1)Forgetting about the price a large amount of family’s do not have space for a hive like VR setup. Many of those that do technically have space cannot use it for the VR or have to limit VR use. For example if someone is using a VR setup in the lounge that puts the social/family area off limits for everyone else. Not practical for many families.
2) Most games don’t work well in VR or offer no real benefits. That’s not a solvable problem anytime soon as it’s a limitation of VR and means VR will only make up a smaller subset of gaming. This follow onto the lack of good content. That’s half solvable over time but I don’t see VR going mainstream and becoming a large system. It will for the foreseeable future be a small subset of gaming as most games are better outside of VR.
3)Then there is the interface/interaction problem which doesn’t appear solvable at the moment. Due to the limits of VR the interface and options have to be dumbed down and kept simple. This is why most games and apps outside of VR do not work well in VR.
4)The current technology isn’t good enough. This is solvable but not for years to come. If VR is to take off big time it needs much better screens but those are many years away.
5)It’s not all bad some games seem to benefit a lot like certain styles of space games and racing SIMS. But given the problems and limitations of VR I don’t see it going mainstream.
1) Pretty much all of the "roomscale" games can be played in standing room only, you just don't get to setup the chaperone grid, but they all rely on teleporting or in-game locomotion to play anyway, so you can get 90% as good an experience without needing a massive play space. I have 15m extensions so that we can also play in the living room, which on a saturday or sunday is completely feasible and everyone joins in, even nanny and grandad. Everyone else can see and hear whats going on in the game and failing that the TV can be on. Despite sounding like an isolating experience its actually completely feasible to turn it in to a social event as much as anything like bowling or using a console to play multiplayer games.
2) FPS games don't work well in VR for those that are susceptible to motion sickness, I'm not and quite happily play R6Siege etc. in VR
VR games are obviously on a completely different level to normal gaming, it is so good that it is totally worth the minor downsides it currently faces
3) No they don't, I can play everything I play on a monitor in VR if I want to. Project cars and Warthunder for example you can read all of the gauges and hud elements.
4) We are on generation 1, go back and have a look at a gen1 smart phone, 1440 and 4k screens are in prototype now, the screens in the Rift and Vive were in prototype less than a year ago and are now in commercially released products... then you have foveated rendering which is also being demo'ed now and slated for commercial release within the next 2 years, and wireless transmisson, again being demoed and designs from HTC have already been seen
5) you are only looking at the gaming aspect of VR, gaming is currently helping to fund R&D but the commercial and entertainment applications of VR and AR stretch way beyond gaming
I mean it really depends what you mean by "the foreseeable future", because based on the advances that have been made in the last few years, I can fully see VR being "mainstream" within the next 10 years thats pretty foreseeable
I can see it being a completely normal and very popular gaming peripheral within 3-5 years
It sounds like you haven't tried it and are trying to convince yourself of some rumours you heard on the internet from people who also haven't tried it.
