Whether you go with Oculus or HTC version of VR and pay the hefty price tag at release or even wait till the price falls a bit, Most or half will pay even more to upgrade to the min/max specs.
since you are new to computers i should point out that price per performance in PCs drop dramatically in 12 months time.
New to computers? Try again.
I was referring to the people, like the average gamer, upgrading their PC to the specs since Rift ships the 28th of March. That is, of course, If they want it at release.
so you know then that the price to performance on a PC changes RADICALLY fast.
when a brand new video card comes out its very very expensive and the machines that can take advantage of it are very very expensive but by 12 months time the price cuts in half.
What makes you think the PC requirements for the Oculus will not be 1/2 the cost they are now in about 9 months?
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
and that is not at all different whatsoever in any way as it been for the past 20 years when..
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR."
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
and that is not at all different whatsoever in any way as it been for the past 20 years when..
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
I never said it was different.
I put the info out there for the average gamer in my original post in this forum, and you make a shrewd remark and insult and precede to argue about long term price to performance when I was talking short term and the fact that IF your PC falls below specs of the Rift, you have to upgrade.
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
and that is not at all different whatsoever in any way as it been for the past 20 years when..
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
I never said it was different.
I put the info out there for the average gamer in my original post in this forum, and you make a shrewd remark and insult and precede to argue about long term price to performance when I was talking short term and the fact that IF your PC falls below specs of the Rift, you have to upgrade.
Or should I have specified how long "a bit" is?
ok so to recap.
The expensive release of Oculus and its PC requirements is no different then any other major technology release in the PC space over the past 20+ years.
ok well thanks alot for nothing
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
and that is not at all different whatsoever in any way as it been for the past 20 years when..
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
I never said it was different.
I put the info out there for the average gamer in my original post in this forum, and you make a shrewd remark and insult and precede to argue about long term price to performance when I was talking short term and the fact that IF your PC falls below specs of the Rift, you have to upgrade.
Or should I have specified how long "a bit" is?
ok so to recap.
The expensive release of Oculus and its PC requirements is no different then any other major technology release in the PC space over the past 20+ years.
ok well thanks alot for nothing
Are you an average gamer with an average/mid rig? No?
So my op wasn't intended for you as it was clearly stated towards the bottom.
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
and that is not at all different whatsoever in any way as it been for the past 20 years when..
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
I never said it was different.
I put the info out there for the average gamer in my original post in this forum, and you make a shrewd remark and insult and precede to argue about long term price to performance when I was talking short term and the fact that IF your PC falls below specs of the Rift, you have to upgrade.
Or should I have specified how long "a bit" is?
ok so to recap.
The expensive release of Oculus and its PC requirements is no different then any other major technology release in the PC space over the past 20+ years.
ok well thanks alot for nothing
Are you an average gamer with an average/mid rig? No?
So my op wasn't intended for you as it was clearly stated towards the bottom.
Thanks for playing!
so again..litk I said.
you are pointing out something that has been as it has been for more than 20 years and its nearly an EXACT forumla as one would expect. in fact its also just happens to be EXACTLY how all new technology gets into the market place, from the first walkman and VCR to electric cars
I am not sure what you are trying to say other than the sky is blue and we all already know that.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Let me help ya out here, I agree with the 9-12mo price to performance.
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
and that is not at all different whatsoever in any way as it been for the past 20 years when..
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
I never said it was different.
I put the info out there for the average gamer in my original post in this forum, and you make a shrewd remark and insult and precede to argue about long term price to performance when I was talking short term and the fact that IF your PC falls below specs of the Rift, you have to upgrade.
Or should I have specified how long "a bit" is?
ok so to recap.
The expensive release of Oculus and its PC requirements is no different then any other major technology release in the PC space over the past 20+ years.
ok well thanks alot for nothing
Are you an average gamer with an average/mid rig? No?
So my op wasn't intended for you as it was clearly stated towards the bottom.
Thanks for playing!
so again..litk I said.
you are pointing out something that has been as it has been for more than 20 years and its nearly an EXACT forumla as one would expect. in fact its also just happens to be EXACTLY how all new technology gets into the market place, from the first walkman and VCR to electric cars
I am not sure what you are trying to say other than the sky is blue and we all already know that.
First of all, you shot your mouth off with long term crap which had nothing to do with my op.
Second, when I corrected/you finally understood, we moved to "It was pointless post because I already knew that"
However, seeing that arguing will do nothing more than to keep you moving on to yet another pointless retort, feel free to PM me before both of us clutter this topic moreso or attract the attention of the moderators.
First of all, you shot your mouth off with long term crap which had nothing to do with my op.
