Could Apple or Nintendo make VR mainstream?

[SvennoJ]

potato_hamster said:

Wii Sports doesn't give you headaches when you play it. The quality of the screen and the frame rate actually has a very relevant effect on user experience for VR where this was a complete non-issue with Wii Sports. The Wii/Wii sports was a success because it was cheap, easy to play, and fun for literally the whole family. No chance of headaches, no chance of vertigo.  No having to pass around a wearable device to take truns on. I'm not sure why you're suddenly drawing a parallel between the two.

Question: Why do you think a $200 occulus standalone headset will offer a markedly better experience than a $900 cell phone with a $100 case/controller? You can't realistically expect that rumored headset to offer a better pixel density, and higher frame rate than a Samsung Galaxy S8 does, do you? You've already agreed that the Galaxy S8 in a headset isn't good enough. Why would this be better? You don't even know if this headset will offer quality positional headtracking, and you have to agree that at that price, it probably doesn't.

But wait hold up. You just argued that Google Daydream (and thus Gear VR) is the bare minimum of an acceptable VR experience and now it appears like you haven't even used Daydream or Gear VR?  How can you make those claims? Now you're changing your tune to say that these devices are hurting VR when not minutes ago you were claiming they were a way that VR could succeed! You claim that high processing power isn't required for VR, and just completely dismissed the most popular low-power VR experience as "not VR at all". Which is it?

The more this conversation goes on, the more it sounds like you think VR will become mainstream because you really want it to, and not because that's actually realistic. Now you're bringing in Nintendo to the conversation with me? The scenarios you imagine for how this apparently can happen have jumped all over the place that it feels that you're just picturing VR solutions that you'd really like to have, not ones that millions of people are actually willing to pay for.

I gave wii sports as an example that graphical quality doesn't matter. Which is also why I have less of a problem believing that a $200 headset with a screen specifically chosen for VR can offer a better experience than a $900 phone. The Wii cost $250 at launch. A $200 headset that doesn't need anything else could work.

What I'm claiming is that inside out tracking and standalone headsets are the way to make VR mainstream. Perhaps Google's worldsense will be good enough. We're talking about what could make VR mainstream. Not that current phone solutions are already mainstream. It's accessible but not good enough yet and without positional tracking, I do believe it hurts the experience.

Let me sum up what mainstream VR needs:
- Standalone, untethered, wireless
- Accurate positional tracking
- No external sensors required, inside out tracking
- Low persistance screen
- Low latency
- High framerate, 90fps or 60fps with positional reprojection
- Low price

Resolution and high end graphics are not a requirement.

Google worldsense or other inside out tracking solutions could make phones good enough for the full VR experience, depending on the screen quality. Nintendo could do the same with a Switch revision.

I haven't tried the current Daydream, yet I have seen the difference between positional headtracking and only rotational headtracking. Which is the best you get with 3D 360 videos. The environment not moving with you and providing believable parallax is just as important as any stereoscopic effects to create a virtual reality experience. So yes, I dismiss the current Daydream platform as real VR. Daydream 2.0 with Worldsense could fix that.
http://www.pcmag.com/news/353754/google-offers-a-peek-inside-daydream-2-0