VR

I bought a Vive the week of Thanksgiving and have been using it roughly 2 hours a day. Every other day is my workout day most of the week (unless I'm playing hockey that day/night) and the VIVE has become part of my workout now too. After I complete my normal workout - a mixture of hockey specific training, free weights, aerobic and of course tons of pull-ups - I now spend an additional hour+ in VR.

I typically play Space Pirate Trainer first; once I get around level 15-20 things are so hectic I'm moving a ton and often going to one, or both knees. My abs and back can feel it big-time. I start with this game because it's not quite so intense at the start and is a good VR warmup.

More impressive is Holopoint - a bow and arrow game. That is easily the most physically demanding VR activity that I've found so far. I'm usually sweeting pretty solidly when I complete 8-10 games of Holopoint. I'm also noticeably fatigued in my arms, back, legs, hips, all over. And just to be clear most would classify me as extremely fit (regularly skate with/against NHL bound Junior players, the minimum pull-ups I do in my workout are 30 consecutive, body fat <10% etc).

Lastly I find I am no longer interested in 'regular games'... such as Madden, NHL 16, Gran Turismo, etc (on PS4), or even my all time favorite Dark Souls (series). I simply can't go back to not being physically engaged the way VR games are.

VR is going to be absolutely huge in the health/fitness space.

As someone who owns both headsets from day one and has been developing software for Vive, I'd honestly say the current generation of tech just isn't worth it for most people. In five years when we have wireless headsets with eye tracking and full FOV displays with no discernible pixelation and the library of games are finally here it will be worth it. As it is most people would probably be let down after the initial wow factor wears off.

I think VR is at the point smartphones were from 2000-2007 until the iPhone showed up. It's going to take another generation of devices that incorporate all of those features in a really well designed package before it goes mainstream.

I run a VR-focused VC firm (Presence Capital). We've done 25+ investments in this space, so you can say that we believe in the long-term potential of VR. Even given that, we're bearish on how quickly there will be a profitable/sustainable VR consumer business and have advised most of our portfolio companies targeting consumers to keep burn low.

That being said, almost all of the comments here are taking a singular worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market.

VR for B2B or enterprises can make money today and doesn't require mass-consumer adoption. If you make someone 10x more effective at their job (tools for sales people: OssoVR) or onboard employees faster (training: STRIVR), you can overcome the cost and rough edges on the hardware.

In China, VR-arcades are going to be how most consumers first experience high-end PC VR. Culturally, people there are already used to going to internet cafe's to use computers by the hour and seek out 3rd spaces. VR-by-the-hour rooms fit this mold. Additionally, the short length of most VR experiences makes it easy to have a 15-20 minute session and not be disappointed by the lack of content. More info on this here: https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-be-huge-in-china-41de0c758...

Blown away? Hyperbole of the century. At CES this year, I tried all the VR/AR tech I could get my hands on. Microsoft HoloLens, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony VR, Galaxy Gear, and everything in between.

I wasn't expecting much and yet I was still underwhelmed. There is zero immersion, primarily due to the poor resolution, the screen door effect, and the crippled field of view. It felt like watching a scene through a pair of binoculars, but that's not a fair comparison either, as physical binoculars are more immersive than any of these devices.

I feel like I the only one that feels such disappointment!

Selling my Vive tomorrow, before it's too late (unsellable due to something better on the market). < 50 hours use over several months. The visual quality is awful, not just resolution, but the lenses are terrible as well. Glare, very blurry except for a narrow center, the rings of the fresnel lenses are very noticeable. The glare is unbearable in any games with a lot of contrast, like space sims, that retro arcade hall game was terrible in this aspect, too, whatever it was called.

I'm not going back to try VR till the resolution is something like 8k per eye and the optical quality is far better. FOV needs to be much wider, HMD lighter and more comfortable, and of course wireless (I know you can get this now).

I have a dedicated home theater and room scale still does not work, because you will never have enough physical space in a regular home, and have to teleport around in games anyway.

The only games that really work are seated cockpit games. Racing, space sim, flight sim, etc.

Nausea was not an issue for me. Nor the "anti-social" issue, I've never been a party gamer, I like to play games alone, in a dark room with headphones on, sat at my desk staring at a monitor, or alone on the couch with a gamepad in my home theater enjoying surround sound and a 106" screen.

All made-for-VR games I've tried so far have been mediocre and more like small demos than full games. Best experiences were games not made for VR but with added VR support: Assetto Corsa and iRacing. Probably the only two games worth having VR at all for, but personally I'll wait for 6th gen or whatever will be good enough for me.

The games I like the best works better without VR. Sim racing games could be one exception, but are, for the moment, better with a triple monitor setup. Games like Pillars of Eternity have no need for VR, IMO.

Certainly VR has potential, I just think the HMDs we have now feel old and dated already. It's 2016 (when released) and it's heavy and wired, basically ski goggles with crappy monitors and crappy lenses hugging my face.

Am I the only one who's more excited by mixed reality such as Hololens?

I can't imagine VR being as omnipresent in our daily lives in its current state. Oculus or Vive implies you are shutting yourself from the outside world. You cannot interact. You cannot go out, talk with others etc. It's easy however to imaging how Hololens can enhance existing reality and how anyone (even my grandmother) could use it for their daily lives.

I can't believe some people are saying VR is a fad, that it's not going to work, etc, etc. Are you kidding me?

The only real question is how long it's going to take before it's fully integrated into our daily lives, there is absolutely no doubt this will happen (unless we somehow go backwards technologically, due to world war or some other unforeseen event).

It may not happen for another 10-15 years, but it WILL happen.

The term "virtual reality" is actually selling the technology short. Virtual reality does not merely replicate reality, it allows you to defy the laws of physics and expand into new dimensions and "realities". Replicating "reality" is only a small part of what it's capable of.

