I have already written about how they are taking virtual reality headsets too far, and how they are thus too expensive and too full of useless cruft. Recently I have noticed a third drawback of concentrating their efforts to much on the augmented reality crap:
Many people now think that the augmented reality part is the only way to use the VR headsets, and writing about the negative aspects of that. It is, in fact, being compared to the infamous Kinect for being a similar gimmick (requiring a lot of space, rearranging your room, causing accidents and so on.)
The problem is that they are hyping the VR headsets with their AR capabilities. In fact, they are over-hyping it to the extreme. These AR hype videos make for cool and at the surface exciting demonstrations... but it has also had the side-effect that now many people think that's the only and main way of using the VR headsets, and are turned off by the prospect of it being too inconvenient. They don't have the space, they don't want to rearrange their rooms... and they are realizing that, as I myself have been saying, it will be something they will play for maybe an hour or two before getting tired of it.
It seems that they have completely forgotten the original idea of the VR headsets: To play games (actual games, not just games made specifically for VR) using the headset, while sitting on your couch or chair, with head-tracking to look around. That always was the main purpose of these visors, and still is, but they don't make for such exciting hype videos, so it seems that they have completely shoved aside that actual practical aspect of them, and concentrated all their efforts on the useless augmented reality crap. And now people think that the AR crap is the only way to use the visors.
This is going to bite them in the ass.
Many people now think that the augmented reality part is the only way to use the VR headsets, and writing about the negative aspects of that. It is, in fact, being compared to the infamous Kinect for being a similar gimmick (requiring a lot of space, rearranging your room, causing accidents and so on.)
The problem is that they are hyping the VR headsets with their AR capabilities. In fact, they are over-hyping it to the extreme. These AR hype videos make for cool and at the surface exciting demonstrations... but it has also had the side-effect that now many people think that's the only and main way of using the VR headsets, and are turned off by the prospect of it being too inconvenient. They don't have the space, they don't want to rearrange their rooms... and they are realizing that, as I myself have been saying, it will be something they will play for maybe an hour or two before getting tired of it.
It seems that they have completely forgotten the original idea of the VR headsets: To play games (actual games, not just games made specifically for VR) using the headset, while sitting on your couch or chair, with head-tracking to look around. That always was the main purpose of these visors, and still is, but they don't make for such exciting hype videos, so it seems that they have completely shoved aside that actual practical aspect of them, and concentrated all their efforts on the useless augmented reality crap. And now people think that the AR crap is the only way to use the visors.
This is going to bite them in the ass.
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