Second, when I corrected/you finally understood, we moved to "It was pointless post because I already knew that"
However, seeing that arguing will do nothing more than to keep you moving on to yet another pointless retort, feel free to PM me before both of us clutter this topic moreso or attract the attention of the moderators.
agreed
thanks
as you have described it is how it works. The first round is expensive and is for enthusiasts. the mid to low range do not get in at this point. When a tech product is released its ALWAYS 'not the majority but as time goes the price falls and mid to lower get into it.
its the forumla
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
In 1997, DVD players costed almost a grand, by 2000 they were ~$100, and then by 2003 they could be had for $50 or less.
I remember growing up, the rich family down the street had the first DVD player on the block. Everyone wanted to watch movies at their house. It made their kids popular, lol.
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
I could fork out the money np. Where its to much is the PC you need to buy to run this headset + the price of the headset, puts it out of reach of the common gamer. So that makes this not for the masses. So this means developers wont be as willing to make games for it. In the end making it not worth spending the money on it, even if you can afford it.
That's a valid point it is targeting the enthusiast end at the moment. They need the high resolution screens that are in these things per eye with high refresh rates which is a lot of what the cost ultimately is coming from sadly and until those ramp up production costs on the headset won't really come down much at all. That said the computer you need to drive these systems was never going to be something out and out affordable since you are doing 2 high resolution screens that have a high refresh. While the screens are small that means jack all since the resolution the game is rendered at is what requires the power and that's driving two displays on top of it... Of course you are going to need a system with graphics muscle to be able to do jack shit.
Hopefully we are going to get into the realm of where these systems are far more affordable in the next few years.
Half of the guys complaining here run around with their 900$ iPhones in their pockets but go wild when there's something NEW and truly AMAZING wich might seem a little bit overpriced for the time being. Idiots.
Android phones aren't cheap either. The difference is that a smart phone is a personal computer and so much more that you take anywhere. Used in everyday life all the time regardless of where you are. That cost is justifiable to most people. VR for PC is currently a entertainment (for the average person) device with limited use which requires a really high price tag (per person). The price is understandable. That does not mean it's a justifiable expense for people though.
It also requires a pc that costs double or triple (depending on which device you buy) the headset price to run optimally (per person). Someone posted Steam statistics before and people with capable pc's were really low. Combined price is a major issue. $2000-$3000 per person! Until technology advancements decrease the costs it will likely be "justify the cost issue" for a lot of people.
This is exactly why I believe if anything console has the upper hand simply because of the entry fee. Even if the headset were $800. For most people it's still the cheaper combined option. Especially for people who were buying that console regardless of VR.
The thing about the vive it includes room tracking + motion controls outside of just the headset and an xbox one controller. The room tracking it does include + those controls likely add to the price vs the Rift.
yeah there were some folks here on the forums who were convinced that the Vive wold be less than the Oculus. I made such points but it appeared to not make any difference to them
The headsets are all going to cost around the same with what is in them and the fact that the screens aren't off the shelf sizes etc and people need to understand how production and manufacturing works. The high costs will not come down until early adopters of the tech buy enough that production can ramp up and the like.
A problem I foresee though is at the moment some of the VR Headset people (primarily occulus) seem more set on the whole "chase the ball" mentality (sorta like 3d realms) and seems like they are pushing to try and make them have higher resolutions and the like that are pretty unnecessary in large part.
There was no way the vive was going to cost less than the Rift (they could of been prices similarly, but not realistically given the room trackers it comes with) unless HTC or Vavle were willing to take a hit on it for awhile to increase adoption, which last I checked HTC cannot really afford to be doing and valve is highly unlikely to do either.
the high res actually IS a necessity.
in aggregate the reason is the same reason why when you are watching a movie or game 1' from you monitor vs 3' from your monitor everything looks very different. In the case of VR you are 1" from the monitor.
I said making the resolution higher and higher over time to the point that it's going to continually need a 900 - 1000 dollar computer is a bit asinine not that the High Res we have in the display now is not a necessity. The chase the ball mentality is going to artificially keep prices high and computers are at a point now where we may be able to get the systems affordable to more people if they stagnate the production model instead of a chase the ball mentality making it too high end for most people to run. The research for the next iteration can be done, but it would be a bad move to chase the ball and release something higher end too soon
Unless we start putting massive processing into these devices where they handle a lot of the rendering at the cost themselves it is always going to be that the production of the next device needs to stagnate for awhile before going to manufacturing at all
Half of the guys complaining here run around with their 900$ iPhones in their pockets but go wild when there's something NEW and truly AMAZING wich might seem a little bit overpriced for the time being. Idiots.
