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When will Virtual Reality be a big thing for video games?

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CM30

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And by that, I mean actually start getting used in mainstream titles like Call of Duty or GTA or Final Fantasy or Zelda or whatever else?

Will it take a few more years before the technology becomes good enough for VR to finally hit the mainstream?

What do you think?
 
Honestly, and I am not making a joke here, I bet it won't really boom until some dev tosses in a nude female. That would fire up media and censorship and whatever else have you and thus drum up an audience that was otherwise unaware of its existence. Then again, GTA or CoD would do so because people will complain about violence being 'too real' again in video games.

I mean, if you have to wear something over your face which blinds you from the people around you in real life, I feel a lot of people are going to be apprehensive to do so. Like me, for example, when I play single-player games I have the music in the game muted, spotify on via my pc, and am typing to people on Skype. I'd have to really want to play in a VR environment in order to place the headset on that prevents me from noticing messages on my PC. even more-so, when I lived with people i'd game whilst watching movies or cooking or whatever else with the people I lived with; all things hard to do whilst blind.
 
VR is good for certain applications, racing games are a good example. I don't know if y'all are aware but the game iRacing hosts multiple racing series and they're actually pretty fun to watch. The guys that play/race have wild set-ups that they use. I'm talking racing seat mounted to a custom made "roll cage", they have real pedals for the gas/brake/clutch, steering wheels with force feedback so they can feel the car, and a real stick for shifting gears.

Up until a few years ago everyone of the big name guys was using three screens so they could see around their virtual car. Now many of them are moving on to VR headsets so they can see everything. This means they can now look to either side of the car to see if another car is there. They have spotters just like in real life racing but sometimes you need to take a quick peek. They can also look at the gauges with a quick glance. Most of them say they prefer the VR to having three screens.

If you're interested check out this video:


That puts you about 15 minutes into the video, I skipped the boring parts of it for you (intro, ads, interviews and things of that nature).

By the way these guys take this stuff very serious. To even get into the top series takes a ton of work and practice. Once you're there you're racing with/against real NASCAP cup drivers sometimes. Dale Earnhardt Jr. have been known to pop up and race in these virtual races from time to time.

The simulator they use is really good. They are constantly tweaking it to keep up with the changes in track conditions (all tracks are laser mapped), they change the way the tires wear out when Goodyear brings a new compound to the track on race weekend. Pretty much any little change in the track/rules/car are added to this game ASAP. Rookies in NASCAR use this simulator to get familiar with tracks they haven't run on before.

If you're really good you might even get offered a chance to come and race a real car in a NASCAR series. Several people have done this already. :)

I personally think it's the best racing game around at the moment since they also do similar things for F1, IndyCar, and all the other series the game has in it.
 
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I think the main obstacle with VR right now is the amount of graphical power it takes to run the thing - the current generation of consoles are nowhere near enough to do so. You have to render two screens that are 1080p+ in something like 90FPS, and a lot of GPUs aren't ready for that yet.
 
el canadiano said:
I think the main obstacle with VR right now is the amount of graphical power it takes to run the thing - the current generation of consoles are nowhere near enough to do so. You have to render two screens that are 1080p+ in something like 90FPS, and a lot of GPUs aren't ready for that yet.
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I don't know if I agree with that considering I've personally played VR games using the visor-like headset back in the late 80's. Now, granted, that was not on a home console, but you have to take into account that home consoles nowadays can easily emulate games in arcades from the 80's and early 90's. Granted again, the graphics weren't anything like what we have nowadays and were very blocky. My point is it all depends on what degree of resolution and graphical detail is wanted in the game. making a game like Faceball 2000 into a VR home console game wouldn't require nearly as much specs as you said, unlike something like, say, Call of Duty would.
 
I truthfully don't think virtual reality will catch on. I know it's "the future of gaming," but really, I don't see it going anywhere.
 
Dark Young Link said:
I truthfully don't think virtual reality will catch on. I know it's "the future of gaming," but really, I don't see it going anywhere.
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You've never seen the original Judge Dredd movie, apparently ;)

Also, off subject: dude, seriously... need to thin that signature area out there. Mondo huge and annoying to have to scroll past to find the 'reply' button.
 
Aensland said:
You've never seen the original Judge Dredd movie, apparently ;)

Also, off subject: dude, seriously... need to thin that signature area out there. Mondo huge and annoying to have to scroll past to find the 'reply' button.
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The signature seems to be in a spoiler now, so that's no problem any more.

But to some degree, he's right in a sense. We're quite a way from the kind of virtual reality seen in movies...
 
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