I have been dreaming of better interfaces (controllers) for games for decades. The Wii, despite it's limited power, was a huge leap forward in how we played games. Unfortunately Nintendo is the only gaming company taking risks while Microsoft and Sony keep doubling down on graphics with the same controllers from 30 years ago. If someone made a non-VR console with VR-style controllers it would be a huge leap. Instead we keep getting the same old immersion-killing 4-button-mashing consoles and games with upgraded graphics cards.
Of course if this is a solvable problem - those who otherwise suffer from motion sickness are symptom-free in any VR application - then I agree VR could have a bright future.
I'm getting into boat-sailing, and I'm saddened by the nausea it causes. I'm looking into ways to reduce this, and I'm thinking ways to deal with motion sickness incurred in VR-games is probably applicable to me.
After trying the oculus dk1 roller coaster demo, I was incapable of doing anything for 4-5 hours and still felt sick days later.
I play beat saber regularly; taking off the vive after an hour I feel mildly disoriented for about half a minute and then I am fine. The tech has progressed tremendously and no longer gives me any trouble (which may not hold true for everyone but it’s definitely been fine for me)!
Sony did with PS Move, many years before PSVR. I guess you could consider the Wii a prototype in that direction as well.
Because they work and they're what people want. Xbox and Playstation both tried their own motion controls and they flopped, and thank god they did. Many of us like controllers and don't want people trying to innovate that away.
This. Local multiplayer has been severely lacking from games since networking got really fast. Most people of my generation who grew up playing things like GoldenEye and Halo locally would buy anything that gave even minimal service to this niche.
My buddy and I stayed up til 2am the other week co-opping "Wild Guns" on his Super NT. Totally out of left field and something I never would have cared for when I had an SNES.
That said, I also wish newer games embraced it more, but at least I found some outlet.
Half the stuff I see people do online goes against any logic I ever thought people would do. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes off for something completely out of left field. Like what is the weirdest, dumbest thing you could think of doing with vr technology, for example - watching 2d movies with your friends, or playing minesweeper, and I bet that's going to be the thing that makes it hit big.
Eh, I'd be cautious. Remember the late 90s, when the day when you'd primarily control your computer by talking to it was imminent? Or (also in the late 90s) when PDAs were going to take over the world? Or that thing where you'd have documents embedded in other documents and no applications as such? Or... tech has a lot of fads, is all I'm saying, and often significant resources are spent on them. Some of them go somewhere. Some eventually emerge in a massively different form (PDA -> smartphone). Some just die, though.
Except that this belies the politics of BigCos. The BigCos are throwing money at it because a) everybody else is doing it, and nobody wants to get left behind, so it's a good bet for executives to fund b) it's a shiny new thing, so it's an interesting project that will get adoption internally from people at the lower levels who will be eager to transfer to and work on the project.
Neither of those have anything to do with whether or not there's actually a sizable market for it, but we won't know whether a market will appear for it as the market potential is nearly entirely dependent upon execution (i.e. early VR didn't sell well due to low resolution, motion sickness from low refresh rates, lack of a killer app, etc.).
It's pretty easy to throw money at projects. Coming up with something that's good enough to sell at mass-market volumes is an entirely different question.
Like with social media, the psychological implications are not clear.
Production value or number of games? I still see lots of games being made. But there most stuff to wade through to find a good one.