Valve Is Teasing "Index" - Its Own VR Headset

[moilami]

I said some time ago that I will wait for Nintendo to do it right. Well, the time has come with Labo, I laughed about what I said earlier, but have to spend that 30 euro for Nintendo Labo VR. The money saved of VR hype shall go to some road tripping

[xorbe]

I have the Vive Pro, and it's absolutely amazing the first time. However, there aren't any killer apps, and it's impossible to recommend at the price point, and it doesn't make a good party knick knack either. VR games make people work up a sweat. It's like an expensive super car, you want to try it, but you don't necessarily want to own it.

[Vistaus]

I like the idea of VR, but I'll continue to wait for something with a fully open-source stack that's starting to get supported by some of my 1500+ GOG.com games.

So basically you're going to wait 20 years for RMS to approve of a VR Headset?

[ssokolow]

So basically you're going to wait 20 years for RMS to approve of a VR Headset?

I suppose, if that's what it takes. I'm rather attached to having a 100% DRM-free system where the drivers for my nVidia GeForce GTX750 (purchased before AMD drivers were good enough) are the only closed-source drivers on the system.

(Heck, aside from games, which get a pass, I think the only other closed-source software I have is Flash and a couple of little utilities that run under Wine like Unity Assets Explorer and Double Fine Explorer for dumping soundtracks and ScummVM resources from my games.)

I've been spending less time gaming and more time either reading or programming lately anyway.

[coder]

Yeah, just like "peak oil" was supposed to kill civilization back then.
It's just propaganda bullshit, as long as you aren't living in an African nation you will be fine.

People tend to think the future will be a lot like the present. You can imagine things getting better and you can imagine them getting worse. Without more information, they seem equally likely, but they're not. So, it's an error to split the difference and just assume it'll be more of the same.

I'm not a studied futurologist, but I'm alarmed by the rise of authoritarianism around the world. Combined with ever more influence by the wealthy, depleting natural resources (hint: oil isn't one of them), and increasing pollution, amplified by the effects of climate change on crop yields and habitable areas, you could actually see the standard of living drop significantly, in more developed countries. Maybe not to the level of mere subsistence, but I've already seen a decline in my lifetime and the trend lines are mostly going in the wrong direction.

[DMJC]

I think that VR needs OpenXR, and the killer application is Helicopter/Airplane/Spaceship/Car/Submarine simulators, along with platformers like Astrobot Rescue, and maybe some other yet to be created genre. People trying to get humans walking around in VR are misguided.

[coder]

the killer application is Helicopter/Airplane/Spaceship/Car/Submarine simulators, along with platformers like Astrobot Rescue, and maybe some other yet to be created genre.

I don't know that there will be one killer app. I don't know if GUIs ever had a killer app, but they have an obvious appeal for most people. Maybe that's not a really good analogy, but technologies can certainly come to dominate without a killer app.

That said, I don't see VR catching on to the level of smartphones. Still, it can (and probably will) get a lot bigger than it is.

[starshipeleven]

I'm not a studied futurologist, but I'm alarmed by the rise of authoritarianism around the world. Combined with ever more influence by the wealthy, depleting natural resources (hint: oil isn't one of them), and increasing pollution, amplified by the effects of climate change on crop yields and habitable areas, you could actually see the standard of living drop significantly, in more developed countries. Maybe not to the level of mere subsistence, but I've already seen a decline in my lifetime and the trend lines are mostly going in the wrong direction.

What I'm seeing in my crystal ball is mostly economical shitstorms caused by globalization stabilization process, plus possible political meltdowns. It's bad but won't be an apocalyptic event.

Natural resources, pollution and climate change are real and I won't deny that, but they ARE vastly over-represented by propaganda to distract people from the real issues.
A return to authoritarianism when shit hits the fan is normal, and if you think the wealthy have more influence now than in the past you need to check your sources again.

To make an actual example, the main reason living standards drop for middle class and lower is mostly because of economic reasons (and internal politics reasons, tied to economics anyway).
People didn't get poorer because of dwindling natural resources (which is a very long-term issue that will eventually be solved by space mining), nor because of pollution, nor because of climate change ruining crops or water supplies (this is an issue for third world countries, rich ones won't have food/water shortages, period).
It usually boils down to globalization effect on jobs market and seriously bad management from the nation's own government.

[andrei_me]

Michael speaking of steam, Is steamOS still alive?

[DMJC]

What I'm seeing in my crystal ball is mostly economical shitstorms caused by globalization stabilization process, plus possible political meltdowns. It's bad but won't be an apocalyptic event.

Meh, the economy is now entirely predictable. IMF has been pushing for deposit seizure laws in most of the Western world (Europe, Australia, New Zealand, dunno about Canada), and the Reserve Bank of Australia is already talking about Quantitative Easing (Money Printing). Combined with the massive deflating housing bubbles and it's obvious that the safest place for money is in gold and long term government bonds. People who fail to research the economy deserve to get burned. Everyone has the internet, and can find 5-10 minutes out of their day to find the current state of things and how it's played out in similar situations in the past.

On VR, I think that games where you walk/move around outside of vehicles are mostly silly and I don't think they will ever gain in popularity. It's not like VR is a Star Trek Holodeck. It throws you into a virtual world but no one has demonstrated decent movement that can simulate stairs/chairs and walking at the same time. For full disclosure, I own A PSVR system, and about 15 VR games for it. Astrobot rescue works because you're not walking around and bashing into your TV. Doom VR and the other games that try to have walking make you extremely nauseous. Anything where you walk with a controller is sickening because the motion doesn't match your actions. Cockpit games work because your brain is expecting things to move around you. Ace Combat 7 is the best VR experience followed by Star Wars Battlefront. I expect No Man's Sky's Space/Flight mode to be incredible when the VR conversion drops later this year, but the walking bits are going to be awful.