Having both an Oculus Rift (pre-touch controls) and a Vive to play around with I have a couple thoughts on this.

The first impression/experience is powerful and most people are impressed by it. The Rift prior to touch controls was unusable in comparison to the room scale, touch control Vive (to the point that I sold it). Maybe it's better now with the new touch controls, but I think they still lack room scale and the ability to walk around is a big deal. The Vive headset also fully blocks external light which is nicer (but these are relatively minor things that can be fixed).

VR in its current early adopter state is a lonely experience - more so than playing a one player game on the couch, you're completely isolated. While this makes for strong immersion - I think it increases the barrier to entry for most people. I suspect FB is right about the importance of social interaction getting people to actually use VR for longer than just showing it off to people.

I suspect finding the "Doom for VR" - the application that really takes advantage of the medium hasn't happened yet, maybe when it does it'll be obvious in hindsight. As for the comparisons to AR - I think Michael Abrash's points still stand: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...

VR advancements to look out for in 2017:

- Eye tracking (it already works perfectly, I've tried it myself at SIGGRAPH), this will enable a few cool things:

  - Foveated Rendering - rendering only what is in the fovea view at high quality and using a lower quality method for the periphery. Reduces rendering requirement by ~75%, enabling either higher-end graphics on the desktop, or the ability to move many desktop-bound VR applications to mobile.

  - Eye-assisted interactivity - SMI had a demo at SIGGRAPH where they demonstrated using where your eyes were looking to increase precision of interactions with controllers in VR (for example, grabbing very small objects in VR accurately).

- Inside-Out Tracking - using computer vision to provide 6DoF tracking for headsets without the need for external trackers. Will allow mobile headsets to have positional tracking (which is SO VERY important for VR) and will allow desktop headsets to have lower setup complexity (less important). - note: Microsoft will likely dominate this by my guess, seeing as probably the strongest part of the Hololens is it's excellent tracking.

- Wireless adapters for existing headsets - these made a big splash at CES and apparently work pretty well. Making the existing experience un-tethered will definitely help room-scale experiences.

- Self-Contained headsets - this is vital to mass-adoption of VR imo. I think we'll see some of these this year, though probably not from HTC/Oculus yet.

AR, while definitely more the "consumer" product in the long run, is still far off as the display tech just isn't there yet. But the above advancements in VR pave a way for AR in the future, until there is no longer a distinction between them device-wise, but it rather becomes a slider of "how much reality do you want to replace?".

I really think VR will take off but not yet. I was waiting for new games and new hardware for a year now but i think there is just a little bit of time needed.

I'm very enthuastic but not enought to pay 1k for it. Every game i saw in some video felt to 'simple'. More like funny small games but nothing which would make me using it for long enough.

but still i can already see useful usecases: When you buy a kitchen for example but the needed software needs to be build and that takes time and money. Something like this needs just time and enough 'normal' developer and manager have to be motivated.

Every peace of money already made with vr and which will be made in the next two years is probably opportunistic money.

I'm looking forward to better hardware (4k! lightweight, enough smartphones for google dream) and more software (architecture, kitchen, bath, ikea, website support for simple plug and play, concert videos, museum and history tours, games, games games :)

Nice to see some other people pointing out the positive effects here.

As a (room-scale only) VR developer, I've been writing about the upsides of VR and VR gaming for some time - example, http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/05/three-un... . There's a lot of skepticism around this area, particularly the claim that games will actually make people fitter - but you only have to play a few rounds of Holopoint or Space Pirate Simulator to realise it's also true.

(As a side note, I'm increasingly dividing VR into "pseudo-VR" (anything where you can't walk around) and "real VR" (room-scale experiences: the Vive, in short, and some Oculus Touch setups). Harsh, possibly, but it really does feel like a different medium once you can get up and interact with your hands.

To my mind, the only interesting VR experiences are those which engage the whole body. That's something I've been trying very hard to do with Left-Hand Path (http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760) the VR game I developed - at various points, you have to crouch, dodge, crawl, duck, and draw magical symbols in a variety of ways.

I'm doing that because quite apart from the health benefits, engaging my players in actual movement creates a whole new level of immersion. Proprioception is a thing - the sense of the body's place and movement in space.

Getting tired and even "gassed" also helps immersion. I've been playing the VR boxing sim Thrill Of The Fight recently, and it's remarkable how well it simulates real-life sparring in some ways - including getting gassed, and having to spend a while just keeping your guard up whilst you recover the ability to breathe without wheezing. That's an element of immersion I'm never going to get from a PC game.

I play a lot of Dark Souls, but the phrase "in-game stamina management" means something completely different when it's your stamina you're managing.

I feel like a lot of the comments here blasting the technology are related to its ability to output at the hi-fidelity we are now used to on the web / mobile 3D experiences.

This level of immersiveness/naturalness/fidelity will obviously come in due course.

Michael Siebel is here talking about the opportunity (obviously) — which is IMMENSE.

This is basically the iPhone/App-Store bandwagon all over again. If you can jump on it, do so.

It's not going to take off until someone solves the movement issue. The only games VR is currently suitable for are if you are stationary somehow -- pilot, tank gunner, etc. Which limits it pretty severely.

Something like the Ghostbusters Experience[1] is what people want in their own homes.

Also, maybe it's because I've been gaming my whole life, but the resolution in VR is still not good enough to "blow" me away, like I keep reading about. How people are so amazed at current gen VR confuses me.

[1] https://ghostbusters.madametussauds.com/

> I think we are no more than two years away from an explosion of new consumer startups

I remember reading similar sentiment two years ago, back when the Oculus started getting massive attention after their successful Kickstarter.

There are counter arguments to the rise of VR. As mentioned, price and hardware are too high for casual use, but that will be fixed in time.

