Xbox One and PS4 "too limited" for Oculus Rift creator

Nobody apart from the massively rich would update their Oculus device yearly, so their point is somewhat moot. If console specs do not change over the course of a generation then they would not need to update their Oculus devices for console use yearly at all.

Apple certainly drove home the point that if you have the technology toy everybody wants, then you do not need to worry about price that much. An Occulus will certainly be less expensive than most iPads. If there is a 1080p, a 4k version and an intermediate within the first 24 months, nobody will be too surprised. But the point at which consoles can empower the high end version is certainly passed. Remember, we are talking John Carmack now, he is not afraid to produce something that puts too much strain on computers upon release.

The challenge is to make people try the Occulus for a minute. After that, it is apparent why you want one. Turn your head right now, you see your living room, your office desk, that smelly dude on the bus, or the pure panic in your spouse's face as you read this while driving down the autobahn at 160mph. If you turn your head with an OR on, you are still in the game. Which has a psychological impact I grossly underestimated. Even though I did know the VR stuff from the 90ies and Sony's movie goggles. We should not forget, this tech has huge implications for TV and movies as well. This is your IMAX at home.

Uhm, I guess he's blinded by the fact that he has access to a lot of highend GPU's.. His success has risen to his head, so he lost touch with reality.. mainstream PC's will be just as powerfull for a couple of years as a console, people aren't upgrading their GPU's every year. Just put your product on the market already, otherwise you'll keep updating it to make it even more perfect.. To me, if they aren't releasing the HD version by april 2014 they are already overstretching their stay and people will just look elsewhere..
Yes, consoles may not be as powerfull, but even with a newer HMD you still have to account for older GPU's so you'll have to incorporate upscaling into the HMD itself (when you go to higher resolution screens)..

Personally I don't want a new HMD every (half)year, something tells me then the device isn't good enough. Upgrading resolution just stops at some point as pixels are already indistinguashable on 5" 1920x1080 from a few cm's distant (at least I can't see any single pixel on a Nexus 5, and my vision isn't THAT bad).. So going real 4K on 5" is really just overkill (the eye can't tell the difference anymore, better put the needed power in being able to render more objects than in upping the resolution. I'm still waiting to even see a game that just looks as realistic as a bluraymovie, but we still aren't even close to that..

Try looking at these screens through a magnifying glass, Andrew, because this is basically what rift is like.
A rocky, inconsistent framerate might be off-putting on a TV, but on VR it can be almost vomit inducing.
I think the rift will be a PC only affair for the near future. We're not yet at a point where consoles can render amazingly detailed worlds with plenty of performance to spare for high resolutions, 120 fps and stereoscopic rendering.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Felix Leyendecker on 14th November 2013 11:41am

Furthermore, who says that interaction in VR is limited to using a controller? You can hook it up to things like Kinect or Leap, voice commands, motion sensing handheld controllers like Move, Wii Remotes or a Hydra, or whatever mode of interface you want to (most of which also wasn't around or even possible 10 years ago).

Are we really going to consider motion based controls while being absolutely blind and oblivious to the outside world around us?

Being stationary in a virtual world with jazzed up graphics and motion sensors to move objects around doesn't sell it to me. Until you can physically walk around its not progressed much at all.

@Jim, good point, but since I don't have pets or small children running around underfoot, that wouldn't put me off in the slightest. I can understand perfectly why it might be dangerous in other situations though ;)

As Klaus says, people won't mind paying for the latest version of something as long as it's cool enough, and so far the vast majority of people who've tried the Rift say it's much better than they imagined. Given that factors like response time and resolution make a much bigger difference to a VR experience than a TV experience, and that we're making noticeable advances every year or 2 in graphics technology, I would say this is the exact type of product where incremental hardware advances actually make a significant difference to the user experience, much moreso than for consoles anyway.

By contrast, I honestly have no clue why so many people happily pay to upgrade their phone every year, given that 90% of their use is for texts, calls, browsing websites, and playing undemanding puzzle games for which the user experience will barely change at all from 1 phone to the next.

Time-hacked from the Googlepolis mainframe of 3200 A.D.

http://imageshack.com/a/img109/662/xhql.jpg

Imagine how much safer life has become.

Being stationary in a virtual world with jazzed up graphics and motion sensors to move objects around totally sells it to me - the possibilities of that alone are endless. Beyond that, though, we all learned how to effectively move around in a 2D game environment, and we learned to effectively move around in a 3D game environment, and we'll learn how to effectively move around in a VR game environment, and some gameplay styles we're used to today won't translate well to that. I can't wait to learn some new ways of playing games - I'm exhausted with the status quo.

I am always surprised to see people who are not on board with VR. It's always been the Holy Grail of gaming for me.

You would think people would start pushing for this to happen instead of backing into a corner and shouting gimmick before even trying. It just goes to show you, things never change. There will always be doubters no matter the time or place. That is until it's all said and done. Those people then act like they where on board to begin with xD.

@Iain McNulty
I don't believe they where talking about people updating their VR headset every year. I think it was more along the lines of keeping 60FPS at high resolutions. A console can't constantly do that. As games get more intensive, the less likely they will run at exactly 60 FPS on a console. While a PC you can always upgrade if you really need to. PCs are simply a more open platform that would allow such tech to be used properly is all they are saying.

You don't update your computer monitor every year, so I wouldn't expect you to have to with VR headsets either since it's essentially the same thing. It's just another form of a monitor.

@Jim Webb
Just because it's an issue today, doesn't mean it will be an issue tomorrow. Always look forward. People are always trying to work out issues.

@Matthew Bennion
Pretty much the same as the above comment to Jim. However, I am pretty sure this is essentially already possible anyway. Unless you specifically mean physically being in the game and walking lol.

@Andrew Jakobs
Someone already pretty much commented, but I do have to say, are you serious?
There is a huge difference using your naked eye to spot pixels and looking through an Oculus rift. As the other person mentioned, it's like looking through a magnifying glass. How about this, take your phone and snap a picture of it's screen at about 2 - 3 inches away. Then expand that picture to cover your whole field of vision. Then tell me you can't see the pixels lol.

Also you are underestimating a humans eyes. We don't actually have any known record of the max resolution are eyes can perceive. Anyone who tells you other wise, is a fool. Are eyes are actually capable of responding fro ma single photon, but it takes about at least 5 - 9 within 100ms for us to have a conscious response, or in other words, for us to notice.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Brook Davidson on 16th November 2013 1:30pm

http://www.virtuix.com/ - if you have the space and the money, this may be the answer to the 'being stationary' argument