Seasoned gamers have heard the promise of virtual reality games for years, and we’ve even seen gaming headsets before but the technology and user demand equaled failure. It has been years since those massive VR headsets were plugged as the next big thing, but since then we’ve seen 3D take-off although I’m still not sold on the idea in its current form.

Some work colleagues and friends have gone in head first with 3D gaming, which is great for them, but it’s my decision to wait for something better and this is the same choice that millions of gamers share.

The next big thing could be an old idea – we’ve embedded a video below that gives you a demonstration by Forth Dimension Displays, you might have heard of this name when watching movies thanks to their 20 years in microdisplays, but the gaming industry is a new direction for this UK Company. The video showcases virtual reality with an FPS game in a raw stage of development, and they quickly point out that it will be the peripheral maker that takes this technology and produces a sleek looking unit.

We’re blown away by how much fun this must have been for the technology editor (Brian Crecente) that demoed the virtual reality tech, and while it has a long way to go before it could be classed as “production ready“, we can also see the potential for gaming.

This is the 3D experience I’ve personally been waiting for over 20 years, and loved the idea back in the late 80′s and early 90′s. It never took-off then and now that the technology is almost ready for gaming it seems brands are as well, especially with Sony recently predicting a return of the virtual reality headset. With this in mind it would be good for Sony to introduce this technology with PS4′s launch, and if that happens we’d also expect something from Microsoft’s so called Xbox 720 as well. Either one of these brands could take this opportunity and change gaming as we know it, which could be seen as needed considering the threat from Cloud Gaming.

Watch the video below and us know if you can see the potential for virtual reality FPS games on Xbox 720 and PS4? If the unit looked cool enough, would you want to game like this?

In Summary: We touched on the importance of 3D gaming towards the end of last year, and how UK feedback showed most people thought of 3D as a gimmick. It’s our view that the real 3D experience is to be had with virtual reality and the technology by Forth Dimension, shown during GDC 2012, is in really early stages but also shows promise of gaming to come, which I’d be one of the first in line for the real 3D gaming experience.

Source (video available here)

Virtual reality!!!!!!!!!

VR Cooking Mama. I want to cook just like in real life. I would also like VR Individual Income Tax Return.

from the looks of it the real challenge that has yet to be solved is proper integration of the user of such a system with his surrounding environment. Maybe the display could be made partially transparent to prevent such accidents as bumping into walls (or each-other)?
Better yet would be if the system came with real world collision sensors that fed data in real time back into the logic rendering the game's level. That way a virtual obstacle could be rendered in place of a real one, to the benefit of both safety as well as immersion. This would of course place constraints on the types of virtual environments at your disposal in any given moment, but it's a step in the right direction...

Please tell me I'm not dreaming. I've been waiting for this. All my life. O.O

Cool idea, but I think it's better suited for amusement parks than home. Too bulky.

The transparent displays that gumby mentions and that already exist could help, tho.