What can't easily be fixed is that fact that it is not conveient. VR tethers you one spot, and using VR in public looks ridiculous/antisocial to outside observers. In contrast, an AR approach can avoids both issues by embedding an immersive context with subtlety. (in theory anyways; Google Glass looked ridiculous too.)

Just going to plug one of my favorite blogs here: http://elevr.com/ They're experimenting with basic VR interaction design. How do you represent things in VR, how do you communicate with other people in the room when you're wearing a headset, how does physical context change your experience. Fascinating, basic stuff we're going to have to figure out before we can build meaningful experiences in VR. http://elevr.com/would-you-like-to-see-an-invisible-sculptur...

I am both a huge proponent and skeptic of VR. I am no veteran but to my credit I was dabbling with VR many years before Oculus ran its Kickstarter.

I am skeptical in the short term because the hardware is still struggling to keep up with the demands (at a reasonable price point). Maintaining 90-120 FPS with any sort of detail is much more difficult than 30 FPS.

I am a proponent in the long term because there is definitely some sort of value. The feeling of "presence" just can't be matched by anything else (short of directly manipulating our sensory input).

I think people are still struggling to figure out where exactly the value is now though. In the long term I can see it being a huge social tool (to the point where people might regularly meet their significant other in a virtual environment, if the rendering is accurate enough). There is also likely benefit in creative tools (I have found modeling in VR to be much easier and more natural).

Interestingly, from the people I have shown VR to, it is the less technical people (non-programmers, etc) that walk away with their minds blown. Perhaps we are still not marketing VR strongly enough, because most people I know still have not tried a real device.

IMO VR will be different from mobile though. The evolution of apps for phones was explosive, but we are trying to game evolution by throwing huge amounts of funding at VR, perhaps prematurely. This is not to say any advancements at this point aren't worth the time, I am just not so sure there will be a large payoff in the short term. (And of course, this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree).

I think that AR (think magic leap) is going to be much bigger, at least in the short term.

VR is like the desktop. It will have its uses, sure, but you'll be tied to your desk/room. Gaming will probably still be the most popular VR application.

Your AR glasses will be your smartphone, on you the entire time, and you won't even need to reach for your pocket.

I think VR is garbage. You take what would be a decent visual experience, and stretch it across your field of vision until it's nice and pixelated. Then you cut that crap resolution in half, by giving each eye its own individual feed.

Now that you've got the resolution lowered by 10 fold or so, you can induce sickness with lag, head tracking inaccuracy, poorly executed strobing to reduce blur.

Now that you're sickly enjoying the screendoored world, your can enjoy the face sweat, and not being able to find your beverage in the real world.

I can live with everything but the screen door.

Maybe it's just me but I'm much more excited about Augmented Reality than Virtual Reality.

Recently I was looking for a new place to rent, and in every place I visited I kept trying to picture in my mind how my existing furniture would fit (and look) in the new space. It was so mentally tiring. I wish AR was advanced enough such that the rental agent would simply hire me a pair of AR glasses, I could log in to an account to load my existing furniture data, and project it into the empty rooms to rotate/rearrange/etc.

I bought a Vive back in August. I loved the shit out of it for months, but gradually stopped using it, although I still think it's an amazing piece of hardware and a big piece of the future.

But, when I play games, I frequently want a very relaxing activity, and the Vive doesn't do that. So, interesting.

But! As a (former?) AR professional, holy shit the non-gaming applications for AR/VR. There's overlap and synergy for applications in both mediums, and then there's the overlap on the technologies (particularly authoring tech - I'm looking at you, Unity) that go into them.

Basically, if I wanted to be a "real" AR developer when AR is ready, I'd start by becoming a real VR developer now.

For what it is worth, judging from CES this year the first round in the VR war was won by the Vive and GearVR. There were zero Rift demos that I could find. Of the two, the GearVR was better even though it lacked controls, the Vive hardware just just on the wrong side of crappy and the fuzzy muddy pictures I saw were a big dealbreaker, especially when compared to the GearVR.

That said, GearVR suffered from overheating the phone and crapping out.

On point #3, this is exactly why I've been building Primrose (https://www.primrosevr.com). Primrose is meant to be a framework for web developers to be able to build applications that live inside of a virtual environment. Microsoft calls this "Holographic Applications" (I don't exactly like that term, but I suppose I will get over it). The point is to divorce the need to do 3D graphics and geometry from building the application, to have those as the baseline and provide on top of that a shared set of UI metaphors. There is a really easy analogy to draw with standard, 2D GUI systems: you shouldn't have to write an HTML rendering engine before making a Web application, you shouldn't have to work in a game framework to make VR-enabled applications.

Please check out Primrose. I know it has some rough edges here and there, but I've already used it to make some interesting things (a client of mine was recently featured on Bloomberg.com for http://rex.legend3d.com). I know people are wary about "single-contributor" projects, but I've already been building Primrose for 2 years now, it's not going anywhere, and I'm open to bringing collaborators on, just nobody has really stepped up (and I've been so focused on working on VR projects for clients that I've not really had the time to proselytize).

Somebody is going to bring up A-Frame: I think A-Frame is a really nice system, I just think its design goals don't really match what I think is important. A-Frame wants to be the entity-component system for WebVR. That's great. But I don't think that meshes well with "get web developers on board". I don't want developers to have to think about what sort of motion controller component to use in their system. I actually want the system to be more restricted, less open-ended than A-Frame. Also, Primrose came out long before A-Frame, so I'm still married to Primrose for as long as I can be productive in it.

There are some limitations where I haven't quite reached my goal of making VR accessible to web developers, but that is more an issue of limited number of man-months. You can build useful applications with Primrose today. But I have a very clear goal in mind and if it's something you agree with, I would appreciate the help.

One thing I can't stand is the resolution, it really needs to be 2x-10x increased for me not to feel like I'm staring really closely at a screen. And when you increase the resolution by an order of magnitude, you need more processing power, which makes it harder to solve the giant problem of the size, cost, and awkwardness of the hardware. I can't wait until contact lenses are VR enabled.

