PSVR Sells Through 3 Million Units

[Peh]

Conina said:

potato_hamster said:

VR doesn't have that limitation, and hasn't since the 90's, possibly earlier.

It's complete horseshit that PCVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are the first viable consumer VR devices. The fucking Sega Genesis had a VR headset planned for it for fuck sakes. Nintendo actually released the Virtual Boy, and as it turns out "the future" wasn't worth only gaming at 20-30 minutes at a time until they got used to it? How can you possibly keep pretending that the gaming industry hasn't been pushing VR in one way or another since the 90s? Current VR headsets are just the first ones to benefit from internet hype.

The Virtual Boy was (despite its name) no VR headset, it was a different kind of head-mounted display! It was missing the essential feature of motion sensors, so you can look around in a virtual world by head movements. Without this motion input, it was just a bad monochrome monitor with very low resolution, low contrast (red & black... really?) and low FOV strapped to your head.

SEGA's VR glasses weren't a "viable consumer VR device" either: it remained only a prototype, and was never released to the general public. Then CEO Tom Kalinske stated that the system was not released due to it inducing motion sickness and severe headaches in users.

The most promising commercial VR headset in the 1990s was the Forte VFX1, but it still had much more issues than benefits and died with MS-DOS.

You make it sound that there were viable consumer VR devices available after the 1990s all the time and that the Oculus Rift/Vive/PSVR were nothing special at all.

So which consumer VR headsets were the best and second best in 2000 - 2004? Which consumer VR headsets were the best and second best in 2005 - 2009? Which consumer VR headsets were the best and second best in 2010 - 2014?

I completely agree with you. The VR stuff really started recently with Oculus Rift for actually being a VR device and not a TV that is strapped on your head. The VR devices today are far more advanced and obviously couldn't be achieved decades ago. That's how I always imagined VR to be. To be in a virtual world and interacting with it. 

It's sad that not more devices have been sold, but given the actual price of those I can fully understand it. Vive and Rift are also far more advanced than a PSVR, though. I see PSVR as a more limited seated experience whereas for Rift and Vive you can walk around in the environment. The immersion is just awesome.