Developer Blog – What is VR and What Makes It Awesome? Part 4

The new improved prototype debuted as the Oculus Rift at E3 2012. It was a hit and the rest is history; dev kits were successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter.com and Facebook purchased Palmer’s Oculus Rift company for over $2 billion dollars. VR was suddenly back in a big way.

Compared to the VR systems of yesteryear, the Oculus Rift headset represents a savings of around $299,400. Yet its $600 price tag is still cost prohibitive. And the expense doesn’t end there. The headset also requires pricey computer equipment to which it is tethered. Despite making remarkable advancements, VR’s enduring expense could have doomed it to a short lived renaissance. Virtual Reality needed an entry level product to assure market traction.

Google engineers David Coz and Damien Henry realized that there wasn’t necessarily a need to disassemble a cell phone for use in a VR headset. They created Google Cardboard: a low cost cardboard kit into which a cell phone can be inserted. As was the case at its Google I/O 2014 debut, the kit and accompanying software are so inexpensive that they can be given away for free. Most people possess the requisite hardware already. For all intents and potential then, the total Cardboard acquisition cost can be a very affordable no money down. Moreover, mobile phones mean mobility. Processing is handled locally, the headset is un-tethered. Thanks to Google Cardboard, Virtual Reality is now everywhere, piggybacking the success of cell phones.

Having solved the price problem, mobile VR reintroduces the Reality problem; current cell phones’ (relatively) pitiful processors can’t render realism. Fortunately consumer perceptions have shifted. Seeing is believing. The record number of people experiencing VR for the first time have come to a conclusion; what makes VR awesome isn’t realism but immersion. Stereoscopic panoramas and sound surround transport users through time and space. The worlds they arrive at aren’t worse off for lack of realism; in fact, the opposite is often true. The weirder and wilder the better. If it looks good and is engaging, virtual vanquishes reality.

So far we’ve talked about the history of Virtual Reality and obstacles overcome. Yet there are many challenges ahead. Upcoming discussions include the technical accommodations necessary to make mobile VR be, and the design considerations needed to make it be successful.

 

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