Microsoft, Sony – Where is my Virtual Reality?!
August 24, 2010 - By Jason Hamilton
This holiday season, Microsoft will be offering the Kinect for Xbox 360. Not to be outdone, Sony also plans to debut Move for PlayStation 3. These peripherals will immerse gamers a little deeper into the game where every move and gesture of the hands and body will be the controller. The Kinect and Move will also bring augmented reality to the table as an entertainment experience. While these devices show a lot of promise and potential, somehow I don’t think this is where gaming should be for the 21st century.
Video gaming has come a long way since the days of the Atari 2600 console. Graphics are now rendered in 3D with textures, effects, and environments that, at times, seem to blur the line between watching a live action movie and computer generated images (CGI). As we have entered the 21st century, gaming has become more immersive and interactive: replacing the one-button wired joystick with wireless controllers that seemed to have more buttons than you could handle and motion-detecting wands and cameras.
In the early 1990’s, virtual reality (VR) was the hot topic in entertainment, education, research, technical training, and just about every other aspect of life. There was even a TV show about it called VR5 and starring Lori Singer.
VR was yesterday’s promise for today. TVs and computer monitors were on their death beds. It is now 2010, ten years into the 21st century. So, where are my VR helmet, gloves, and vest? …and stuff?
In 1995, The VFX-1 hit the market and showed all the promise of the future. Every movement you made with your head was tracked by the helmet. Flight simulators on the PC became amazing overnight. No longer did you have to hit a button on your keyboard to “turn your head”. You just turned your head, and the tracking in the helmet did the rest for you. The VFX-1 immersed your ocular and auditory senses like never before.
The VFX-1 helmet didn’t come cheap; it premiered at roughly $900.00 (USD). If you looked at it as a replacement for your existing monitor, it wasn’t a bad trade-off. But it wasn’t supposed to replace it, and your average gamer could not swing that kind of cash for gaming in the mid-90’s. This is the likely reason that the VFX-1 ultimately failed.
Also, there were some undesirable side effects that resulted from using virtual reality equipment. After being immersed in this other reality and removing the equipment from your body, disorientation, dizziness, and nausea were common occurrences…and all of this after only 10 minutes of use.
After having numerous personal experiences with VR in the mid-90′s, I never experienced any ill effects from unplugging. I suspect users were unplugging too quickly by going about their normal duties before “readjusting”. To put it in perspective, one should keep in mind that NASA astronauts use VR to train for space walks for hours at a time. Alas, the side effects were something that seem to have gotten in the way of the virtual reality reaching its full potential, at the time.
(If you can’t tell by now, I’m lamenting the failure of the markets to embrace VR!)
Now it’s 2010, and Vuxiz has their own offering for virtual reality, the iWear VR920 (pictured in the first image, above). The device is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, and XP but isn’t quite as geek-chic as the VFX-1, nor quite as immersive. What the iWear VR920 does boast, though, is a long list of PC games and applications with which it promises to be compatible. Starting at $399.00 (USD), the iWear may actually stand a chance of keeping the VR dream alive.
The disappointing truth, though, is that limiting your product to only PC use is cuts out a large market share. Sony? Microsoft? Are you listening here? There are people in the world that would LOVE to skip past the Move and Kinect offerings. We’re ready to jump on the VR bandwagon. If the goal of console and gaming companies is to create an immersive environment and an unforgettable experience, flapping your arms in the air and waiving around wands in front of a proprietary camera is definitely not the answer.
So, for now, it looks like gamers will have to wait a little bit longer for that elusive, true VR experience. I’m sure it will come eventually. Let’s just hope it happens before we all get to old to be able to move enough for it to actually work.
great blog thank you
My pleasure. I say jump on the bandwagon. Get the word out. Let the gaming gods know what we REALLY want!
I think the issue is people no longer think Virtual Reality means the same thing anymore (as it meant to use in the 90′s) Some people think augmented reality is much better and immersive… (???) Some people think it’s useless/pointless unless it immerses all senses including touch and smell, everything is controlled by your body and you are able to freely walk/run around.
This is in my opinion is really over complicating what gamers want. I’ve played VR setups in the 90′s and it really was immersive, albeit the graphics weren’t there yet and all the games seemed to be made by psychotic/schizophrenic people… but it really felt like you were there. I think microsoft is missing out here.
In the 90′s to track body you had to stand in a massive rig/pod, the headset had a tracker..etc. All this equipment was not only bulky but was expensive as hell. Now microsoft has full body tracking in a small package that only weighs about a pound and a half. It can track the head, hands, and feet simultaneously… if they added a headset (no tracking in the headset required), and a controller for the dominant hand… you’d have not only the cheapest VR setup to date but it wuold perform really well also.
I’d never consider buying an xbox, simply because I just find it overall inferior to the ps3 but… if MS went the route I’m talking about then by all means I’d buy it day one. Here’s hoping sometime within the next few years we will have the first VR home console… and yes the virtual boy does not count (wtf is wrong with you people that bring this up when there is an on-going convo about virtual reality).
Yes I am with you all the way Jason. I too am perplexed why VR never took off. I always thought PS2 would bring it, then maybe PS3. But no.
Now, just like T.L. mentions, it looks like microsoft is potentially on to a winning idea. Kinect. Already there are people who have successfully hacked the kinect and used it with the Vuxiz glasses to run a pseudo VR. With the body and viewpoint fully tracked by the Kinect and displayed in the 3d glasses.
However, Vuxiz glasses I find are fairly poor and expensive when it comes to VR experience. Here’s hoping someone will come out with a headset with a large field of view to trick the eyes better and avoid seeing the black screen edges.
Mark,
Thanks for reading and for leaving comments.
Since writing this article, Sony has revealed that they are working on the Headman. http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20110107/tc_yblog_technews/ces-sony-shows-off-3d-headman-visor-glasses-free-3d-blu-ray-player
The Headman is only in prototype stage right now, and there is no promise that it will ever make it to market.
Right now Sony is only saying that it’s going to provide a self-contained 3D experience for movies and TV. No word as of yet if headtracking will be incorporated; whether or not this will be used for gaming (i.e. VR)