A year after its release, the future of PlayStation VR2 looks bleak as a lack of first-party exclusives and apparent disinterest from Sony make it hard for the headset to thrive.
I think they’ll have the best luck converting a generation of kids to VR and not consoles. I think people who grew up playing consoles have a hard time really getting into VR because it’s so different. I’ve had a Quest 2 for a couple years and often forget I even own it because it’s used so rarely, but my kid loves it and everyone else I know with kids and VR seem to be in the same boat.
For me, the games are so-so but lack much of a “wow factor” to keep me hooked on them. Although, these days I don’t play many games at all compared to several years ago.
One of the biggest problems is there really isn’t a lot of cross over between VR and traditional gaming. Games that are built for screens rarely work well in VR and vice-versa. So to properly support VR gaming, you need to be investing in creating games that have a substantially limited market. Even then the tech has a “not quite there yet” feel to it which really discourages adoption, considering the substantial cost for a quality setup.
I think the main problem with VR is that it is a solution looking for a problem. Immersion can be experienced without literally looking through the eyes of the character and literally waving your arms around and literally walking. Honestly, VR reminds me a bit of the early UIs that tried to emulate real world desks and paper based tooling when we have much more freedom to interact with our data on a computing device.
Not to mention all the problems VR poses to traditional story-telling methods when you can not rely on the user looking at the thing you want them to focus on at that moment, it basically ruins all the best ways to surprise, tantalize or otherwise emotionally impress the user/player.
I think they’ll have the best luck converting a generation of kids to VR and not consoles. I think people who grew up playing consoles have a hard time really getting into VR because it’s so different. I’ve had a Quest 2 for a couple years and often forget I even own it because it’s used so rarely, but my kid loves it and everyone else I know with kids and VR seem to be in the same boat.
For me, the games are so-so but lack much of a “wow factor” to keep me hooked on them. Although, these days I don’t play many games at all compared to several years ago.
One of the biggest problems is there really isn’t a lot of cross over between VR and traditional gaming. Games that are built for screens rarely work well in VR and vice-versa. So to properly support VR gaming, you need to be investing in creating games that have a substantially limited market. Even then the tech has a “not quite there yet” feel to it which really discourages adoption, considering the substantial cost for a quality setup.
I think the main problem with VR is that it is a solution looking for a problem. Immersion can be experienced without literally looking through the eyes of the character and literally waving your arms around and literally walking. Honestly, VR reminds me a bit of the early UIs that tried to emulate real world desks and paper based tooling when we have much more freedom to interact with our data on a computing device.
Not to mention all the problems VR poses to traditional story-telling methods when you can not rely on the user looking at the thing you want them to focus on at that moment, it basically ruins all the best ways to surprise, tantalize or otherwise emotionally impress the user/player.