Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

The problem I see is my PSVR1 is dusty because I'm bored with it. It was a cool experience and battlezone was fun but maybe 20 hours in and I'm done and its dusty.

The marketing solution to the PSVR1 being boring is "its got more pixels and no backwards compatibility". That message is just not going to sell to upgraders like me. "It costs more" is not going to sell to people who couldn't/wouldn't pay for the PSVR1. So who's supposed to buy this, exactly? People who collect VR headsets is not a large enough market.

The technology reminds me of the wii fit balance board. If you can't have 20 hours of fun with that, there's something wrong with you. Likewise, if you're having more than 20 hours of fun, I have to ask "how?" Its about as many hours of fun as a VR headset, but costs less. The balance board is just a few years older than VR headsets and nobody sells that type of tech anymore. That is the future of VR headsets.

I think this is a valid HN story in the sense of being an object lesson in how not to sell something technological. Your marketing message needs to be aimed at a market and has to have a message, you can't just leave those two parts out and expect product success.

6 years is a lifetime in technology and a lot has changed. There are new use cases for VR since you last tried it.

1. Fitness - It's just a lot more fun to do when you're boxing in a Mike Tyson's Punch Out clone or slicing blocks with lightsabers. There are also VR specific fitness apps have a lot more variety than normal cardio exercises. In my case, I've lost 20 lbs to date... playing VR video games

2. Social - For friends and family who are hundreds or thousands of miles away, XR becomes a platform for hanging out with them while doing activities like ping pong, bowling, table top games, mini golf, and more. It has way more immersion and presence than a Zoom, Facetime, or normal phone call.

I would try it out again one day before rushing to judgement. At least you tried it the first time though unlike everyone else.

I respectfully disagree. I think VR is about in the same place experience-wise. PSVR has Beat Saber. And the social experiences (I'm assuming you mean VRChat and such) are... just fine, in my opinion? And I definitely have long-distance relationships where it makes sense. The novelty wears off quick and being isolated and with an uncomfortable headset on is a non-negligible cost vs video/voice/text.

(I have a recent headset and associated hardware, FWIW.)

> I think VR is about in the same place experience-wise.

If all you've experienced is PSVR1, the visual fidelity has gotten much better on newer platforms and so have the controls and tracking which all greatly affect the experience. Wireless is also a big game changer.

> And the social experiences (I'm assuming you mean VRChat and such) are... just fine, in my opinion? And I definitely have long-distance relationships where it makes sense. The novelty wears off quick

How can the novelty for social wear off when you haven't actually tried the social portion? That didn't exist on PSVR. (and no, I wasn't talking about VRChat)

Working out in VR also handily beats working out without it. In many cases, the novelty does not wear off since working out without VR tends to be very repetitive and dull.

> I have a recent headset and associated hardware, FWIW.

Which one? If so, why don't you discuss that "recent headset" instead of ancient 6 year old hardware that no one really uses anymore?

I think you’re looking at VR from a point of view that it can do no wrong, for some reason. If VR workouts are so fun, why isn’t there a larger adoption of it? If the social interactions are so incredible, why aren’t people living their lives in VR yet?

The answer is pretty simple… because it’s really not. The experience is 90% novelty and once that wears off you really don’t have much left unless you find a game you really really enjoy.

VR has had enough time to see adoption numbers reach critical mass. They just haven’t. Most people that own them are probably like me and the person who posted their original opinion. They sit and gather dust.

> I think you’re looking at VR from a point of view that it can do no wrong

No. I know VR has a ton of problems, but for the people who have actually tried it extensively, none of those problems are mentioned by people who have near zero experience with modern VR ie not Google Cardboard

> If VR workouts are so fun, why isn’t there a larger adoption of it? If the social interactions are so incredible, why aren’t people living their lives in VR yet?

Several factors:

1. price and complexity for PCVR

2. Facebook’s brand is destroyed for the current working population. Even though it released a technological marvel, no one is even willing to try it just because it’s from Facebook. I write about it in more detail in other comments

3. Some people just don’t like to do any physical activity

> The experience is 90% novelty and once that wears off you really don’t have much left unless you find a game you really really enjoy

How do you know when you haven’t used modern VR? Google cardboard doesn’t count. That’s my main point

> Most people that own them are probably like me and the person who posted their original opinion. They sit and gather dust.

Which headset do you own?

> How do you know when you haven’t used modern VR? Google cardboard doesn’t count. That’s my main point

Weird assumption to make. I’ve tried modern hardware, to me it’s mostly just higher resolution of the same thing.

All of your points do very little to address VR concerns. It’s the lazy people hurting the adoption of VR? Shouldn’t it appeal to someone that’s lazy and doesn’t want to go outside?

Facebook is far from the only player in the game. But their inability to make meaningful content with such a large investment should tell you something.

VR is a niche idea that has performed about as well as you can expect. Very few people want to go and work with a VR headset. I think it’s also fighting the trend of people wanting actual experiences, not virtual reality. If I can spend $1000 on a VR headset that will eventually just gather dust or choose to actually go somewhere, I’d choose the latter. Many people would.

I suspect it’ll end up the way 3D TVs did.

> Weird assumption to make. I’ve tried modern hardware, to me it’s mostly just higher resolution if the same thing.

It’s not a bad assumption because you never mentioned an actual problem with VR (and they are many). What you’ve done is simply parrot people who haven’t experienced VR for more than 5 minutes if at all. Like the previous parent commenter, you still haven’t mentioned which modern headset you’ve owned.

> It’s the lazy people hurting the adoption of VR?

I’ve ordered adoption hurdles according to importance and prevalence. It is a factor, but not the biggest one.

> Facebook is far from the only player in the game.

Meta is the only large publicly traded company that’s shipped something worthwhile for the masses at large. Sony and Apple will enter soon, but that won’t happen until next year.

So you have to be a publicly traded company to deliver a product now? A quick search shows several big companies — HP, HTC, Valve, Samsung, for example — that have highly rated equipment.

My point still stands. I’ve tried the HTC and Valve equipment multiple times. If your argument is “oh you gotta own it and dump hours and hours into it before you see the value”, I think you’ve already lost your argument with 99.9% of consumers. This is no demonstrated value of VR, and what it does offer is fairly lackluster once the novelty wears off.

Seems like you’ve fallen for the Meta ads about how this is life changing. In its current form, it’s not even close.

> So you have to be a publicly traded company to deliver a product now?

No, but they’re the only ones with enough resources to burn. Of the companies that you’ve named, none of them has made a VR system for the masses when the price for entry is about $3000 for a complete PCVR system. To add insult to injury, they’re not even wireless

> My point still stands. I’ve tried the HTC and Valve equipment multiple times. If your argument is “oh you gotta own it and dump hours and hours into it before you see the value”

Yes, it doesn’t stand because you haven’t used it enough. If your only impression of the internet was Yahoo, I don’t feel that it’s fair or accurate to say that the entire internet sucks. Your complaints are vague and they still reflect that of a person with near 0 experience in VR and that’s why I can’t take you seriously.

> I think you’ve already lost your argument with 99.9% of consumers

I don’t expect the masses to be able to see or understand the future. They don’t have the skill set for that. Conversely, most people on HN have that skill. I’m just asking people here to use it with enough data

My experience is identical to yours. I loved the PSVR but sold it 6 months later due to lack of use. Half-Life Alyx was the only game to come out for VR that I wish I could check out. But even that isn’t worth the cost and space investment in a new headset.

That's my biggest fear with PSVR2. There's a few AAA games and then a bunch of indie games and that's it. Until Sony treats VR as a first-class citizen I don't see this changing.

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