Frederica wrote:fwtep wrote:VR is going to be amazing. It's going to be a new format in the way that movies weren't stage plays (once the medium was figured out). Theater still exists even though we have movies and TV, and both of those will still exist along side VR movies. And game VR will be yet another format.
How does it work? I have a hazy picture of room size screens specializing in daytime soaps, a la Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, or Star Trek's benighted holosuites, where you interact with the story (until it inevitably goes terribly wrong).
I've tried the freebie Google cardboard box, which goes over your eyes like goggles and works with your smartphone. It's kind of like those old ViewMasters, only you can tilt your head up or down, and turn around 360 degrees. There's no sense of screen per se, instead it's an all-enveloping view. You never reach an edge or end. (Google and Bing sometimes do something similar on their home pages, like a mountain view that you can rotate for 360 degrees.) Really neat for about 30 seconds. Then it's disorienting, especially if you try to walk, and finally boring. Just like ViewMasters.
The newer formats use hand controls to allow you to interact the way you would with a Wii. So I guess it will be tennis, rifles, and light sabers first.
I will be long gone before they figure out how to fully exploit it.
Wearing a headpiece is a big sticking point, just as it is with 3D.