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Comment by tmikaeld | Hacker News Reader

I personally think the CastAR glasses will be a much better solution, and above all - a very social one.

It's definitely different from Oculus/Valve but I think most people want to be immersed in a world rather than have a very sophisticated and gorgeous board game/D&D experience.

There is fighting a dragon with your D&D friends on a couch eating chips and what not, then there is fighting a dragon with your hands and body.

I'm not saying there isnt a place or this won't be popular, but I'd rather be in the OASIS somewhere with an immersion rig :)

I don't know - 3D TV has broken the ice of getting everyone together wearing glasses to view content. I think the CastAR at the right price point could be a next logical step there - especially if they take the QR code alignment concept and add a bit of social logic to it (i.e. look at this target and say, your phone downloads prompts to download the relevant game and connect (or hunts for the right wi-fi video stream).

There's a lot of potential there.

3D TV has broken the ice of getting everyone together wearing glasses to view content.

That was also true in the 1950s, 3d films were a success for a while back then.

I'm not saying there isnt potential _there_ just that most people/gamers I talk to are looking for VR, not AR. Google glass and CastAR will bring a lot of nifty stuff to the table but that will be a different audience.

Like the blog post said, VR people are after Snow Crash/Ready Player One.

I'm sure LARP'rs will want AR

> It's definitely different from Oculus/Valve but I think most people want to be immersed in a world rather than have a very sophisticated and gorgeous board game/D&D experience.

This is by no means the only thing CastAR will be able to do - it's just what they have concentrated on in their demos. Perhaps because unlike Oculus, they can create an experience where many viewers can share the same scene (or a completely different scene) on the same physical surface.

I am particularly interested about CastAR for (flight, etc) simulation. The problem with Oculus is that it completely blocks your view to the real world. When playing flight simulators and other games with lots of controls, you need to see where your fingers are. E.g. playing flight sims with the Oculus, most of the time your hands will be on throttle and stick and everything is fine but when it's time to engage the landing gear, you'll have to peer under the goggles to find the button for the landing gear.

Perhaps the CastAR technology is more suited to things that pop out of the surface (like a board game button) than things that go deep into the surface (like a window). This might make it less suitable for simulation purposes.

On the other hand, the playing with the Oculus will inevitably be a solitary gaming experience where the CastAR may be able to preserve the social element in gaming. Of course, solitary and social games are targeted at different audiences.

But the best thing about CastAR vs. Oculus is the competition of two different technologies, which will inevitably drive the competition forwards.

I've been very (very!) impressed by how natural CastAR feels to use. But I fear they'll go the way of the Wii - great tech, but no one really takes it seriously enough to build out on the platform. My fingers are crossed for them though :)

I don't. There's no way AR can be make you feel "present" in a whole other world the way VR does - at least not as fast as VR can do it. Whether it can do it 20 years later, that's different. But it seems much easier to do that with VR now.

This is exactly the difference between VR and AR. With VR you yourself become convinced that you are present in a virtual reality, while AR convinces you that the virtual has a presence in reality.

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