console and an additional vr set, both need to be integrated at a cheaper price.
Also when marketing don't show people standing and moving around. Show that it can be played on a couch just like normal. People are lazy and they definitely don't want a delta force training regimen after a full day's work
 
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ironmang

Member
It needs a price reduction and a lot of must play games.

Even then there's simply a lot of people who aren't interested in VR. They're happy enough with the traditional gaming experiences.
 

Robb

Gold Member
I think it’s more about the quantity of “real” high quality games at this point rather than isolated “experiences”.

But then there’s all the other hurdles like being too expensive, clunky etc. etc.

I’m not sure it’ll ever become a mainstream hit. But the evolution of the tech might lead to some other cool things in the long run.
 
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nemiroff

Gold Member
Even as a VR enthusiast I agree it'll be niche for years yet. But that's a lucky summary, because he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.
 
cry more reggie.

The only thing VR needs to be more succesful is getting people to try the headset. Alyx, beat saber, tetris, CoM, GT7, Pavlov, etc etc. There are enough games on VR headsets to constitute a killer app to someone. But VR needs to be seen to be believed.
I wouldn't say he's crying so much as just stating the obvious. People have seen VR. They've done the whole try it for free kiosks at stores everywhere. They've advertised it as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Facebook has thrown billions of dollars into it, and even changed their parent company name to meta. Yet every single indication is that VR will never be anything more than a niche product. And that's assuming all these companies currently losing money on it keep producing them.
 
Games are of course important. Price too. Without cable would be nice. Even better than 4k, full natural FOV, full finger body facial tracking whatnot... but certain points are decades away or not at all surmountable: it won't be really comfy soon, for niche it doesn't need to be, but any serious hours every week and for months, then it has. And it is not usable for stereoblind people and induces sickness for many, some can train some legs, some can't. That's a problem.
I don't expect it to get out of niche in my lifetime, as long as it is halo helmets. Until it is as small as contacts, or maybe when humans reach their cyborg augmented phase wearing those contacts 24/7 and or Matrix plug in with "brain USB".

It is nice, worth some money, but very much like Guitar Hero or wii stuff or racing wheels, not soon or probably ever for everything and everyone and all the time.
 

Cyborg

Member
In my opinion, Sony should have launched a new handheld. I have no doubt it would sell more than VR2.
 

ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
It needs to be lighter, smaller, comfortable, wireless, affordable and easy to plug and play. I'm too lazy to set it up every time. It's like a steering wheel in that regard. I think we got many good VR games right now, problem is not just games.
 

k_trout

Member
It needs to be lighter, smaller, comfortable, wireless, affordable and easy to plug and play. I'm too lazy to set it up every time. It's like a steering wheel in that regard. I think we got many good VR games right now, problem is not just games.
for real...untill we can get desktop performance in a light pair of wireless glasses it will be niche
i mean who doesn't feel like a complete tool with a current headset on, just not cool enough for mass consumption
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
only Nintendo could come up with a mainstream super fun VR game and maybe only the old guard Nintendo at that.

But it’s too limiting for them to do anything more than a cardboard 4th tier experiment. 😂
 

BlackTron

Member
There are already some very good draws to VR. Yes we have Beat Saber and Alyx. What it needs for mainstream adoption is lower cost and that Mario Bros. 1 / Wii Sports moment. In VR's current form, I think this is still quite a ways off.
 
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