VR is in fragmentation trouble.

Kiyoris

According to Eurogamer, the biggest VR title, won't even run on Oculus Rift, and will only support one headset on launch, Valve.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-01-22-elite-dangerous-dev-frontier-confirms-no-official-support-for-oculus-rift

Like many predicted. Fragmentation can kill VR easily. Here's my graph to show you:

Pepeq

I think this is officially known as #clickbait.

Ridelynn

The graph makes it all worth it though. Most accurate graph in statistics ever.

Kiyoris

Pepeq said:

I think this is officially known as #clickbait.

Of course it is not clickbait, titles being only playable on a single headset, because there is no VR standard, is a MAJOR issue.

Imagine each game only being playable on one brand of mice. It is a major issue.

Kiyoris

Ridelynn said:

The graph makes it all worth it though. Most accurate graph in statistics ever.

Ok, well, you're welcome to make one. If it's better I'll post it in the OP.

Kiyoris

Rhoklaw said:

I don't know, but it makes sense to me. Think back to when people had a hard time with games working on their ATI graphics cards versuses the industry standard of nVidia. Even today people run into problems with graphic cards not being entirely compatible with some games.

VR headsets are the exact same problem with different usage of API with no set universal standard, let alone a stable software kit. Will this be a problem forever? Probably not, but initially this could indeed prove disastrous. Unless you know a lot of people who can afford to buy 2 VR headsets or even more.

That's a decent counterargument. Still think it will cause massive problems, but I know we had Glide and DirectX and OpenGL, and somehow it worked out. But it could backfire on VR too.

Fragmentation was a nightmare for Android.

Kyleran

Kiyoris said:

Pepeq said:

I think this is officially known as #clickbait.

Of course it is not clickbait, titles being only playable on a single headset, because there is no VR standard, is a MAJOR issue.

Imagine each game only being playable on one brand of mice. It is a major issue.

Or one operating system even. 

First world problems.

Kilrain

Kiyoris said:

Rhoklaw said:

Fragmentation was a nightmare for Android.

Eh not really? The "fragmentation" you mention for android is no different than PC. There is a much bigger difference and issue with VR than PC/Android you're speaking of.

Asm0deus

Actually while there is no "official support" right now player indeed have the OR working with ED as of now.  There was a bit of an issue when the cv1 came out but the players have sorted it out till ED gets their stuff together and have said they will support OR.

That said I think the price of the HMD will be the bigger VR killer when it comes to the masses.

Vrika

Torval said:

PC fragmentation is a problem, but it will likely work itself out like most all PC hardware has. Some of you are old enough to remember MFM, RLL, and other hard drives with their differing controllers and arcane configurations. The same was true for sound cards. How about proprietary IBM slots compared to standardized non-proprietary slots. Then there was the whole ISA, eISA, VESA, AGP, etc slot nightmare.

The OP post seems rather alarmist in nature.

Some of us are also old enough to remember our expensive HD-DVD players.

It'll work itself out eventually, and even if it turns into a standard war it won't slow the spread of tech much, but if we're unlucky it may result in lot of 600$ pieces of trash before the war is over.

Lobotomist

Elite will work, and works on Rift. All they said is that they will be focusing on SteamVR

SEANMCAD

OP:  yeah....duhhh old news

its funny how the critics of VR dont even know the most difficult challenges of it. They dont even know the top three achilles heel of VR.

this is one of them, its been known for a long time, thanks for sharing

fodell54

Once again. 

Nice agenda

carotid

SEANMCAD said:

OP:  yeah....duhhh old news

its funny how the critics of VR dont even know the most difficult challenges of it. They dont even know the top three achilles heel of VR.

this is one of them, its been known for a long time, thanks for sharing

Old news to whom? I didn't know the OP was written JUST for YOU.

tawess

Have to agree this will not be much of an issue. Would a standard right out of the gate be good... Not really... These things need to have some natural selection done to them. Evolution... And that can not really happen if everybody do the exact same things. 

It will ofc cause some issues along the way. 

SEANMCAD

carotid said:

SEANMCAD said:

OP:  yeah....duhhh old news

its funny how the critics of VR dont even know the most difficult challenges of it. They dont even know the top three achilles heel of VR.

this is one of them, its been known for a long time, thanks for sharing

Old news to whom? I didn't know the OP was written JUST for YOU.

to those who watch VR development even remotely closely.

