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American Teens Aren't Excited About Virtual Reality (cnbc.com) 177

Posted by msmash from the no-buy dept.
Virtual reality hasn't caught on with American teens, according to a new survey from Piper Sandler released on Tuesday. From a report: While 29% percent of teens polled owned a VR device -- versus 87% who own iPhones -- only 4% of headset owners used it daily, the investment firm found, and 14% used them weekly. In addition, teenagers didn't seem that interested in buying forthcoming VR headsets. Only 7% said they planned to purchase a headset, versus 52% of teens polled who were unsure or uninterested. The survey results suggest that virtual reality hardware and software has yet to catch on with the public despite billions of dollars in investment in the technology from Big Tech companies and a number of low-cost headsets on the market. Teenagers are often seen as early adopters of new technology and their preferences can provide a preview of where the industry is going.
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American Teens Aren't Excited About Virtual Reality More

American Teens Aren't Excited About Virtual Reality

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  • Simple Reason (Score:3, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @04:53PM (#63425962)

    VR headsets suck in terms of image quality. They need to be at 8K per eye or better. It matters. Mobile phones sucked and very very few were using it for internet until the iPhone came out in mid 2007. Note, for years prior to that I'd been saying that mobile phones needed to be bigger and have a proper touch UI (reference: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org] ) .. but idiots couldn't see that phones could be useful as mobile internet devices and kept saying that internet on phones was a dumb idea (and getting modded up for it). (Reference: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org] ) .. Fact is, if VR is done right, it will work.

    • Plenty of people used mobile phones for internet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:29PM (#63426056)
      in Japan. Where the phones didn't suck. Yeah, the language helped, but I knew plenty of guys who'd imported phones from Japan that worked great with English.

      The iPhone was the 1st phone sold to Americans that wasn't chock full of bloatware APIs from carriers designed to lock developers into their $30k+ SDKs. That's what made it take off like crazy. Hilariously Steve Jobs had to be argued into opening up the SDKs to the outside world. Had he not done that (or course corrected if he did) the world would be a very different place.

      Bringing it back to VR, a large percentage of the population gets motion sickness from the disconnect between their eyes and inner ear. And that's before we talk about guys like me who get headaches because VR doesn't actually fool our eyes. You can do 24k per line, solid gold baby, and it won't fix those problems.

      • Re:Plenty of people used mobile phones for interne (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @07:11PM (#63426272) Homepage

        The iPhone was the 1st phone sold to Americans that wasn't chock full of bloatware APIs from carriers designed to lock developers into their $30k+ SDKs. That's what made it take off like crazy.

        Slashdot wasn't too kind to the iPhone when it was at this stage, either:

        Consumers Unlikely To Pay $500 for iPhone [slashdot.org]
        iPhone Faces Uncertain Market [slashdot.org]
        What If Apple Made A Cell Phone And No One Cared? [slashdot.org]

        Not that I can find any of my old posts from back then (individual user comment history seems to hit a brick wall around 2019 these days), but IIRC, my prediction was that the iPhone wasn't going to sell well because half of the USA's carriers used CDMA networks at the time. I was wrong, the iPhone ended up being such a compelling product that people switched to AT&T (or hacked the iPhone's carrier lock to enable limited compatibility with T-Mobile) just to have one.

        History might be repeating itself with Slashdot's overall pessimistic attitude towards AR/VR, or maybe this time around this blind squirrel has finally found a nut. Check back in a few years and see who ends up being right, I guess.

    • lol 8k per eye.

      You've clearly not used the Varjo Aero, which is ~3k per eye and crystal clear

    • I don't find the image quality bad at all. The Quest 2 is a comfortable headset with enough pixels for gaming, at least for me. Maybe 8k would start to make it a viable work screen replacement?

      Outside of the initial wow factor though there's still very little software that's compelling enough to set-up a play space. With the little non-work screen time I get I'll watch a movie with the wife (whose controllers are way more interactive). The kids would rather jump on a tablet/laptop and screw around in Roblox

    • Re:Simple Reason (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fuck_this_place ( 2652095 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:38PM (#63426084)

      That's not why. It's because kids aren't fucking banks you can just extract endless amount of green cheese from. People keep aiming at kids with stupid kiddie games, meanwhile adults are like "why do all these games suck?"

