For those with VR headsets of any kind: how often are you using it? Are we there yet with VR? If not, is it the hardware, the content, or both?
For now, I'd define "there" as at least 0.5 * time spent on console or PC gaming per week.
For now, I'd define "there" as at least 0.5 * time spent on console or PC gaming per week.
I haven't used VR in my home (or to play a game anywhere) in over a year. It's just a huge pain in the ass to set up, and I don't have a great spot to play in my apartment.
Once it's set up, the experience of being in VR is great. The controllers are good, and the hardware is great (other than the setup). There just aren't any games or other software I'm interested in playing.
I'm looking forward to Oculus Quest for helping with ease of use.
The trick is to leave it set up ;-)
But is it really that hard? I use a Rift in a hot-desking office and setting it up takes all of 30 seconds each time I move. The room setup doesn't need to be redone. I don't bother with the guardian boundary for front-facing cameras. I just plug in the USB+HDMI and I'm done.
At the same time, it makes you feel tired. Not only your eyes / mind, but your body. So I don't play that much, but that's the only reason - you need to be in a special mood to play, and you can't play for one hour, at least not without some rest.
But I enjoy it a lot, and with my girlfriend we often joke it was the best purchase we ever made.
But the experiences I've messed with are amazing when they land. Elite Dangerous, Beat Saber, Moss, even Google Earth. It's pretty rare for a game to make me stop and literally exclaim, "Holy shit!", but it happens pretty regularly in VR.
For me VR is mainly a replacement of other forms of physical activity. And just like I wouldn't spend hours every day exercising, same way I wouldn't spend hours in VR. I simply do not like the idea of going to a gym to pointlessly swing arms or legs; VR gives me a goal, a reason to swing those arms and legs.
Of course, to some degree I also use VR for leisure, playing games which do not require a lot of physical movement (e.g. Euro Truck Simulator or Elite: Dangerous). In terms of time, I may actually be spending more time on this category of VR, than the first one - probably exactly because they do not require physical exertion. But still I'd consider the first group much more important.
As for shortcomings, fortunately I'm quite resistant to motion sickness, so that's not a problem for me; also limited FOV never bothered me. I'd say the main problem for me is relatively low resolution - which is especially prominent in games where you need to look at objects far away (Euro Truck Simulator), or need to read text (Talos Principle).
Echo VR is super super fun to play, as one concrete example, but I’d say the Rift is still not good enough other than as a toy to show off to people. The driver updates are also absurdly huge. I didn’t use it for a month and I had a 14gb driver download (pretty sure it wasn’t any game/app updates)
We are far away from VR being even in the comparable to general purpose “everyday” computing IMO.
Some combination of a bug, strange setup, or bad environment is going on here. Maybe you have a large mirror or pane of glass around your setup? Lots of things can go wrong.
You are literally the only person I've heard this from.
Most of the "games" are either poor ports of actual games or phone level arcade games. I enjoyed going in public VR spaces to interact with people but it quickly lost it's charm.
I'm excited for Boneworks that is coming out eventually and that will make me dust off my headset. Hopefully it won't go back in the closet after a month again.
From a mainstream perspective though, I'm still not sure. I think the Rift S gets us a lot closer with its emphasis on comfort and ease-of-use, and it's definitely a viable consumer product, but I think there may still be a ways to go before we start seeing _real_ mainstream adoption.
The Quest on the other hand, I think has a real chance at being a smash hit. The fact that you don't need a PC to use it is going to be huge for more casual consumers, both for economic reasons (no need for an expensive PC) and ease of use. I expect it'll be a big first step towards pushing VR into the mainstream.
Otherwise there's still a dearth of "traditional" games in VR, although this is gradually starting to change.
I spent a lot more time in VR than console and PC gaming because I'm a fan of VR rather than a fan of pancake gaming.
I was a very occasional gamer prior to VR. But I'm in VR nearly every day.
It was the main video game I played for a while, almost always with the Oculus Rift. I don't play it any more for various reasons.
I am going to take a strong look at this headset because the most frustrating thing was never issues with resolution, FOV, or whatever people are complaining about.
It was all this quality of life stuff that the Rift S looks like it fixes, like setting up head tracking, recentering the screen, not being able to see the keyboard, needing 3 USB ports, etc.
(The other gaming I do is where VR makes precious little sense to begin with - like the odd indie game on the go on a Nintendo Switch, or occasional binges whenever Rockstar releases something big)
I don't think we are there yet. I'd like to do more creative and productive stuff in VR which really wants higher res screens and fine hand control, either through gloves or some kind of hand tracker.
I'd like to see more serious gaming content as well. Apart from sims, a lot of the games I've been seeing seem to be twee and gimmicky. Or maybe I'm just an old git and the market has left me behind.