The Real Winners of the Virtual Reality Revolution Won’t be Gamers

Hardcore Gamer: For Christmas, I bought my family a couple Google Cardboard sets. No one in my family is a gamer and only my brother had heard of Cardboard previously. But within minutes, they were teleporting from Paris to Tokyo, Venice to the Great Barrier Reef, and suddenly virtual reality became their new favorite thing.

[ApocalypseShadow]

I liked the article.Shows that VR opens people's eyes when they experience it for themselves.Even cheap VR. But the

***salvage the ruins of Driveclub***.......

REALLY?"salvage the ruins of Driveclub"...??????

Driveclub is doing quite well and has made a name for itself post Motorstorm.Even the motorcycle addition makes this statement ridiculous.And I'm not even talking about its sales.

Lol...salvage the ruins of Driveclub....go sit in a corner article man.no recess for you.

[amiga-man]

VR has that WOW factor that surprises people, there is so much more to VR than gaming, when it arrives it's here to stay.

10 years from now it will be much more refined and everyone will know about VR.

[nunley33]

DriveClub VR is coming too, it had a very impressive demonstration and demo that could be tried that wowed people. Articles reporting it was much better compared to Project Cars on Oculus.

[Maxor]

VR for the masses? We're a long way from that. Right now the industry is still struggling with the development of a game that people will want to experience for 2 hours straight.

[specialguest]

Not really a long way. Lots of people have highend smartphones, and a $99 headset to slide the phone in for VR is not too expensive like the Samsung Gear VR. If Apple does the same, it'll be over. Apple fanboys/girls will buy anything Apple.

[STK026]

Can't wait for Apple to tell us that there's no benefit to go beyond the resolution of their "retina" display for VR, and how they invented VR and are pioneering it despite being years late to the market.

But hey, if it gets more people on board the VR hype train, something VR needs to not end up half forgotten like 3D TVs, then having people tell me how "magical" the iVR is, is a small price to pay.

[specialguest]

^ LOL that's pretty funny about Apple and so true. Don't forget they invented the rounded edge.

[uth11]

My daughter got a cardboard viewer. She loves it, but I'm less than impressed with it.

In fact I lost my excitement for PSVR because of it. I'll need to see some impressive demos in action to get it back.

[Wallstreet37]

Your really comparing a cardboard viewer to dedicated hardware engineered specifically for VR by Sony? Come on man that doesn't even make sense. It will be two different experiences. Common sense will dictate that all the money spent, given the hardware implemented and the technology used in Oculus, Vive, PSVR will give you a wayyyyy better, truly immersive, VR experience. The cardboard VR solution and the others are far from the same thing.

[uth11]

My phone is the same resolution as the PSVR, and the pixelization with the lenses was awful. Screen door effect was real. Unless Sony has some magic to make it less noticeable in their product, it will be an immersion killer for me. Add that to low poly count games and yuck!

I hope you are right that Sonys product is engineered much better, and I do intend to try it before I decide whether or not to buy.

[Wallstreet37]

http://www.tomshardware.com...

He isn't the only one who has previewed Sony VR and been very positive about it. In fact every tech or preview article I have read has said Sony has done a very competent and outstanding job on there VR solution.

They have tackled screen door effect very well and ppl have said the graphics are crisp as well.

[Wallstreet37]

http://wccftech.com/sony-de...

[uth11]

Well if they tackled it, that's good, because the screen door is painfully obvious on this cardboard viewer

[GrimDragon]

The one industry that stands to make millions off this is the porn industry for sure. I myself would like some alone time with Jenna Jameson on my occulus. And I wouldn't be surprised if more adult oriented games hit the market for VR in the future for Morpheus once companies see how much money there is to be made by allowing adult games on consoles for VR. As of right now I don't see this tech having a wide range of genres that are interesting or different from eachother I do feel limitations will be evident with each game that comes out and one or two companies might make strides in this tech that will result in other companies making carbon copies of successful games to make a safe profit. So until the kinks are ironed out and newer versions of VR launch through the years I believe this expensive tech will have a very limited following as I don't see parents plopping down a half grand on this and more for their ten yr old. So in the meantime it will be the porn industry that will keep this tech alive and when it hits mainstream it will be porn that continues to benefit from it. But if porn cannot be a part of it than I don't see this tech catching on but instead just being something that's there if you want it.

[iceman06]

I've heard that the porn industry pretty much drives most new visual media. I remember them being solely responsible for the explosion of VCR sales. I'd wager to bet that it did the same in the DVD era as well. It probably wasn't until broadband became more readily available that visual media slowed down in favor of hosting/streaming vids.

[kaizokuspy]

I remember reading them evena making porn for Google glass.

[level 360]

NASA/flight and driving simulators, medical/surgeries, engineering/design fields I believe would benefit a lot with VR-tech.

And in a way they owe it to the gaming industry that this tech came about.

And yes the porn industry ( http://www.independent.co.u... ).

[iceman06]

I watched a story (I think it was 60 Minutes) about a tech firm that is bringing VR to college and professional football. They are using it to train quarterbacks to better read the defenses pre-snap and adjusting accordingly. This app can be used anywhere that you can hook up a laptop and a pair of VR goggles.
One of the company's founders was a former QB and thought that it would be a great application of VR.
There are tons of applications that we haven't even thought of yet, I'm sure.