      First you need the hardware. That's getting close to 8 or 9K for all the good stuff.
      Then you need games, and while there are SOME good ones, the overwhelming majority of the are the cheapest shit you've ever seen.(this is /. ok maybe not the cheapest...but real contenders.)
      Then comes my favourite part. NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO PLAY NICE WITH EACH OTHER! Everyone has different controllers which means every fucking game has to support all these wonky pieces of shit and most don't. All the good devs are enthralled to the console overlords and they are not aware of any other overlords in their vicinities. Cooperation isn't even in the dictionary anymore. It was removed after being discovered it was obsolete.

      Image quality is a bit of a thing but not much. Index is already workable and there are already 12k ones coming i think. It's the size of the unit that's more an issue. You can barely wear those things for an hour before you just have to take it off to restore bloodflow to your face and surrounding areas. What you need is power. FPS in great numbers so you can actually hit those refresh rates.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        First you need the hardware. That's getting close to 8 or 9K for all the good stuff.

        Say what? A Quest 2 costs $350 which is mid range, a Valve Index with accessories is only $1k. Pair that with a high end $2k computer and you're only at $3k. That's high, but for people interested in high end gaming they probably already have a PC

        • You think someone with student loans, cad payments, and roommates for sharing rent can afford 3k on a gaming rig?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Ksevio ( 865461 )

            These are teens, they don't have those things yet, they're just mooching off their parents

            • And a lot of parents are going to shell out 3k per 2.2 kids for a flash in the pan beta tech no-real-games-available-anyway gaming goggle that has no other value or purpose which none of their friends have?

              Your parents must have been much richer than mine.

              I'm not in any way poor. My kid got the left over laptop my work from 3 jobs ago let me keep and the broken screen iPhone 7 her older cousin gifted her when cousin got a new iphone. After having that for several years (with no complaints, mind you) we go

    • No. Simpler reason, VR is dumb and a gimmick just like 3D TV

      • No it isn't, if VR is just a gimmick, so is color tv or even HD/4k and certainly 8K TV's.
        If you say VR is just a gimmick, you never experienced decent VR.

        • Name this "decent" VR system, it's price to me at retail right now, and name the specific applications that make it worth having over my other options.

          Please educate me.

    • TBH I dont think it matters as much as people think it does. I had one of those Pimax 8ks and , other than their abysmal drivers, it worked fine, it was just a pain to use. I also have one of those Occulus Go ones, and while the image quality is distinctly lower, I hardly notice it , the convenience is far more useful to me.

      That said, all the Meta nonsense is genuinely painful. No Occulus I genuinely DONT want to share my VR useage with Facebook. The whole point is to be taken OUT of the world, not dragged

    • It has nothing to do with image quality. Controlling a game character in VR sucks. You don't see people playing things like Call of Duty, Destiny, or any other "big name" games, with a Wii-mote level of shitty controller. Any first person shooter I've ever seen in VR has horrible, sloppy control....nobody wants that when they are trying to aim.

    • Heh, nice drive down memory lane. "Nobody's going to want more than 640x480!"

    • Decent image quality is one thing, 8K is a useless pipe dream right now. (Idiots clamoring over pixel resolutions they can't disinguish like the 64bit push of the 90's game industry.... Doesn't help anyone except the marketing department.)


      What VR / AR really needs is:

      1. Full properly proportioned models. AKA. No disembodied hands / heads / etc. This is supposed to be Virtual Reality. Not some acid trip / fever dream being rendered by an N64.

      2. Full hand controllers and individual finger / thumb mappi

    • Fact is, if VR is done right, it will work.

      The $$$ price of "doing it right" means it will never happen, both in terms of the hardware needed and the cost of producing the artwork.

      (OK, "never" is a bit strong but we're still a long way away. A decade at least.)