I've had a Vive for a few months now and I hardly ever use it. I too was blown away at first. It really is an amazing experience when you first put it on and play a game like the The Blu but that sense of awe doesn't last long and you're left with a somewhat uncomfortable headset with less than stellar graphics and pretty boring games. These days I would much rather play a game like TitanFall 2 than any of the Vive games. Much more interesting.

Having said that, some of the non-game titles are great. Google Earth and The Body VR or whatever it's called, are fantastic learning tools.

One of my favorite things to do is to pack up my PC and Vive and take it to a friend or relative to try out. A lot of people view VR as a gimmick akin to 3D movies, which fairly predictably has died out, but once they have a chance to try VR they often understand the potential.

I think VR has a real future - which certainly will depend largely on falling hardware costs and increased software funding - and while I'm sure the next consumer device version will be significantly improved and appreciably cheaper I'm glad I was able to make a small contribution to the bootstrapping efforts.

Seperate comment because it's a separate topic: if I was looking to make money from VR as a primary consideration (as opposed to my current cascade of story first, money second) I'd be ignoring games altogether and looking at creativity / design / conferencing apps, probably for enterprise.

VR is incredible for creation and design, and can easily be collaborative too.

> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up.

Color me skeptical but they said the same thing about NES Power Pad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Pad

I think it's more likely that people will be even more zoned out as you can't even move your hand up and down in front of their faces to block their line of sight to the TV.

> If I am right, over the next five years we will see the following:

> 1. Lower price point and maybe the ability to finance the hardware (like your cell phone).

> 2. 100 million devices distributed. Without a significant number of users the best founders won’t get serious about building for VR over building for web/mobile.

> 3. New frameworks. Building and iterating VR apps is going to have to get a lot easier.

> 4. Large companies solving the primary hardware problems: headset and input innovation plus distribution. I think this might be too expensive for startups to tackle.

None of these predictions involve any insight into VR. Replace the word VR in #1, #3, or #4 with any tech at any point in recent history and you can make the same statement. I also doubt #2 will happen. The smartphone revolution was a natural evolution of expanding communication devices that people already had into devices that were more useful. VR requires an entirely new set of hardware (for the display component) that isn't anywhere near as approachable as going from a flip phone to a smartphone.

> Recently I’ve heard a lot of investors say “There isn’t a whole lot of new stuff to do in consumer. There’s already an app for that.” With VR, there isn’t already an app for that.

> I think we are no more than two years away from an explosion of new consumer startups and I cannot wait to start funding them at YC.

This I agree is definitely coming though I have my doubts about it being anywhere near the scale of smart phones or the push to make all things web. I also think there's going to be an even higher "dud factor" with VR startups than the already high rate for consumer focused startup. Let's see what happens!

I applied to YC about 2.5 yrs ago with a VR-focused company for new construction homes software. Got rejected. Fast-forward today and I've built a successful company with it. It'll take a few yrs for VR to get mass adoption, but it shouldn't stop people from starting a B2B VR company. I've seen a lot of tech since my TRS-80 days and can tell you that this one is going to be transformative in a lot of areas.

I don't think VR will take off unless the headsets become the size of big sunglasses, have great battery life, and someone releases a killer app. It's surprising that these headsets have been in the market so long, going on over a year now, and we have yet to see that one app that makes everyone run out and get a headset. Until all of these happen I don't expect much from the current state of the VR industry.

I'm not really sure what this means.

YC has been investing in VR/AR companies since at least 2014/5. 3% of S16 companies were VR. It's been on their Request for startups since at least 2014[1]. Is this simply stating that they are going to be more aggressive in the space?

There are plenty of us VR/AR startups out there...

[1] https://hackernoon.com/3-of-y-combinators-summer-2016-batch-... [2]https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#vrar

It's always fun seeing people go through the various stages that I (and many many others) have gone through over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, he's missing the fact that it's exceedingly socially awkward to use these things and people in general actually don't like being removed from the world. It is mentally exhausting worrying about what's happening that you can't see. Not fun :(

You're probably saying, ahhh, that doesn't matter. It turns out, it does.

If you want to get excited about something, look at AR instead of VR.

(I have vive, dk1, dk2, and cv1. though i actually never opened my free cv1 ..)

I spent the afternoon with friends playing on a vive in a dedicated room. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't leave the experience wanting to own my own setup.

Partly the newness of the tech is to blame, and the games were retrofits of things that existed. I think as a new generation of games come around that are conceived for the hardware it'll come around.

Let's not forget the zen-like simplicity of (Google) Cardboard VR apps. They are a lot of fun and use your phone plus a 15-20 dollar holder. I think these apps will be quicker to innovate as all of the hardware is so cheap and plentiful for developer and consumers.

I'm going through this thread comment by comment and it feels like reading customer reviews on Amazon. Many comments are written like those '5-star' reviews there. It's just a vague feeling and maybe I'm wrong.

VR might be a hit but there're questions marks which got outlined by other commentators quite well.

I'm not qualified to judge if VR is going to be a hit but I realize that a lot of people seem to be committed and invested in this space (so money is involved) and we should be just wary when we see 5-star reviews.

The challenges for VR today can be summed up in a few points:

- The price point (a high-end VR experience costs around $2800 ($800 HTC Vive + a $2000 PC)

- Resolution (even the best VR is too low-res today)

- Inside-out tracking (explained below)

- Content – there are great games and other immersive content today, but it's just scratching the surface

Apart from content, all of these challenges will be handily solved by Moore's Law in the next 24 months. We will have inside-out, high-end, high-resolution virtual reality that will cost a consumer less than $500-$1000 all-in.

