For gaming or non-gaming? In my circle of acquaintances, I know 2 people that use it for gaming (one individual is an avid "Elite Dangerous" player, which is a perfect use-case for VR). I don't know anyone that uses VR (or AR) for non-gaming purposes. This is what Facebook/Meta was trying to push.
The problem for VR, specifically, is that there is a sizable population of people that experience nausea when using it even for relatively small amounts of time. I'm in that group. So even if I wanted to, I would not use, for example, VR productivity or collaboration apps, just because of the nausea.
It's still a niche product.
AR obviously doesn't have these issues and I think will one day be great, but VR could have this problem for decades.
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q1/virtual-nos...
I want this research applied to seasick sailors. Imagine if you could simply put on a headset and it provided cues to your inner ear and brain that helped more quickly adapt life at sea
This would be awesome
I wouldn't call it perfect. It's a brilliant first experience for things like docking which does feel mind blowing - true fantasty fulfillment type thing.
However, after that it's better as a non-VR game. It's very grindy with repetitive actions, lots of time spent in menus and then long waits either as travel time or for missions/trades to repopulate. It's also a game where you want to refer to external web tools for trade routes, navigation info, planning ship upgrades etc.
All of this means it's worst type of game for enduring long stints in a headset while nothing is happening. Most of the game is best suited to a small window on your desktop while you watch TV with a web browser and a drink.
Let's set aside AR because I do think there is potential there, and I never had any issues with AR. Granted, I also haven't experience an actually good AR app.
For VR, I've tried a bunch headsets, from the original Oculus, to the crappy Google Cardboard, to the Meta Quest 1/2 headsets, to the PS VR2, and some newish versions of VIVE. To be fair, none of them extensively, but here's what I found:
- if the VR app has you merely looking around, while standing still or allows 'natural' motion (where I physically walk around a space), after about an hour, I'll get a low-level nausea that will make me feel like crap for the next few hours. It's manageable to use VR every once in a while in this way, but I would never use it day-in/day-out because of the after-effects.
- if the VR app requires motion via controller - forget it. I'm not even sure I could handle 10 minutes of that.
Obviously, I haven't done an exhaustive study on headsets and VR apps, so maybe the new high-end headsets mitigate the nausea issues to the extent where it would not cause discomfort - but so far that hasn't been the case.
Not to mention that consumer electronics sales in 2002 vs 2023 are just nowhere near in the same ballpark. A phone maker sells more phones in a year today than a top selling line of mp3 players might have sold over its entire lifetime in the 2000s.
Meta is pouring massive amounts of money into the project and has yet to establish organic demand. The headsets that have been sold are gathering dust. There is no product/market fit.