    • No they don't need to be 8k per eye or better. 4k per eye is already more then enough. The biggest problem is the needed graphical power to drive even the current new headsets, and the lack of content. What is needed though is a larger FOV, and making sure that screendooreffect is non visible (which already is almost next to nothing visible in the newer headsets, which are far from 4k/eye).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      All these problems can be solved with the addition of a groin attachment.

      People won't care about the low resolution, the unstable frame rate, the bulky headset, and the janky UI, so long as they are being jacked off while watching VR porn.

      I can only assume that this is a really hard problem to solve, because there aren't any well reviewed units on the market.

    • I agree. People are trapped in their paradigms. When the iPhone was announced, a lot of people recoiled at the idea of a touch screen only phone. Why? Because most touch screens prior to 2007 were terrible. People remember poking at ATM screens with bad accuracy, or pressing hard with a stylus on cash register signature pads that were not sensitive.

      People are resistant to the idea of VR because they remember either Google Cardboard or large heavy arcade headsets. They can't imagine light thin hardware like

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It failed because 99% of the billions was spent on software instead of hardware. Specifically, they should have spent it on the manufacturing technology needed to build high resolution VR displays at scale. Instead they blew money on software hacks to try to use low-spec hardware. Of course it was doomed to fail. They should have taken the hardware requirements seriously.

      • Re:Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by youngone ( 975102 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:16PM (#63426026)
        You may well have a point, but in my view VR has failed again for the same reasons 3D TV's fail.
        What's it for?
        Why would I want that?
        You want me to pay how much?
        I'm busy. Get back to me when you've actually got something to sell.
        Mind you, if Mark Robot from Facebook reads this, you should keep pouring billions into researching VR. Use all of Facebook's money. Borrow more if you run out.

        Go for it Mark, it's the future.

        • Re:Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:33PM (#63426068)

          There is also the fact they need to appeal to a non-tech market. People who can barely get their phone going, may or may not have an old Windows laptop. People who just are not interested in another device that they have to throw lots of time and money into, when the love of tech gadgets is waning, especially when people are more worried about where their next meal is coming from.

          In a booming economy where people love buying knickknacks, such as the early 80s, late 90s, and such, VR would sell quite well. However, not right now, when people are more worried about the Saudi oil shutdown, their job, and dealing with World War III on everyone's doorstep. In these times, people don't care for something where they have to buy a subscription in order to stand for fewer minutes in a virtual line for customer support with an obnoxious device on their head that keeps them from doing other things.

          • I'm sure you're right.
            Mark should still spend as much money as possible trying to get people to want VR.

            • You are correct, all the indicators are that VR just needs that final investment push to go mainstream. If handsome genius Mark Zuckerberg commits all his resources to VR, that will be enough to reach the tipping point and everyone in the world will join the Metaverse and give all their money and data to Mark and he will become the beloved ruler of the planet and stuff.

          • There is also the fact they need to appeal to a non-tech market.

            No they don't. The tech market is not saturated. They have a long way to go before they need to appeal for new customers.

        • You may well have a point, but in my view VR has failed again for the same reasons 3D TV's fail.

          Not only won't it, it hasn't. To address your points in a direct 1 to 1 comparison:

          What's it for? VR: Immersive world experiences, new ways to interact with interactable environments. Truly amazing. TV: fake 3D depth inside a small window. F-ing pointless.
          Why would I want that? VR: Why not? There are many good applications for the ability to be completely immersed in a 3D environment. TV: You don't. making small window across your living room appear to have fake depth is pointless.
          You want me to pay how muc

          • 2 things:

            1) I am a gamer but my ps5 cost me 500 bucks and works on my 4k tv. The games aren't quite as complex or always have the depth of PC games but good enough. How much do I have to spend for that Vr system between the goggles and the PC upgrades? How much better an experience is it?

            2) What is the source of these improved and higher quality experiences worth paying thousands for? What VR games are you playing now? Which VR set do you personally own, which VR games are you personally playing, how m

    • I'm shocked that 29% have a VR device. That's way higher than I expected. I wonder how loose their definition of "VR device" is, maybe everything but an iPhone?

