Despite the denial of reality of many individual users, it's by now widely accepted that the virtual reality craze became pretty much a flop. What was three or four years ago envisioned as a complete revolution of video gaming (with many even going so far as to predict that VR gaming would surpass and obsolete regular gaming using regular displays), became pretty much a niche. VR devices, especially on the PC side, have sold relatively poorly, and VR game development is in a rather pityable state, especially when it comes to triple-A titles (we can literally count triple-A VR games that are even worth mentioning with the fingers of two hands, even though the technology has been out there for over two years now.)
Both VR device and VR game figures support this fact. About 0.7% of all Steam users have any sort of VR device. Recently Steam published some sales figures for VR games, and they didn't look very good. The most popular paid VR game was Job Simulator... with 200 thousand copies sold. It's no wonder that big game developers aren't exactly rushing to make huge triple-A VR games, if all they can expect is sales of that magnitude.
So, given all this, one would think that companies would have stopped developing VR hardware. But, perhaps a bit surprisingly, that's not the case.
Some companies are actively developing new more advanced VR goggles. The technological advances relate primarily to higher resolutions, wider viewing angles, and technologies to make the picture quality better while at the same time reducing the hardware requirements from the PC. (One of the primary methods for this is eyetracking, where the goggles know exactly which point the user is looking at, allowing the hardware to make that part sharper, as well as allowing the software to ease on rendering the rest of the image with as much resolution and accuracy. The farther a point on the screen is from the focus point, the less rendering resolution and accuracy it requires.)
There are already upcoming "next-gen" VR goggles with up to 5k resolution, 210-degree viewing angles (which is almost double the current about 110 degrees), and eyetracking technology (allowing even current PCs to be able to render in real time even at that whopping 5k resolution, using those techniques mentioned above.)
One really has to wonder why, though. Do they really expect VR to suddenly get a resurgence just because the image will look sharper and the field of view will be wider? Image quality is not one of the main reasons why VR became a flop. It's not even one of the minor reasons, really.
Maybe if they succeed in making the "next-gen" VR goggles be priced like 200€ apiece, then perhaps there could be some hope. Until then, no chance. And I don't see such a price drop being possible in the foreseeable future.
Both VR device and VR game figures support this fact. About 0.7% of all Steam users have any sort of VR device. Recently Steam published some sales figures for VR games, and they didn't look very good. The most popular paid VR game was Job Simulator... with 200 thousand copies sold. It's no wonder that big game developers aren't exactly rushing to make huge triple-A VR games, if all they can expect is sales of that magnitude.
So, given all this, one would think that companies would have stopped developing VR hardware. But, perhaps a bit surprisingly, that's not the case.
Some companies are actively developing new more advanced VR goggles. The technological advances relate primarily to higher resolutions, wider viewing angles, and technologies to make the picture quality better while at the same time reducing the hardware requirements from the PC. (One of the primary methods for this is eyetracking, where the goggles know exactly which point the user is looking at, allowing the hardware to make that part sharper, as well as allowing the software to ease on rendering the rest of the image with as much resolution and accuracy. The farther a point on the screen is from the focus point, the less rendering resolution and accuracy it requires.)
There are already upcoming "next-gen" VR goggles with up to 5k resolution, 210-degree viewing angles (which is almost double the current about 110 degrees), and eyetracking technology (allowing even current PCs to be able to render in real time even at that whopping 5k resolution, using those techniques mentioned above.)
One really has to wonder why, though. Do they really expect VR to suddenly get a resurgence just because the image will look sharper and the field of view will be wider? Image quality is not one of the main reasons why VR became a flop. It's not even one of the minor reasons, really.
Maybe if they succeed in making the "next-gen" VR goggles be priced like 200€ apiece, then perhaps there could be some hope. Until then, no chance. And I don't see such a price drop being possible in the foreseeable future.
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