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Comment by carlosdp | Hacker News Reader

I personally don't think it'll so much "replace" as much as open up new doors. As in Cinema/TV didn't "replace" theatrical performances, theatre is still around and strong, but the audience has mostly shifted to movies/TV because it is more scalable and flexible.

There's a bunch of apps that are trying to make virtual desktops in VR or 360 movies and the like. I don't personally buy into those that much, I think 360 movies are difficult to make interesting and virtual desktops are more for Augmented Reality.

Besides the obvious (VR games), I think there is a potential for a new form of entertainment (maybe a hybrid of theatre/cinema), for more advanced design tools that make faster work of 3D-based design, for educational experiences. Some things might be "replacements", but there are a lot of possibilities that a VR environment opens up for things that would not be compelling or practical on a 2D screen with common input controls.

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>I personally don't think it'll so much "replace" as much as open up new doors. As in Cinema/TV didn't "replace" theatrical performances, theatre is still around and strong, but the audience has mostly shifted to movies/TV because it is more scalable and flexible.

Theatre is niche whereas once it was mainstream though. And it has been ages since its been culturally relevant in the way movies are discussed etc, even for high-bro audiences (e.g. since the 50s or so in the US, or around the 70s for European audiences).

Movies are still like theater though. You can go all things you might do at the theater at the movies: Eat a snack, have a drink, whisper commentary to your significant other. Essentially it's scalable theater.

With VR, you're trying to be 'inside' the media. Imagine a bunch of people feeling around for their drink or bumping heads as they try to whisper. I think if this iteration of VR becomes successful, it will be because they found a niche for themselves. But I can't imagine it becoming the default medium for anything, not even games.

You can put the other people in the VR experience too.

Google at IO/2016 showed some experiment with schools using cardboard where they raytraced where each student in a classroom was looking at. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuceLtGjDWY

With full body tracking and depth cameras you could put 3d avatar bodies in.

Obviously the face would be obscured by the headset, but it's dark in a cinema and people are normally looking at the screen when watching TV at home. So it might actually end up being more social.

Even with just simple 3d positioning of the headset and input devices with a simple visual indicator is enough to get a sense of someone being present. Add a microphone and 3D spacial positioning of voices.

Of course the current generation of technology would make that hard and rare. Not too many people you know will buy a $1000 headset. Everyone would need to bring that and a fairly powerful computer to the one place.

Although physically being present in the same room isn't required.

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