What’s All This Buzz About Virtual Reality?
Virtual reality.
It’s taking over the tech world, and consumers in general are becoming increasingly intrigued by its many applications and possibilities. While the immediate application for virtual reality is obviously gaming, this growing trend spans across genres from professional training for pilots, surgeons, and athletes, to — you guessed it — even adult entertainment. The buzz around VR is that it’s incredibly realistic, and has people wondering what lies in the future for this space.
The VR landscape is quickly evolving. I’ve been getting flashbacks of the late 90’s, where it’s a hardware war of who has the better displays, graphics, and power. While many players are now jumping on board to get in this space, the three main players in the industry today are Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and the Sony Project Morpheus. Of these three, HTC Vive has the most significant technological advancements due in large part to its room-scale tracking capabilities, which tracks your entire body and movements around the room — as of now, no other hardware has this ability.
Surprisingly, although the Sony Project Morpheus is not as capable as the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift in specs, it has the most potential to succeed of all the 36 million+ PS4 units sold worldwide. The Sony Project Morpheus is an easy hardware addition to everyone’s family rooms, and will also guarantee a consistent experience across the board.
While the VR trend certainly is fascinating, it doesn’t come without its drawbacks. The technology and hardware is very premature and costly, and the experience is inconsistent across different hardwares. A common pain point when it comes to upscale VR hardware is the fact that your device must be wired to your computer — think about turning your head and walking around with wires coming out of your devices. This type of constriction is raising concerns for some.
VR hardware is a bit unaffordable for the general public. The Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive each cost easily over $600 USD, and the device also requires a very high-end PC on top of that. However, there are some inexpensive yet effective options of VR hardware as well — for example, Google Cardboard is literally a piece of cardboard folded into a headset that projects and simulates 3D VR. All you need is a phone, and it retails for just over $20.
One thing is certain about the virtual reality — with boundaries constantly getting pushed and technology continuing to evolve, the possibilities really are endless as to what we will simulate in the future. I, for one, can’t wait to find out.