Android phones aren't cheap either. The difference is that a smart phone is a personal computer and so much more that you take anywhere. Used in everyday life all the time regardless of where you are. That cost is justifiable to most people. VR for PC is currently a entertainment (for the average person) device with limited use which requires a really high price tag (per person). The price is understandable. That does not mean it's a justifiable expense for people though.
It also requires a pc that costs double or triple (depending on which device you buy) the headset price to run optimally (per person). Someone posted Steam statistics before and people with capable pc's were really low. Combined price is a major issue. $2000-$3000 per person! Until technology advancements decrease the costs it will likely be justify the cost issue for a lot of people.
This is exactly why I believe if anything console has the upper hand simply because of the entry fee. Even if the headset were $800. For most people it's still the cheaper combined option. Especially for people who were buying that console regardless of VR.
To be completely frank even though I have a smart phone now my view is the same as its been for 5 years. Its not all that amazing...not like VR.. sorry, its a PC in your pocket? well yeah a very underpowered PC in which I cant really do much with to be frank.
Its marginal but no, I see VR has more impressive than smart phones but I am not much into the whole 'mobile' thing like some people are who want to look at porn while they are away from the wife
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
What makes you think they're so cheap to build that they could be sold profitably at only $300 each?
When people were looking at the Oculus Rift dev kit, people said stuff like, oh sure, it's not a good experience, but the final product will have massively better specs. What do you think happens to the price tag when you want to give it massively better specs?
One of the critical points about VR is that a low resolution, high latency, cheaper version isn't just an inferior version of a higher quality VR headset. The cheap version would be something that basically doesn't even work for a lot of people.
No one knows what kind costs HTC or Oculus incur to make these glasses. But that's not the point to begin with, PC gamers aren't interested in the financial status of these companies.
The point is that people are not willing to pay $800 to jump into a technology, a technology that may not even succeed. People are not prepared to experiment with those kind of sums.
Speak for yourself, I know plenty of people that will buy this product and will have purchased a computer to ensure it works as soon as they get home with it. I am not one of them, I could but as I stated in a previous post I am not that enthralled with VR at this point.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
New Technology will always launch with high prices, then after some time cut the price in half, then a bit more.
PS3 launched at $600 bucks. Then it went down to $300 for most of its lifetime. It will not be any different for VR considering it does a lot less things than a full fledge gaming/media system.
If the Rift/Vive launched 12 months from now, it wouldn't take a $350 video card and a $200 CPU to be entry level. The price/performance of those parts, due to the natural evolution of hardware, would probably slide it all down a notch or two in the price scale, making it closer to $200 GPU and $150 CPU.
The cost isn't really the kicker. The kicker is the installation base. A lot of people would have to upgrade just for this item. Sure, they would be forced to upgrade eventually for other things as well. A year from now, a lot of them would have. And 2 years from now, even more so. 10 years from now integrated graphics may be enough to support VR at 4k/90FPS - who knows. Upgrading to play a $50 video game is similar to, but not quite the same as, upgrading to play with a $800 peripheral that still needs to pay for those video games.
One question is, are they releasing too soon, because the peripheral technology needed to enable the experience isn't quite there yet? Sure, it's achievable today, but only with top tier hardware, so maybe "practical" is the more pertinent question. Another question would be, are they releasing too soon, because the current technology used in the headsets isn't the best method or application for VR.
A couple of examples in recent past.
Not many people remember Apple's first handheld smart device. It wasn't the iPhone, it was the Apple Newton, which shipped in 1993. It was expensive (same price as an iPhone roughly), didn't have very good software, didn't have very good battery life, only a black and white screen barely-backlit, and didn't have WiFi or Cellular or much of any communications compatibility at all. It lasted about 5 years before Apple pulled the plug. Fast forward 10 years - the iPhone is essentially a Newton with cellular compatibility - phone and data. The devices have a similar form factor, the biggest difference being size - the Newton being "briefcase" sized, the iPhone pocket-sized. Cellular and internet technologies external to the device matured, allowing the device to become more than just a PDA, and that's when it exploded and made a huge breakout (not to mention some internal tech like LED screens, gyros, Li-ion batteries, and capacitive touch technology which certainly didn't hurt). Some people may say just the change in size alone - going from the briefcase to the pocket, is what did it (and indeed, that was what Palm had going for them and they were quite successful with the Pilot for a long time). That is one case of the technology almost being there, but it just took a while for peripheral technologies to mature a bit, making the device more practical.