 They (people in the VR industry) know full well that one of the biggest challenges is standards. It was also one of the biggest challenges during the birth of the home PC, we see that turned out ok.

Phaserlight

OP is trolling; Frontier already debunked this #clickbait article:

https://twitter.com/DavidBraben/status/690534295887282176

Kiyoris

Phaserlight said:

OP is trolling; Frontier already debunked this #clickbait article:

https://twitter.com/DavidBraben/status/690534295887282176

Read the article before attacking me Phaselight.

It's not so simple. They speak out of both sides of their mouth.

Frontier community chief Zac Antonaci has said something completely different:

"We've chosen to focus on SteamVR"

Talonsin

I think this is a good point.  Why but one VR set when half the market supports another?  If this continues and developers have to pick a side then the games market will fragment until their is either a clear winner (like VHS over Betamax) or they both die a slow lingering death.  I still think it is too early to tell if it will happen but fragmentation in the VR industry is a possibility.

Phaserlight

Kiyoris said:

Phaserlight said:

OP is trolling; Frontier already debunked this #clickbait article:

https://twitter.com/DavidBraben/status/690534295887282176

Read the article before attacking me Phaselight.

It's not so simple. They speak out of both sides of their mouth.

Frontier community chief Zac Antonaci has said something completely different:

To my understanding they stopped supporting Oculus around v0.6, and are currently working on SteamVR support.  However, they are still planning to support the CV1 on release.  It happens: sometimes a software team doesn't keep up with every single iteration of hardware prototype updates.  While it may be true, saying "titles being only playable on a single headset, because there is no VR standard, is a MAJOR issue" is a non-sequitur in this particular instance; hence, trolling.

You are grasping at straws; anything to support your narrative that VR is falling apart before it even comes to market.  If you were to make a truly informed argument to support your point, you should have gone with a different example.

Note that I have no particular interest in playing Elite: Dangerous, although it looks like a well-polished game.  I just find that when the lead dev of a team that has been very proactive about supporting a particular hardware product comes forward and says 'yes, we are planning on supporting Oculus, ignore the clickbait', you may want to consider other sources to support your argument.

SpottyGekko

So E:D will only support OR once they have a stable dev kit to work with ? Sounds reasonable enough...

In the mean time, they are only offering official support for SteamVR, because "they have a stable dev kit to work with" (and probably get a nice back-hander for the promotion).

I see nothing about them stating that they will ONLY support SteamVR in the future, so why the drama ?

Vada_G

SteamVR - Oculus is #clickbait as E:D already runs on OR and has since 2014 before it's actual release.

These types of corporate rivalries are common place young doomsayer.
PC - Mac, SNES - Genesis, VHS - Beta, Transformers - Gobots, HD/DVD - BluRay, Netscape - I.E.

Kiyoris

Torval said:

Oh no! Games are in fragmentation trouble! Some games only work on Nintendo, Playstation, XBox, Android, iOS, and PC. They're DOOoooommmmed.

PC fragmentation is a problem, but it will likely work itself out like most all PC hardware has. Some of you are old enough to remember MFM, RLL, and other hard drives with their differing controllers and arcane configurations. The same was true for sound cards. How about proprietary IBM slots compared to standardized non-proprietary slots. Then there was the whole ISA, eISA, VESA, AGP, etc slot nightmare.

The OP post seems rather alarmist in nature.

VR is a  peripheral, not an ecosystem with millions of users like playstation or Xbox.
If you want a comparison, compare it to games targeting specific mice, and none of the mice work the same way.

Kiyoris

These types of corporate rivalries are common place young doomsayer.
PC - Mac, SNES - Genesis

Wrong argument.

VR belongs in this category:




not this one:

Vada_G

It's a simple standard war. The fact that it's a peripheral instead of a console is irrelevant. In fact, every peripheral in your picture has been through the exact same situation, yet those still exist.

Quesa

It's new technology and will likely take a few years to standardize.  I don't even know why this is such a big deal, like making a mountain out of an ant hill.

This happens for nearly every emerging technology dating back to the beginning of time.