Professional game dev explains why Sony's Morpheus won't get much backing from developers.

[Scoobes]

TheSpindler said:

Scoobes said:

Really? Considering there's not a full blown commercial product out and there are an increasingly large list of developers on board with different VR projects:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_Oculus_Rift_support

With only the Occulus Rift dev kit, there are already nearing 200 games with native VR support plus others with unofficial mod support. That list is obviously not including studios involved with Sony and we don't know if any additional studios are involved with Valve and HTC's project.

The other factor that sceptics are completely ignoring is the fact that VR is also becoming a great medium for showing movies:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/27/facebook-oculus-story-studio-virtual-reality-films

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/534791/a-film-studio-for-the-age-of-virtual-reality/

So I very much doubt content will be a major hurdle.

The last problem for VR I see is cost, but we don't know how much these devices will cost yet. Obviously, costs will come down as time goes on though. 

 I think I should clarify a bit to make sure my point is coming across.  When I said development is going to be apain, I meant withthe Morpheus, as the developer in his comments as said.

Now the key points of what I said, which you have in bold, are that high profile games(no, not just high profile games with a VR mode, but built around and made for VR and done well) and the hardware being cheap enough to adopt for the veryday consumer are vital to its success.  Currently it is niche, adn will be niche for the forseeable future until those two things and others have been solved.

I'm not sure why you mentioned that VR film thing, as that's niche as can possibly be.  Just to be sure, I'm taliing about mainstream adoption of the tech for it to be successful, not small projects, or hardware selling in the thousands.  Sony would need to go far beyond setting up one studio for VR.  I doubt they can go further right now though.

Funny to think, if Microsoft had their way with always online they might be in the best position to push this whole VR thing with movie content streamed on Xbox consoles day one with theatre release with VR enabled.  But that's just a theory about their plans anyway.

There are multiple VR devices now and lots of studios devoted to developing content for them. The fact is that the same game played in VR is a very different experience. It's literally adding a new dimension, almost like playing a racing game on TV vs playing in a full blown F1 simulator. The track might be the same but the overall experience is very different.

Anyway, my point is that these "niche" project (including the film projects), are only the starting point and will grow to be the next big thing. With VR, a developer/studio doesn't need a massive budget, it just needs an innovative initial idea/product that can immerse a user to the medium. Minecraft started off as a simple game that is now one of the biggest titles on Earth. Some of these niche projects will pan out to be the next big thing (and that's the point the bigger budget publishers will jump on the bandwagon). That is what will ultimately sell VR to the mainstream.