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Is VR ports of old AAA games not the way forward?


wOOOOt

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So, I am just a normal gamer who own a Vive - because I could afford the expensive **bleep** :D

 

And I just wonder - VR is so awesome, so why is the market not exploding with HMD's and bigger game developments?

The answer is naturally a mix of supply/demand, pricing and limitations.

We all know that Vive and Rift are too expencive for the mainstream consumer. Prices will fall in time, due to competition, evolving solutions and growing content.

 

And I want to talk about the content part. 

Besides price and other problems, then content is the major factor here.  We all know the dilemma: AAA titles will only be developed when the market is big enough, and the market size is small because of the lack of AAA titles.

There is a lot more to it, but I ask all of you here:

- How big a role does AAA content play vs. the numbers of High end HMD's sold?

- If it cost like XXX millions of $ to make a new AAA title, how much is the cost to convert older AAA titles to VR? 10%? 50%? - Take Fallout4 as an example. 

When Fallout4 releases for VR, everyone will buy it for Vive (except those 10% who are too butthurt about the price.) 

 

As I see it, Bethesda is on the right path for VR right now. Take great normal PC games, and make them work on VR. - Will Fallout4, Skyrim and other titles like Halflife2 not boost the VR sales? 

If yes - why dont we se more companies like Bethesda make VR versions of their old AAA's?

 

Many of you probably know a lot I don't, so please elighten me - what will it take for VR to grow from a niche for the "rich" - to mainstream like a PS4 owner. 

 

And Why the hell is VR so expensive? It seem like HTC and Oculus sell at 500% the cost price, because its a new cool tech - but If they sold it cheaper, the market would grow exponentially faster. - Im just guessing numbers here. But lets say Vive cost 200$ to make, but is sold for 800$ because "they can".. What If it as sold for 300$ - earning less per unit, but it would suddenly sell 10X the units, making a positive snowball effect for the VR market, boosting their income on software. I know im just rambling here, not knowing half of it. Please explain it to me. =)

 

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I can see big name shooter style games being slow at adapting VR, for one, the movement in these games looks awkward in VR where a mouse and keyboard is so much more efficient and faster in these types of games (Quake, Doom, Half Life, etc). But some other games or "sims" adapt to VR quite well, in example Project Cars, Assetto Corsa, American Truck Simulator and some flight sims. This is because you get a better immersion level in a seated position, thus not having to smack the walls of your play area, not getting all tangled up in your HMD's cable and so on. VR is still in it's infancy and has a long way to go before all the issues are ironed out. Then, as you mentioned is the price, that's a tough one to swallow for the majority of people, it's not just the price of the HMD, it's also the price of the computer upgrade that is probably needed by many to run the HMD. This can very easily double the price of getting into VR (Vive and Oculus). As time goes, they may find a way of having better, more efficient displays in the HMD, the kind with more resolution to get rid of the Screen Door Effect but yet still maintain a constant 90 fps on moderate computer hardware to keep people's dinner down. One such way of doing this which has been discussed (this has been done many years ago also) is a way to render only the graphics the HMD is seeing at the time and not rendering stuff that is out of sight. Time will tell what new technologies VR will bring forward, but the current VR users are basically pioneers in the hobby and we are few as compared to everyone using a computer for gaming.

Regards: Jack

 

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