    • The technology is still too immature to even consider spending the absurd money, so what, you can play Beat Sabre?

      Oculus was the reason "VR 2.0" started. It was fantastic in that the technology was now available to the masses and it was MUCH better than it used to be. I was personally VERY excited to explore what was possible.

      But, as with everything in life, someone wanted to be the gatekeeper to ensure they would get the lions share of the profits.

      Facebook bought Oculus and locked the headsets from the users via crypto certificates. All the ports of entry were locked to payment methods with surcharges surpassing Valve

  • ... of experiencing slightly more immersive visual media. Do people prefer heavy, closed head phones, just because they can provide somewhat more immersive sound than flimsy, lightweight devices? The majority does not, so why should this be different for visuals?

    I for one briefly tried different VR devices, felt like a nice gimmick for 15 minutes, then started to become an annoyance.

  • target audience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by daten ( 575013 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:00PM (#63425982)
    I'm not sure teens are the target audience in this one. First, having a good experience in VR can be expensive if you want low latency and high resolution. You need customers with a budget that are willing to purchase a decent PC, graphics card and VR hardware. Second, you have a potential market of adults from the Lawnmower Man era that have been waiting decades for decent VR.

    I've been throwing money at several generations of VR gear, the PC to support of and countless games on Steam. My teenager will play VR for days but only because he gets the hand-me-down gear. He has never expressed interest in buying it himself or upgrading.

    • so they tend to be the target for everything. If teens get a bad taste for something it can last into adulthood. Marketers are thinking long term.

    • Yes and no. The issue here is that the study was of people who have a headset but showed they don't use it regularly. There's a content problem. It's one thing to spend $500 on a VR headset, and quite another to find truly decent and compelling games with a long replay value. Much of the industry has mobile phone quality games without substance which don't remotely use the graphics that these devices are capable of.

      One of the key problems is the most popular device on the market is little more than an under

  • I think these guys bought too heavily into Neuromancer. My guess is if you compare the percentage of the population that has read this novel and the percentage that believes VR is going to be a big thing you'll find them very similar.

    • Oh yeah, that's what it is. Well spotted.
    • Neuromancer isn't nearly as dystopian as what these guys want. They want a virtual office (that you drive into of course, because gotta keep those commercial real estate properties going!) where you throw a headset on all day to work.

      Turning cyberspace from my youth into a cubicle hellscape is somehow worse than the rampant wars and poverty from the Sprawl series.
    • I always figured it was more they wanted to base it on Virtual Light. Nueromancer was surgical implants and such, at least with Virtual Light it was just something you put on, allowing you to see and interact with everything around you in real time. a la Google Glass and the Microsoft Hololens.

      • Honestly I just picked a random cyberpunk novel and that popped up. It was meant to be funny. The real reason is they're all looking for the next cell phone to make trillions off of.

  • Space concerns (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:03PM (#63425988)
    From what I have seen most VR setups sort of requite that you devote a space for it. Maybe not completely, but it will be a major focus of the space. With the price of rent these days you are pretty much required to have a room mate, and they will need to be onboard with that use of the shared space, unless you want to try to cram a VR setup in the corner of a small bedroom.
    Let's not forget, it is a big investment to get started. I would love to play with some VR, but I am not spending that kind of cash just too play with it.

    • It depends on the thing. A WW1 biplane simulator needs approximately room for chair and holding out your arm to grab the virtual control stick, and optionally room to flay arms to the sides of you want to take shots with your pistol while flying.

      The popular beat sabre music/rhythm game requires maybe 4 arm lengths worth of space.

      But mostly, the games that people can actually stomach without motion sickness need about Wii amount of space. Actuall, VR is alot like Wii, gimmicky and casual. (But with hefty pri

    • Yes and no. The issue is related to content and the assumption it makes on space. There are games that absolutely expect you to have a large free play area. But there are plenty of situations as well where you don't even need to leave your seat. Flight simulator is great in VR for example. So is Alien Isolation, Subnautica, there's a lot of games that are perfectly playable and even assume you're wearing your headset seated infront of your PC.