I remember when Aegia PhysX cards first came out. They were very neat, they definitely add something to a gameplay experience, but a $130 peripheral that still required per-game software support, it didn't do so well. But then it was bought by nVidia and wrapped into the GPU stack, and competing technologies (Havok, Bullet, etc.) pushed it out to CPU and GPU availability. Now it doesn't cost the consumer anything extra, and no dedicated hardware is required for hardware physics acceleration. Today, it's hard to find a game that doesn't use a physics accelerated engine of some sort, it's become more or less standard. So Aegia PhysX had the right idea, I think, with the software and driver, just not so much with the dedicated hardware. And it caught on, although not in a manner they were expecting.
I wonder if VR isn't doing something similar as these two examples. Right now, it's almost on the bleeding edge of peripheral technology. It requires such high computing power that it isn't readily available for most people (although early adopters are certainly capable of getting it, the price does present an incontrovertible barrier to entry). 5 years from now computers will almost ubiquitously have sufficient computing power and it's not inconceivable that in 10 years even mobile devices could have sufficient power. The technology still requires a lot of concessions - tethered with multiple cables, very intrusive, limited input - yes, it works, but it requires the user to accept a lot of limitations. Maybe just the existence of this will spark other improvements that push aside these helmet limitations, and we won't really require any extra hardware at all (like in the Aegia example).
I think part of the upgrade requirement "shock" many people might be experiencing is due to the sudden nature of it and the requirements of nearly a full upgrade. Games on the other hand sort of have a slower push on upgrade.
Early days of PC gaming was like this. I recall buying a PC and not but a year later some killer games came out that my PC could not handle.
We made it thru and bought the hardware and the games and here we are all no longer playing Duke Nukem 3D
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
What makes you think they're so cheap to build that they could be sold profitably at only $300 each?
When people were looking at the Oculus Rift dev kit, people said stuff like, oh sure, it's not a good experience, but the final product will have massively better specs. What do you think happens to the price tag when you want to give it massively better specs?
One of the critical points about VR is that a low resolution, high latency, cheaper version isn't just an inferior version of a higher quality VR headset. The cheap version would be something that basically doesn't even work for a lot of people.
They actually are reasonably cheap to build. What you're paying for is the R&D. Its basically a couple of 1080p cell phone screens (which are stupidly cheap), a bunch of plastic, and some minor circuitry. It's not even like a console which has a CPU/GPU/RAM, etc etc etc.
Again, the costs were the stupid amount of R&D that went into getting them to function properly, and working with developers, and blah blah blah.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Comments
What I am saying is if, right now and for the sake of argument, you have an i3 cpu and 6800 AMD GPU and want a Rift next month, You have to not only purchase the Rift but also upgrade your PC which will easily put you over 1000$ for VR.
Now 9-12mo. down the road, maybe / maybe not so much.
a game like crysis comes out and most PCs cant run it and the cost of the video card that runs it is uber expensive.
its pretty much exactly by the book how it has worked for 20+ years. how is this one different? oh its not
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
This have been a good conversation
Steam: Neph
I put the info out there for the average gamer in my original post in this forum, and you make a shrewd remark and insult and precede to argue about long term price to performance when I was talking short term and the fact that IF your PC falls below specs of the Rift, you have to upgrade.
Or should I have specified how long "a bit" is?
The expensive release of Oculus and its PC requirements is no different then any other major technology release in the PC space over the past 20+ years.
ok well thanks alot for nothing
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
So my op wasn't intended for you as it was clearly stated towards the bottom.
Thanks for playing!
you are pointing out something that has been as it has been for more than 20 years and its nearly an EXACT forumla as one would expect.
in fact its also just happens to be EXACTLY how all new technology gets into the market place, from the first walkman and VCR to electric cars
I am not sure what you are trying to say other than the sky is blue and we all already know that.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Second, when I corrected/you finally understood, we moved to "It was pointless post because I already knew that"
However, seeing that arguing will do nothing more than to keep you moving on to yet another pointless retort, feel free to PM me before both of us clutter this topic moreso or attract the attention of the moderators.
thanks
as you have described it is how it works.
The first round is expensive and is for enthusiasts. the mid to low range do not get in at this point. When a tech product is released its ALWAYS 'not the majority but as time goes the price falls and mid to lower get into it.
its the forumla
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Hopefully we are going to get into the realm of where these systems are far more affordable in the next few years.
It also requires a pc that costs double or triple (depending on which device you buy) the headset price to run optimally (per person). Someone posted Steam statistics before and people with capable pc's were really low. Combined price is a major issue. $2000-$3000 per person! Until technology advancements decrease the costs it will likely be "justify the cost issue" for a lot of people.
This is exactly why I believe if anything console has the upper hand simply because of the entry fee. Even if the headset were $800. For most people it's still the cheaper combined option. Especially for people who were buying that console regardless of VR.
