vaio said:
I unserstand your guys point of view but for me I would actually rather walk around in virtuall world the use a mouse. Maybe I would get tired of it and prefer the mouse once I experienced it but untill then I would hands down prefer this way or the minoroty report way. The point with this article is more of how close we are getting to a VR world.
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I'm a big Amazon.com customer. I have been buying things from them for years, and most of my games, DVD's, and book purchases come from them these days. But I still occasionally prefer to go to actual stores to get these things. Why? Because there times I just want to browse. There are times I'm interested getting a new movie or game, but don't have a specific choice in mind. Where I want something to do over the weekend, but not sure what exactly.
Amazon and other online storefronts are absolutely great for when you know exactly what you need. You type it in, pay for it and wait a week. When I don't know exactly what I need or want, is when I'm more inclined to visit a brick and mortar store. Having entire aisles devoted to certain types of products standing shoulder to shoulder of the eye to see, is much better start pointing than clicking through lists of low resolution pictures.
When I'm feeling impulsive, having an entire display with games or DVD's, is a much better way to indulge my impulse than sorting through every single entry of a website, many of which might be pre-order/out-of-stock/discounted entries. On my last trip to my local Wal-Mart I was generally shocked to see tons of Wii games I'd never heard of, or seen before, despite following a lot of Wii news somewhat closely.
If I'm shopping for something like a phone, I'd want to get to a store and see how big they are in my hand, how do the buttons feel. If it's got a flip screen or extendable keyboard, I'll want to see how well that works in my hands. Measuring the dimensions listed on a website, and reading reviews isn't as informative as actually having a representation of the product in front of you to experiment with.
It’s because of things like this I don’t personally own a lot of games that are available only through download services. Not because they aren’t quality titles I’m interested in, they are, but I often got to find them out. I can scroll through entire longs lists of every game still available for download and wait for a few seconds for my browser to load it’s info, then wait a few more to go back and keep slowly. You can just accuse me of being lazy, but these are games, and as time continues to roll on, I find myself less interested tracking every little news bit on every title from a media I don’t like to begin with.
It’s the same reason things like Apple’s cover flow set-up for iTunes is popular amongst some people. Assuming you went through the annoying hassle of adding artworks to all your albums, it’s nice sometimes just to flip back and forth trying to decide on what to listen to, as opposed to scrolling down your entire library’s list.
If something like this “cocoon” being commercially viable in the future as a multiple use device like a computer. (A completely different topic and debate) An application like the example mentioned can potentially bridge the gap further between retail and virtual market. Obviously it’s a small example of something these people want to accomplish with VR technology, but it was probably listed to help demonstrate how something like this can be improve things for people that range from the grand adventures of movies or games, to the utterly mundane like impulsive shopping.
Also what’s with these comments that your arms will ache during light shopping, or your human finger isn’t precise? You people are starting to make me sound psychically fit by comparison. =P
