Presence in itself is the killer app. It's 100% a gimmick at this stage but at least to me that's worth spending hundreds of dollars for. Real VR "games" such as racers aren't even needed to get this thing selling like hotcakes, but of course that's just my opinion. It'd be amuzing/sad if it ends up like Kinect: a huge success to the casual market, but lacking any titles for core gamers.

I didn't really catch what this "presence" thing is. I though it was just a marketing buzz word.

Please enlighten me.

Presence is about tricking your brain into thinking the VR world is real.

"First, any VR headset needs to create "presence" for the person using the headset. Abrash defined presence as such:

"It's the sense of being someplace else while in virtual reality; many people feel as if they've been teleported. Presence is an incredibly powerful sensation, and it's unique to VR; there's no way to create it in any other medium."

Cliché as it is, VR headsets aim to do exactly what their name implies: simulate a new reality for the user, real enough to fool the human brain. Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe echoed that sentiment to us earlier this year when he said that the closer the experience is to reality, the better the experience is for the user. Sadly for us writers, "presence" -- or rather the experience of using a virtual reality headset and being convinced -- is incredibly hard to convey with just words. "Most people find it to be kind of magical, and we think that once people have experienced presence, they'll want it badly,"Abrash noted during his talk."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/18/valve-vr-steam-dev-days/

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/140319.html

So my understanding was correct. It was just a marketing buzzword. Presence is not a thing but the bare minimum I expect of VR.

"On 18th February 2014 it was announced by Ken Levine via an open letter posted on the Irrational Games Website that Irrational Games would be closing. All but fifteen members of the Irrational Games staff would get laid off with the team helping them to find new jobs within and outside of 2K Games and that 2K was now in charge of the BioShock IP. Levine and the 15 remaining members of the team would be creating new, smaller games focusing on a replayable narrative for the core gamers. The games will be released digitally with Take-Two/2K Games funding and publishing them."

Your move, bish. :P