Unless we start putting massive processing into these devices where they handle a lot of the rendering at the cost themselves it is always going to be that the production of the next device needs to stagnate for awhile before going to manufacturing at all
sorry, its a PC in your pocket? well yeah a very underpowered PC in which I cant really do much with to be frank.
Its marginal but no, I see VR has more impressive than smart phones but I am not much into the whole 'mobile' thing like some people are who want to look at porn while they are away from the wife
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
VR is done
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
cutting edge and expensive
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
PS3 launched at $600 bucks. Then it went down to $300 for most of its lifetime. It will not be any different for VR considering it does a lot less things than a full fledge gaming/media system.
If the Rift/Vive launched 12 months from now, it wouldn't take a $350 video card and a $200 CPU to be entry level. The price/performance of those parts, due to the natural evolution of hardware, would probably slide it all down a notch or two in the price scale, making it closer to $200 GPU and $150 CPU.
The cost isn't really the kicker. The kicker is the installation base. A lot of people would have to upgrade just for this item. Sure, they would be forced to upgrade eventually for other things as well. A year from now, a lot of them would have. And 2 years from now, even more so. 10 years from now integrated graphics may be enough to support VR at 4k/90FPS - who knows. Upgrading to play a $50 video game is similar to, but not quite the same as, upgrading to play with a $800 peripheral that still needs to pay for those video games.
One question is, are they releasing too soon, because the peripheral technology needed to enable the experience isn't quite there yet? Sure, it's achievable today, but only with top tier hardware, so maybe "practical" is the more pertinent question. Another question would be, are they releasing too soon, because the current technology used in the headsets isn't the best method or application for VR.
A couple of examples in recent past.
Not many people remember Apple's first handheld smart device. It wasn't the iPhone, it was the Apple Newton, which shipped in 1993. It was expensive (same price as an iPhone roughly), didn't have very good software, didn't have very good battery life, only a black and white screen barely-backlit, and didn't have WiFi or Cellular or much of any communications compatibility at all. It lasted about 5 years before Apple pulled the plug. Fast forward 10 years - the iPhone is essentially a Newton with cellular compatibility - phone and data. The devices have a similar form factor, the biggest difference being size - the Newton being "briefcase" sized, the iPhone pocket-sized. Cellular and internet technologies external to the device matured, allowing the device to become more than just a PDA, and that's when it exploded and made a huge breakout (not to mention some internal tech like LED screens, gyros, Li-ion batteries, and capacitive touch technology which certainly didn't hurt). Some people may say just the change in size alone - going from the briefcase to the pocket, is what did it (and indeed, that was what Palm had going for them and they were quite successful with the Pilot for a long time). That is one case of the technology almost being there, but it just took a while for peripheral technologies to mature a bit, making the device more practical.
I remember when Aegia PhysX cards first came out. They were very neat, they definitely add something to a gameplay experience, but a $130 peripheral that still required per-game software support, it didn't do so well. But then it was bought by nVidia and wrapped into the GPU stack, and competing technologies (Havok, Bullet, etc.) pushed it out to CPU and GPU availability. Now it doesn't cost the consumer anything extra, and no dedicated hardware is required for hardware physics acceleration. Today, it's hard to find a game that doesn't use a physics accelerated engine of some sort, it's become more or less standard. So Aegia PhysX had the right idea, I think, with the software and driver, just not so much with the dedicated hardware. And it caught on, although not in a manner they were expecting.
I wonder if VR isn't doing something similar as these two examples. Right now, it's almost on the bleeding edge of peripheral technology. It requires such high computing power that it isn't readily available for most people (although early adopters are certainly capable of getting it, the price does present an incontrovertible barrier to entry). 5 years from now computers will almost ubiquitously have sufficient computing power and it's not inconceivable that in 10 years even mobile devices could have sufficient power. The technology still requires a lot of concessions - tethered with multiple cables, very intrusive, limited input - yes, it works, but it requires the user to accept a lot of limitations. Maybe just the existence of this will spark other improvements that push aside these helmet limitations, and we won't really require any extra hardware at all (like in the Aegia example).
We made it thru and bought the hardware and the games and here we are all no longer playing Duke Nukem 3D
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
They actually are reasonably cheap to build. What you're paying for is the R&D. Its basically a couple of 1080p cell phone screens (which are stupidly cheap), a bunch of plastic, and some minor circuitry. It's not even like a console which has a CPU/GPU/RAM, etc etc etc.
Again, the costs were the stupid amount of R&D that went into getting them to function properly, and working with developers, and blah blah blah.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche