I don't think it's dead per se. It has been spotted by enough industries that it'll keep evolving and growing. I can definitely see AR being used in stuff like surgery and construction in the near future. If you mean for gaming specifically I don't think the future is very bright for VR. Not in the mainstream at last. I could see it working for the PC gamer COD segment of the market, the types who invest in low latency mice, ultra wide monitors and gaming chairs. Everyone else? Not so much.
And in a post covid world, I don't think a lot of people will be as interested in sharing someone else's headset, particularly in any kind of public environment.
But for the PSVR I think the total penetration was just over 5% of total PS4 owner. That is several million copies, so that's not a small number. And there's probably twice that amongst PC gamers. But unless they can really drop that price it's just not going anywhere bigger than what it is.
SupremeAC said:... If you mean for gaming specifically I don't think the future is very bright for VR. Not in the mainstream at last. I could see it working for the PC gamer COD segment of the market, the types who invest in low latency mice, ultra wide monitors and gaming chairs. Everyone else? Not so much.
But who will keep developing for such a small and fragmented market? I do disagree with your denigration though, I mean if you look at Foolz, a highly discerning and nuanced gamer he has taken to VR nicely. If the mainstream COD gamer was into VR VR would not have a problem.
robio said:...
But for the PSVR I think the total penetration was just over 5% of total PS4 owner. That is several million copies, so that's not a small number. And there's probably twice that amongst PC gamers. But unless they can really drop that price it's just not going anywhere bigger than what it is.
From my understanding, until Oculus Quest 2 came along the PSVR was the single best selling peice of VR hardware (by sales).
The message I get from that is that in the linear sense PSVR and then OQ2 where the most accessible both in terms of price and entry point and they succeeded as a result. (and when I say accessible the bar was still extremely high to cross, first the ownership of a PS4 and a thousand cables, and with the OQ2 a beefy computer -- which in itself is difficult for most households).
Price was key and with the OQ2 the wireless nature of it sealed the deal. I think VR has another run at it as long as hardware and software developers are prepared to risk their own money. We talk about it on the latest show anyway (57 minute mark). Game Under Podcast 134 — Game Under Podcast
The Real Aspro said:But who will keep developing for such a small and fragmented market? I do disagree with your denigration though, I mean if you look at Foolz, a highly discerning and nuanced gamer he has taken to VR nicely. If the mainstream COD gamer was into VR VR would not have a problem.
Yeah, I didn't make my point very clear.
For my profession I come in a lot of houses and a lot of teens/early 20's gamers have this expensive setup to do streaming and play multiplayer online games like Fortnight, COD, whatever-other-game-I-couldn't-care-less-about. They obviously spend a large amount of cash on expensive gaming related stuff. They could easily be persuaded to shell out €400-500 if they feel that it could give them an advantage while gaming. And this rings partially true for Foolz as well. He spent good money on expensive PC parts, clearly owns some kind of microphone and even went out of his way to purchase a 10-sided dice!
As for the Quest 2, I've been using it as a standalone device and am pretty content with it. It really lowers the bar, as all you need is the Quest itself (€350) and a willingness to be charged through the nose for the actual games.
I don't think there's much crossover for the mainstream FPS, but there definitely is for sims; which is also a popular folly to waste money on. Not that I'd know anything about that... 
I think the Quest 2 model offers VR the best hope of VR continuing: stand alone dedicated VR games produced on a lower budget than AAA titles as most Quest games are, combined with PC enthusiast games (from sims to...porn?) that can take advantage of VR, but are also sold as non-VR titles.
To redeem myself in the eyes of Te_Rojo, I must also add that I would love a profession which involved me coming in a lot of houses.
I've been playing a bunch of VR lately due to viveport, a gamepass like service, its still the Atari days with VR. These games are rough, I played this fake time crisis shooter, horrible, so bad...
the tech is still bulky, it's not even defined yet. There maybe some mix of AR VR that we don't know about yet. The possibilities are just so huge that it's not going away. But right now, this is just a sea of crap with a few gems where you can point and say yeah there is a future for gaming there.
Topic.