The chicken-and-egg problem of content vs. consumer adoption is already being solved. Enough new headsets shipped last year for the market to support substantial investment in VR content over these next 24 months, and newer, better content + cheaper hardware will lead to increase in consumer adoption, which will lead to even more investment in content, and so on.

The only question then is: will everyday people want to use VR regularly? I have yet to meet someone who has spent a decent amount of time (more than a quick demo) in a high-end VR experience and still doubts this. Certain activities (gaming) will be adopted more easily, while others (watching a movie with your family) might feel a bit strange – but that will feel more natural when VR and AR converge on a 5-10 year timeline.

It's exciting!

* Regarding "inside out" tracking above: Today, the most advanced consumer headset (HTC Vive) gives a glimpse of this potential with "room-scale" VR that allows a user 6 degrees of freedom – meaning the ability to walk around in an environment. But, the Vive requires sensors on the walls that draw lines around a playspace – this is "outside-in" tracking. Inside out tracking requires a headset that can draw a volumetric map of its environment in real-time – so you could walk from room to room in VR and see walls and obstacles before you crash into them. (the closest thing we have to this today is the Microsoft Hololens) This is important because it reduces the need for a large physical space, a complex rig, a constrained environment area. It might not be necessary for mainstream adoption, but it is a challenge that needs to be faced.

I'm not sure I have much to contribute to the idea of VR beyond my years of playing MUDs, MMOs, and Second Life. So I'm seeing VR from the POV of the desktop here. What I think is the key problem with VR is the problem with all kinds of technology: form factor. For years cell phones were bulky niche products that didn't have many users until the mid-90s when candy bar and clam shell form factors were good enough compared to the bag and bricks of the 80s. That's when cell phones took off. Smart phones had a similar problem that was solved with better touch screens and better storage/processor. Now, VR has always had a huge problem with the goggles and other interfaces so I think VR to be able to be attractive to people (especially developers) it has to be smaller, better resolution, and as easy as wearing sunglasses and/or winter gloves (IMO, I think a glove form factor is the bare minimum for any controller scheme or at least a good enough pair of gesture sensors that are easy to place and calibrate). Until a good enough form factor takes over there's no way VR will ever break beyond niche. It's just that 2016 made that niche bigger. So I'll be waiting out this wave of VR out until they have a form factor that's easy and cheap.

I'm going to politely disagree with this article. It's overly optimistic and draws largely from anecdotal preferences and insights.

I believe that VR will fail for the same reasons blockchain has failed to reach critical mass, there's just no overwhelming pain it solves, it's nice to have but great majority of people still do not appreciate having a bright screen inches away from your eyes and the hardware while it will certainly get better, may be addressing immersion the wrong way.

A truly game breaking VR device is one that would not require strapping screen to your face, we will see what's out there on the market but it's still very much too early to say whether it's going to have the legs it needs to reach critical mass.

I could be totally wrong and we might end up staring into empty spaces on the Skytrain with people manipulating VR objects with wild hand movements. Sort of the same shift in how smartphones have made people hunched over a small screen or talking to the air with earphones with microphones.

I believe agumented reality is a much more subtle and gradual adoption where it won't require a powerful device but with gentle gestures or possibly even reading your mind's will to issue commands without having to deal with a touch screen. The Google glass is great but I think the killer app would be something you can install on your prescription glasses that projects layered UI and makes it "smart". We would be living in a self organized surveillance state where it's no longer necessary for a government to keep track of everything but peer based apps that shames socially negative behavior and the fear of such reprisals will be at a far far higher level than we have today.

We are living in a time where every new critical mass technology (ex. facebook) are essentially "cigarettes", widely accepted and normalized but not fully understanding it's consequences.

I've tried the Vibe and the Microsoft Hololens. The Vibe feels like a minor improvement over Jaron Lainer's original unit from the 1980s, which I tried back then. It's still too big and heavy. The update rate and position tracking are at last acceptable. It's going to be popular with the FPS gamer crowd, but beyond that, it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

The Hololens packs an incredible amount of hardware into a small package. That's a very good piece of mechanical and electrical engineering. While it can't really "draw dark", it does a decent job of trying, displaying against a filtered background of the real world. It's also cordless, which the VR guys really should have had by now. Its display field of view is too small; it can't maintain the illusion of markers on the world. A wider field of view and it will be useful.

I've yet to put a new one on.

I tried a wireframe VR headset game back in the `90's. It was a two player game where you tried to shoot each other. My wife was the other player and had a hard time time navigating the space. I moved right next to her and she couldn't find me, but what I could not do was pull the trigger. No way. Not even in VR.

I still don't do games, and I'm not really interested in wearing one of those headsets for hours no matter how "immersive" it is.

And to be honest, I really cannot imagine that people will do that on any large scale. I'm sure they will play with them, but I'd expect them to be more of a novelty than a daily use thing.

I would liken them more to a Segway. Awesome tech, but not near as popular in use as was imagined or predicted.

Same with "3D" movies. My kids don't like them all that much, but the tech is still impressive.

I'm making a VR game with giant mechs that has a totally unique movement mechanic. Anybody want to fund me? :P

I've been reading "Ready Player One" over the past few weeks and it's description of a VR-filled future is blowing my mind. It's really a great look into the possibilities for VR in the next 30 years. Highly recommended!

This article is basically, "VR gets a vote of confidence from YC". That's good to know, but:

a) It should be pointed out that this is what the article is doing (giving a vote of confidence, not summarizing, not making any sort of thorough or novel argument).

b) I think that thorough and novel arguments are more useful. The following post comes to mind: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/09/write-to-say-stuff-wor....

I agree that a lot of movement will happen to adapt actual apps to be explored in VR, but not just that. A lot of space will open for immersive content, one moment that you have a headset in every house. Therefore, new solutions are going to be needed both to explore and create for those devices. A good example are 360 videos editing. With that in mind I've been working on the last months on the first 360 video editor for smartphones, you can check that here http://collect.video

> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up.