      There's also lots of games which aren't. I know a lot of people w

  • Is Anyone besides Zuck and Cook excited about VR? This will go tthe way of 3D TVs. A novelty that most people don't care about.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      I hope it fares better than 3D TVs, it really is miles better than 3D TV.

      3DTV always sucked because they always had crosstalk between the two views, compared to dedicated displays per eyes. Plus, stereoscopic vision is neat and all, but *parallax* with head movement really seals the deal for having something appear substantial.

      I don't imagine it will necessarily be on *everyone's* faces or anything, but I hope the niche is big enough to support a healthier ecosystem than 3DTVs now have.

  • These are the same kids who are buying up vinyl records in an age of streaming services. Good luck figuring them out, even their humor doesn't make any sense. I actually feel kind of bad for the folks who are trying to market things to this generation. In my day, you'd just run some ads during during Saturday morning cartoons (which generally were ads for toys themselves) and you'd have kids beating a path to your door for your product. Come to think of it though, some of the ads were pretty cringe. [youtube.com]

    ...

  • I'm not a teenager, but hasn't the writing been on the wall for decades?

    VR is neat in certain niche areas like VR gaming, but trying to built it into something like metaspace -- something with no real utility apart from crass consumerism.

    Or who knows .. maybe it is useful, just not in any way that's been presented. Because I don't want to go shopping at a virtual walmart with a virtual assistant hanging in my field of vision (virutually) telling me things that are adequately conveyed with text or simple br

  • Remember how pre-iPhone, every handset maker was basically riffing on the "square screen plus chicklet keyboard" form factor in some way or another? We're at that phase of VR tech. The lowest bar to say they're doing the thing... With no real inspiration of what to do with it. GUIs were in the same place in 1984. Portable computers in 1991. PDAs in 1993 Phones in 2007. Tablets in 2010 (and to be fair most of the industry they still are). Each of these categories were in a basic pre-historic state until a s
  • Out there touching grass
  • not many people are!

  • Maybe go simpler? (Score:3)

    by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @05:36PM (#63426078)

    I've worked with VR a few times ... and actually it does provide some interesting capabilities that can be used to solve actual problems, like testing the layout of a cockpit. But I haven't found a game mechanic that made it that interesting. I did enjoy sitting on the bridge of the Enterprise, though. That novelty died pretty quick, though. I suspect some limitations were put in place (teleportation only, for example...) to keep the floors clean. But they're also reducing play mechanics by doing that.

    I do wonder if we're trying to do too much with VR. You've got the headset, controllers doing head-tracking, microphones, etc. What about something simpler like that thing Mr. Spock has on his desk? Yeah... you lose some stuff but wouldn't you avoid a lot of the nausea-related limitations that suck the fun out of some of these games?

  • because the NYT released an article of an authors survey of the metaverse and the only people that were in there were teens.
  • The summary "survey results suggest that virtual reality hardware and software has yet to catch on "... implies that VR will catch on. Maybe todays VR just sucks in it's current form and primary vendor ~ Meta. Maybe when it's useful, affordable, not clucky and doesn't suck up all your data by an evil, robotic looking, megalomaniac, it might "catch on". But today... hard pass.

  • The most popular headset on the market currently is the glorified phone strapped to your face in the form of Quest 2. I know plenty of people with a Quest 2. I know quite a few who use it more than weekly. 100% of those people use it to play games from their PC. Remember PC? That thing that a typical teen doesn't actually own?

    There is a real content issue. Meta was pushing the idea of untethered VR, but the reality is that comes with some severe limitations in terms of quality and availability of content. Y

  • Of course an expensive VR device is going to fail. They don't understand the real competition: psychedelic drugs.

    Paying $1000s for something that relies on Internet and electricity, it can't compete with stuff you can grow in your closet for a few bucks, which provides a kind of VR experience that lot of younger people find more compelling.

    Sort of joking, sort of not.

