Comment by wpietri
3 years ago
When I say it's not an intrinsic to VR, I mean that one can have physical motion games without having facehugger 3D, which currently defines the VR space.
I'll note that Wii Sports came out in 2006, for example. And it sold 8.9 million copies. But I also note that motion games remain a niche interest. I like them a lot, but they're a small fraction of game usage. That suggests to me that VR can't bank on that as a big enough consumer interest to keep VR economically viable.
There are a trickle of games that are not first person. This will grow as the anemic VR AR market grows.
VR’s biggest problem isn’t 1st person interaction, which btw isn’t a gimick like the Wii. It’s that most adults are intimidated by the face bucket of isolation UX. People won’t even try it let alone buy it to use it enough. Until XR can get over this hurdle, I feel that we won’t really know what people like or dislike.
It’s also hard to make good predictions and assumptions about a technology that you’re not really using yourself
> It’s also hard to make good predictions and assumptions about a technology that you’re not really using yourself
I'm not sure being a dedicated user makes forecasting any easier. E.g., the cryptocurrency skeptics were generally much more accurate than its ardent users. Having bought in often makes proponents of people. And people who use something but don't study how others use it may overgeneralize their personal experience.
Regardless, I try VR on occasion. I just don't weight my own experience very heavily, because there are plenty of successful things that aren't for me, and plenty of things I love that are terminally niche.
It’s not a great analogy because it’s easier to understand crypto without using it, mainly because you can’t use it in most instances.
XR on the other hand needs to be experienced in order to understand it. Otherwise, you’re not going to know or even understand all of the benefits and problems. I see this time and time again online. Ie you can read about scuba diving all you want, but until you actually do it regularly you’re not really going to know enough to comment like someone who actually does it. Given the low cost and availability of modern VR headsets, there’s not really an excuse for techies unless you’re a student
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