In my experience, the best VR experiences are sit down. Sony's approach fully embraces this. Room scale is great, but I've had much more enjoyable experiences with the likes of Euro Truck and Elite than Showdown.

VR demos amazingly well, you're excited to try it out and it is genuinely breath taking the first time you look around your cockpit in outer space. But the isolation and cumbersome nature of it kills everyday use.

We've applied to YC a few months back with a real estate app based exactly on this premise. The goal was saving people's time and money in the inefficient home-search process.

Turned down, though.

Hm. Market potential is limited to upper-middle class (those having large work autonomy) or about 15% of the US population. Which may be plenty for your outlook, i'm no expert.

But I am a normal dude. And there is no way the remaining 85% of the population can check out of their real-world duties of getting kids ready for school, cooking, working, watching tv, etc to check-in to VR. No way.

VR's downfall IS its immersiveness. It's a serial activity that cannot be run in parallel with other life activities. With a phone, I can be texting, surfing ect and when my kid comes over, I can put the phone down and answer a question or continue cooking or whatever. VR-not so much. I'd have to first HEAR my kid come up to me, then unstrap the headset, put down my handset(s), etc...

If VR has large uptake as a technology, our interpersonal world, our family and social structures are fucked. Feels like the final checkmate in human history. Think I'll dig my heels in a bit and let you run over the cliff with that one.

People already spend significant amounts of time on game console screens and there hasn't been an explosion of non-game apps on those.

VR Porn will totally destroy all social norms and sexual IRL practices.

It's WAY too damn real, especially if you mix it with a real partner.

It'll be interesting to see how traditionally non-3D application translate to VR. For instance, what would a VR-enabled window manager look like, or an IDE, or a command-line shell, or a graphical file manager? What's the best way to manage web browser tabs in 3D or navigate a comment thread? What about interactive, graphical programming environments like puredata?

I expect there may be some generic solutions for problems like how to display a tree or graph in an intuitive way or how to manage a bunch of 2-D workspaces. Figuring out exactly what the best way to extract that generic functionality into libraries will be interesting, and I expect if VR becomes mainstream there will be a lot of competing VR widget libraries just like there are a lot of competing 2D gui widget libraries now.

I really want to get Oculus, but the requirement of high performance windows machine is keeping me away. I am a mac user and I don't intend to spend about $1500 for a windows machine that I would use only for VR.

I don't mind spending $1000 on an oculus which can work with a regular macbook pro.

I just said this a few days ago on another topic, but it bears repeating here -- people are thinking too narrowly. Replacing Input X for Input Y or Output X for Output Y are not seeing the big picture. Inputs and Outputs are now a multitude. We are entering the era of many-to-many for I/O.

The companies that succeed are not going be the software dudes who make their apps work for web, phones and VR (that will be a requirement, not a killer feature). No, the success stories will be those who build the glue to let everyone else easily make "all the things" work for all the inputs and all the outputs.

It is good to witness so much improvement in VR tech but most people focus on the eye. I think the killer step in VR and also AG will be when we can use all our fingers. Once we have that it will be a huge improvement in contrast to 2D interfaces. Haptic feedback on top of that would make the experience even better. Till that happens, VR experience is merely an eye interacting in a new world with 2 bulky pointers.

It would be great if someone develops a bracelet that can detect the electric signals going from my brain to my fingers and use it as an input to control virtual fingers.

I'm a casual gamer, enjoy gaming and like to buy a game and play it with my kids as a family activity. I bought an oculus rift when it came out, figuring it would be fun to try out. Everyone used it a few times and then it just sat there. Most of the enjoyment we get out of gaming is sitting around and interacting while playing, that really didn't work very well with the bulky headset on one person. I think maybe in a few years when the headsets are cheaper, smaller, and easier to manage then it will make sense, but I'm not sure that will be for a while.

> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up.

What kind of VR games are you playing? I haven't seen a single physically demanding VR game (unless you count standing "physical"). Unless everyone is going to have a dedicated room for their games or we come up with some kind of rental halls there won't be any physical activity in VR games just because there is no room to move around.

Sure ducking and crawling is somewhat more physical that just sitting and playing games, but not by much.

Trying to predict the future of VR based on tech specs is kind of silly, because I feel the determinant of the timeline of its success is dependent upon what applications are built for it. All it will take is one or two well executed applications that require VR to be used, that motivates folks sufficiently to purchase hardware (a $99 mobile VR headset being a starting price point) that will bend the curve. But, obviously its hard to predict what these are, otherwise someone would have built it already.

"3. New frameworks. Building and iterating VR apps is going to have to get a lot easier."

Hasn't Unity already cemented itself as the go-to framework for VR? Has anyone seen anything better?

Despite having two perfectly functional eyes, my brain only uses the right one due to a squint I had at birth which later improved but by then my brain had wired itself to ignore input from the left eye unless I close my right one (I get a quick shift to the left of everything in my FOV when I do this). As a result things like 3D cinema don't work for me (and I find using a telescope much easier than binoculars!).

If VR really takes off am I going to be unable to join in or will it work with one eye?

i feel like the physical aspect is something that's actually cumbersome in practice, you need a lot of space, and even then you need to make sure you don't gradually bump into things. It's a bit of a gimmick and I believe it will wear off. I have a hard time imagining the N-state of VR being anything else than people sitting still, or even lying down with just a remote or two in your hands where you don't even use gestures.

The N-state of every leasure activity is as low physical effort as possible.

However I'm not sure what the main activity will be on a really good VR platform. It might just be watching movies or it might be playing games. The thought of some kind of second life type of game/world is also something that feels like a cliche but is also pretty likely to happen. In which case, how do you move? how do you interact? probably voice + some sort of game controller, right?

There might be some practical applications of VR, such as surgery or whatever, but that will never be the mainstream, unless VR fails for consumers (again), and this discussion doesn't become very interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually pretty optimistic about this generation of VR. I simply don't believe in the whole premise of it becoming a physical activity.

I can't wait to see the first ssh client for VR.

Pretty mundane and naive observations, which is not surprising since it looks like he tried a VR headset for the first time a month ago.

Are we sure that VR in its current form (headset ala Oculus) is the form of VR that will become ubiquitous? I find it hard to believe that the average consumer will be interested in buying that clunky, expensive piece of hardware just for the "coolness" of it.

If VR is to become popularized i feel like it needs to be more seamlessly integrated into our daily lives.

Is there anywhere one can demo/rent a VR setup? I'd like to experience it before I take the plunge.

"Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity"

- I had the same thought yesterday too. I would go further and say we will see the first open world MMO to adopt true geospacial coordinates very very soon.

What do you think this will do to fitness? ;)

>Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an unhealthy activity.

It's a whole lot of research yet to be done in this area, VR & health (I don't mean muscles, I mean eyes, brain etc.). And VR market expansion will make this research possible.

I got pretty invested in VR in 2016, and to be honest I wish I'd just waited. Here's the history of how VR went for me last year:

* Pre-ordered Vive and Rift, planning to keep whichever one arrived first.

* The Rift encountered tremendous shipping issues.

* I got the Vive pretty much on launch day, so I figured I'd cancel the Rift order.

* I was blown away by room-scale in the Vive initially, but really disappointed in the visual quality. It wasn't just the resolution or screen-door effect. I was shocked to find how small the sweet spot is and how much of the image is out of focus around the edges. I was shocked at the godrays and various other optical phenomena.

* Because the Rift was said to have a much clearer picture than the Vive, I decided not to cancel the order.

* By the time the Rift arrived (in late July I believe), I had basically stopped using the Vive because I'd run out of content and the only new content coming out was incredibly unpolished Early Access indie stuff. Some of the games people are talking about here like Space Pirate Trainer or Holopoint I grew bored of by June of 2016. They're not new.

* The Rift was immediately more comfortable, the picture looked a lot clearer despite having the same resolution, and it was a big relief not needing to worry about separate headphones anymore.

* While I enjoyed the charm of Lucky's Tale and Chronos reminded me of Dark Souls, I couldn't get into any of the other seated content, so the Rift fell into disuse rather quickly. Keep in mind that if you're into racing sims or flight sims there's already a wealth of content for you -- but I'm not into those things (and I did try them).

* I entered a limbo where I didn't know what to do, which to sell (perhaps both?). I decided to preorder Touch, hoping that the Rift+Touch would be decisively better than the Vive and my decision would be made for me.

* Touch arrived in December. The controllers themselves were great. The tracking was not. It was a real pain to set up. I fiddled with it endlessly. The tracking software itself seemed to have glitches. It was really sensitive to which USB ports I used. Eventually I got the tracking working acceptably after my third sensor arrived -- still not as good as the tracking on the Vive, though, which was basically perfect.

* I've been experiencing a brief VR renaissance with the new Touch content, which is generally a lot more polished than anything on the Vive. However, most of it is purely multiplayer, which I'm not really into.

* Rift+Touch is not decisively better than the Vive, but I've somewhat arbitrarily decided to just keep it and sell the Vive, largely because it's the system that I currently have set up.

In retrospect, I wish I'd just waited an extra year or two. VR with tracked controllers and room-scale is definitely cool and I don't think it's a gimmick, but it's still very much in early adopter territory right now.

>> 4. Large companies solving the primary hardware problems: headset and input innovation plus distribution. I think this might be too expensive for startups to tackle.

Translation: Because startups are for software and if your idea is hard you should probably not bother.

Isn't this article a couple years late considering it is YC publishing it?

Maybe he should have waited a week before writing something under the wow effect.

So, how do you overcome the motion sickness / nausea problem?

I can already imagine multiple wearable mechanical contraptions to enhance the VR experience injecting orientation and acceleration to the mix. This is huge.

I spent ~$20 on a Evo and updated youtube and was very impressed. would I spend ~$1000 on the head stuff probably not but for ~20 you can't beat the it.

VR might explode once the hardware can convey our actual facial expressions.

Once that happens, there will be strong forces could tip:

* Offices/meetings

* Learning institutions

* Socializing with friends who aren't close by

* ...

I'm not getting into VR until Linux support is there. Every major vendor promised it. It's been long enough. More than long enough.

Just finished reading Ready Player One, and have never put on a VR unit. This post is timely. I can see having a very similar reaction.

What's the model for building apps, then. Oculus is owned by Facebook. How do you create a game - does it require a paid SDK?

Baloney. Unless the form factor improves significantly, this will disappear again quickly.

AR has a much much better shot at mass market adoption.

When companies stop selling prototypes for full price maybe I'll get one of these. For now it's just another toy full of unaccomplished promises and useless hype, waiting to be abandoned for the user after experiencing motion sickness. No immersion at all and nothing impressive at this very moment. Considering I'm hearing it's the "future" since virtual boy... this future is waiting too much to be reached.

Does anyone know if there is a correlation between the future of VR and the eyecare industry?

Yep, this is why game company www.gameover.la is moving to VR. The potential is huge.

How is VR "physical" when you are tethered to a computer?

We need more women to get into VR. Not some SJW thing, young 20 something techy dudes just don't shop enough. Future malls will be in VR, and it'll be awesome, but right now the wrong demographics are using VR.

I expect lightweight, ergonomic VR or AR to replace desktop monitors in a few years. which means desks may no longer be needed. time to short IKEA - oh wait they re not listed.

Like most people, I'm completely sick when I'm in VR. I don't see how the VR could become mainstream if they don't fix this problem.

i cant see myself with vr.

    Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be 
    perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this 
    growing up.

I don't see this panning out ever. If "virtual reality" went beyond being room based, then it doesn't really seem like the same idea as virtual reality. And I don't think anyone thinks it's healthy to bump around a small office room.

Harkens back to the 'playing Wii is exercise' movement.

    Because VR is so immersive, I can imagine myself spending 
    significant amounts of time (hours) with a headset on, 
    every day.

While there's plenty of room for improvement, this doesn't sound particularly healthy. It's eerily similar to taping lightbulbs to your eyelids and expecting good results. Even if the light level were healthy, the close screen and lenses could do damage to focus. I would definitely talk to real eye doctors before planning around this idea. But then again, I'm nearsighted just from reading books and using the computer.

This is also a naïve attitude as anyone who has or has developed for VR knows that a little time goes a long way.

    As a result, gaming will not be the only significant use 
    case for VR. My headset will steal time time from other 
    screens (tv/laptop/phone) and as a result there will be an 
    explosion of VR consumer apps, entertainment apps, 
    developer tools, and more.

The virtual office concept is nuts. There is never going to be a time when the cost per pixel of virtual monitors outperforms real monitors. VR is inherently selfish, so there's very little room for opening up collaboration. A dry erase board gives a better sense of community.

    If I am right, over the next five years we will see the 
    following: 100 million devices distributed.

That's certainly possible but I don't understand the leap from, "this device is cool," to "this is a necessity." When I first saw 3D TV's I thought, "hey, this is great!" but they aren't sold in my local electronics stores any longer.

I do think VR is cool. I think it's great that Oculus was able to kickstart all the way to Facebook, and I think the Vive is an even better product. The smartphone VR is a neat way to get rid of wires. And there are plenty of great games and applications, where the community is just getting started.

But I don't think this is the revolution that people are pinning on it. In ways, VR devices are glorified view masters. Everyone loved those as a child but they are a toy. (The armed forces pay a lot for 'serious games' as well, so it isn't a discount.) I think if many people who tried VR tried a Nintendo 3DS they might also love it. And if you tried head tracking on a normal display it might also be exciting.

I don't like the infatuation with VR. It's not healthy and it's only going to make things more disappointing when the bubble bursts. It also rings hollow.

I have mixed feelings about the potential of VR, and seeing YC pushing for it makes me reconsider my position. Let me explain.

I preordered the HTC Vive as soon as it was available in Europe. I got it shipped and the excitement couldn't be bigger. When I first tried, I was blown away. It was an experience I never had had before. I described it once as the single, most beautiful digital experience in my life. And I really mean it.

But.

Once the newness wears away, it's hard to find a motivation to keep spending hours in VR. It's cutting-edge tech, no doubt about it. But it requires a certain kind of commitment that you just can't give it for a long time. Using room-scale VR requires you to have a dedicated, large space just for VR. You need to detach yourself completely from the outside world while using it. You can't play it casually. You need to be a 100% committed to it. Compared to many other digital experiences, it's an all-in or nothing approach.

While playing on the PC, you need to be sitting in front of your PC. It's fine, because you can still read texts on your phone or talk to your family members that are passing by. Playing console games is even less of an issue, since you can be in your living room, sitting at the sofa, playing your favorite game. Using a tablet, or your phone is even more casual. You can do it in the middle of many everyday tasks, without it being an issue at all. At most, it's a distraction.

So after a while, VR becomes this great experience to be had only a few, limited times a week, or even a month.

Let's talk VR games. When the Vive started shipping world-wide, you would see tons and tons of VR content shipping to Steam. Unfortunately, most of them were short, alpha-stage demos, showcasing the new technology. But not a single deep, long game. You would pay full price for games that would not last more than 3 hours total. It's been many months now, and besides Bethesda's Fallout 4 coming to VR in 2017, there is just no other AAA title in sight!

I loved playing Pool Nation VR! I could play it with people from all around the world. It's honestly the closest you can get to a real pool table gameplay. But then again, after only a couple of months after its launch, it was next to impossible to even find a person available for playing online! The matchmaker would go for more then 10 minutes without finding a single opponent. I tried it many times, then I gave up.

The non-game aspect of VR seemed to have potential as well. But as of today, besides some gimmicky drawing applications or low-res virtual movie theaters, there just isn't a single app that would make you think that VR is the next big thing.

I was really excited about AltspaceVR. In the beginning, it was vibrant, with lots of people meeting and exploring this new way of socializing with other people from all around the globe. Guess what? It's pretty empty right now, not even a fraction of what it used to be the first few weeks after launch.

Still, I am going to reconsider selling the Vive now. I had pictures taken and a description prepared to sell it through a second-hand online store. Maybe there is more to it than it appears. Maybe the next-gen VR sets are going to be wireless and much, much less isolating (AR anybody?). We shall see...

DPDR

would vr worsen myopia?

Kind of odd that it takes yc this long to understand such a world changing technology. And their point is that other vcs are even more pessimistic and unexcited about technology.

It really shows you how absolutely myopic and limited the current startup ecosystem is. Many thousands of people could tell VR was real this time back when Oculus did a Kickstarter. But vcs take +n years? Shows how much room for improvement there is, I suppose.

It's weird, he keeps misspelling AR. ;)

I think VR is still too focused on mainly males who are young and tech-savy. It can only grow so much while focusing on this demographic.

I got involved in social media, and many smart-phone enabled technologies or apps (and many other things now that I think about it), because the popular kids at school were using them. I personally haven't seen this adoption by social trend setters happen with VR yet.

Nobody wants VR. You can try and ram it down our throats all you want with TV adds showing befuddled old people discovering the wonders of a phone strapped to their head, or calling VR systems a "hot Christmas gift," but that won't change the fact that nobody wants it. It's too awkward, and it makes the user too vulnerable. You cannot create this market.