Game Journalist Jim Sterling released a video in his Jimquisition series this week which discussed, quite critically, the current state of, and concept in general of virtual reality.
I wrote earlier this year about some of my criticisms of the entire idea, and practical application of VR on a whole. To sum it up, because at this point why shouldn’t I keep it short, sweet, and to the point:
- Virtual Reality hardware is expensive, both the actual headsets
- The tech simply doesn’t work for everyone. It can even, quite easily, make some people sick.
- More in-depth, full body VR devices simply will not work for people with some disabilities. Granted this can be true of anything, but it’s still worth noting that if you can’t walk, or stand for long periods of time, some systems simply won’t be usable for you.
- The more massive “room scale” tech takes up, well, pretty much a whole room. When not in use, it can be quite a mess I would imagine.
- VR tech pretty much never innovates like it claims it does – so far most everyhing I see could be better controller with normal hardware (I.E. a standard controller) and the headset just used for a bit more “depth” so to speak to the visual / audio end.
- Let’s face it, as Jim put it, this is heavily reminescent of the “motion controls” which made the Wii so famous, and were so (poorly) copied by Sony and Microsoft with the PlayStation Move and the Kinect.
- Like motion controls, and like 3D, this tech doesn’t make gaming better. It’s cool to play around with, sure, but it simply doesn’t add as much as it takes away, and I feel the flaws will never be surpassed in the long run to make the technology a new standard, as so many want it to be.
I would like to see VR have a proper market, but not only do I not see it as a replacement for traditional gameplay, I don’t ever want it to “replace” the traditional experience, as it would make everything just that much more complex, and far more costly, in the end. Again, though, I don’t hate VR, I just don’t see it anywhere near as big as so many others do. Then again, that’s a trend with me isn’t it?
Enough of me, though, here’s what Jim had to say – much of the same as I said before, and more that I didn’t say, but do agree with.