Comment by mentos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mentos | Hacker News Reader

Oculus Rift owner here. I think the biggest things to look for in the upcoming consumer version is how effective the new head tracking is at reducing the mismatch between your real-world head and virtual-head. Among all of the factors that contributed to nausea in the first development kit, latency, motion blur, pupillary distance, I believe a lack of head tracking has been the biggest as they did not have an effective solution and instead modeled it in software with a simulated 'neck crane'. Little variations in your head position that normally create a wealth of information for your eyes were not being picked up and were understandably creating discomfort or the user.

Based on the reviews I've seen of the Crystal Cove prototype, it looks like this new 1:1 head tracking, coupled with reduced motion blur, has eliminated a majority of the nausea from the experience (1).

So if Oculus holds up their end of the bargain, the next breakthrough is on the game developers. Who is going to create that 'killer app'? My bet is on Valve with something like Half Life 3 / LFD2 (2).

1 - http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/new-oculus-prototype-f... 2 - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131719-Leaked-Sour...

I actually think Portal would be a better killer VR app than HL or LFD. It would appeal to a much larger base, including more casual game players.

If we're talking mainstream breakthrough.... If EA weren't so backwards, and assuming the hardware were ready, The Sims VR would cause an earthquake.

Also, a next generation incarnation of Minecraft would be a prime candidate. A world you can 'live' in, that is easy to randomize and wouldn't take five years for devs to build first (ala Skyrim).

Is Portal considered more mainstream than a straight-up shooter? I would think that most run-of-the-mill COD or Battlefield players would stay away from the quirky, puzzle-y nature of Portal.

Depends on what you mean by mainstream; women and children in the family room may be more likely to pick up Portal than COD

In the articles I read, it sounds like Oculus has very carefully worded how exactly motion sickness was "fixed" ... saying it "eliminates it in certain virtual environments." [1]

The only cause of unbearable motion sickness for me was strafing in games like HL2, Portal, etc. I'm somewhat skeptical that adding head tracking will make these strafing-heavy games sickness-free.

Currently, the sickness is such an off-putter that I need to force myself to keep using the device. I'm somewhat concerned that if this cannot be eliminated for all content, then some proportion of users will still get sick as the envelope is pushed. I know that for many/most consumers, even slight sickness will cause them not to want to use it at all.

[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2425987,00.asp

I hope the killer app will be developed by some new company. Valve has gone wrong way (appealing to the broad group of consumers pays off though).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com