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Comment by MorePowerToYou | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to like VR. I made a few apps, shipped a game, tried the Rift, Vive, and PSVR. My initial enthusiasm spread to friends and family. Peers purchased GearVRs and ordered cardboard. Fast forward a few years and every single one of those headsets is gathering dust. Once enthusiastic friends won't take my VR hardware for free.

I guess my primary gripe is that it's just not comfortable relative to any other form of entertainment. It's worse than reading on a phone or tablet. It's worse than playing games on a phone, console, or PC. It's worse than watching movies in the theatre. Sure, those are high bars and VR is still kinda young. But all the hype is quickly being exposed as bullshit. VR isn't catching on. Catching on looks like the iPhone in 2008-2009 or the web in the late nineties.

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I think this is expected, and I don't believe many people in the space thought the current round of VR would be a computing paradigm change that causes a huge growth like iPhone or the web.

The analogy I like to use is current VR is like an early PDA (Palm Pilot, PPC or Newton), which means we're 5-10 years out from a mature device that could be called a VR iPhone. Its possible that somewhere along the way everyone gives up on VR and AR, which can enable many of the same experiences anyway, but its also possible that VR is still missing a lot of what makes a compelling mass market consumer device and there will be an iPhone style product that everyone emulates in the future.

I agree with this. A mature VR device absolutely needs the following properties:

- All in one, mobile - Positional tracking - Full hand tracking (ie Leap Motion) - A robust, fleshed out UI paradigm

Apple never would've release the Rift because they would've sorted out the UI first. Shit there's probably a team at Apple doing exactly that right now.

You've hit on an interesting point. I've wondered about this before, if VR would be too onerous for people who came home and just want to relax. It requires wearing a bulky headset and potentially the same movement gameplay stuff that people criticized the Wii for. Not that it isn't really interesting, but it's definitely not as comfortable/passive as other entertainment

I have a Vive. I've used it maybe 5 times in a month. I get a bit nauseous (but not too bad, i'm very sensitive), and you kind of sweaty after a while (not because of physical labour), but those aren't really obstacles for me. It's a great product and there are some truly cool experiences there, but my main gripe is just powering everything up, unbundling cables, and putting everything on. In my case also moving a couple of chairs out of my play area.

I imagine future AR tech to be better in this regard, when you can adapt to whatever your interior looks like, and when you go wireless.

Though just getting that new wireless addon for Vive and attaching easier headphones (Rift has the edge there) would reduce the threshold for "just play for a bit".

I feel like there'll be a second wave of VR, when there's a headset with resolution high enough to not look like you're pressing your face against a 1980's TV.

I think it's disingenuous to gauge VR based on GearVR/cardboard/other low cost mobile based headsets. A good VR experience is predicated on excellent tracking to ensure a 1:1 match between movement in the real world with the virtual world, and those headsets simply cannot do that. Of course they are collecting dust, poor tracking leads to nausea.

I don't think VR will ever catch on because it kills the socialization just be using it, and there isn't the 10x factor to overcome this hurdle.

TV, phones, and the internet all caught on because they enhanced social experiences. The TV became something to talk about and experience jointly. Phones allowed communication over great distance and quick access to information. The internet was the 10x factor of the phone.

When we start having VR rooms ala star trek, then it will catch on like fire as it will become a social experience.

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