    VR might be more appealing if it had compelling content, like the first Star Wars movie (I mean what came out in 1977, not the damned preque

    • VR might be more appealing if it had compelling content, like the first Star Wars movie (I mean what came out in 1977, not the damned prequels).

      For years, my dream games have been VR versions of 90s space combat sims (XWing/TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, and Freespace, e.g. Extra credit For The Babylon Project mod for Freespace 2.)

      • Disney should eat that right up. It shouldn't cut in to their Star Wars experience motel revenue since that's what... like $5k/person the last time I heard about it? Not a lot of people are going to fork over for that, but a lot would fork over $1000 for a VR system if they knew sitting in the seat of a virtual X-wing was the game that came with every new system. It could branch out from there, basically video games on steroids seems like it could work, but the price points have to come down, and the qua

  • Movement sucks in VR (Score:3)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @06:10PM (#63426160) Homepage

    For the longest time I've felt increased screen resolution, lens quality, eye-tracking, and foveated rendering were the final things to solve. And don't get me wrong -- the new PS5 VR stuff has that finally and it's super exciting. But, I now I think the true final boss might be player movement: an area of innovation that has been pretty stagnant since the first CV1 games.

    I was an early-ish adopter of VR, on the first round of Oculus CV1 orders. That opinion changed only recently -- when I made some 2.5x2.5m square dedicated space for VR. I've found freedom of movement removes a massive part of the friction to a VR experience, in a way that wasn't obvious at all because the games all still "worked" before.

    Virtual movement sucks, and the only fix that actually has worked has been turning it into physical movement. So I think I've landed on an inescapable problem for VR: most people don't have a large space to dedicate to it. Most people won't even have a space they can temporarily "convert".

  • Do they mean smartphones? I didn't realize Apple had that kind of market share.

  • VR v3 will be back in 5 years
  • I bought an Oculus Rift 2 a while back. It was fun, for awhile, but it was always a pain to clear enough space to safely use it. My home isn't terribly small, but it's not so big I can dedicate a permanent space for using it. I would imagine a large number of people who would like to have a VR headset just don't have space for it. Factor in inflation for necessity items (e.g. groceries), and it's easy to see why not so many people are planning to get one.

  • It's like those "4-D" theaters you see in amusement parks. Sure, they generate some cool effects, but it's not like every theater is rushing to add "4-D" shows.

    I can see doctors using this for remote-controlled robotic surgeries. Or remote-control repair drones. There are some specific use cases. But for regular people, there's very little that VR is good for. Even gaming isn't that awesome in VR.

  • Both of my teenage boys just had to have a VR headseat, so 4 years ago Santa brought each of them one for $1000 a pop. The first week, oooh, ahhh! The second week, this is cool. The third week, meh. They hardly even used them after that. What a waste of money. Being in my 50s I've seen every piece of VR tech come and go without success (VirtualBoy anyone?). I tried to warn my boys that they would not like them. Mom said I was being a tight-wad and just didn't want to spend the money. Two grand now just sitt

    • Similar experience here but "only" 350 for the oculus. Early teen girl. 3 weeks and done. And her friends have it too but none of them used it more than a month.

      Roblox otoh....

  • Until they're reliably down to that, it's like wearing small welder's masks. Smaller, but still the feel of a welder's mask.

  • 30+ years of mostly marketing (Score:3)

    by GotNoRice ( 7207988 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @11:08PM (#63426600)
    VR has been over-hyped for 30+ years. The tech has got better but it's still mostly a novelty. Something that gets used for a short while and then gets set down to collect dust.

  • VR gets pushed time and again as the "next big thing" by people trying to make tons of money of it. So far this has failed every time because the tech is not ready, the content creation tools are not ready and the content creators are not there. This failure will repeat itself at least for a few more cycles.

  • ... However, I do want a holodeck. :)

  • I have two headsets, and I play a lot, Beat Saber got me through COVID times, but damn I wouldn't dream of using VR daily.

    I feel that's like complaining that people who buy a pizza oven don't use it daily.

  • 4% of our teens are Furries!

    Ok, joking aside but quite frankly, these are the ONLY people I know that are zealously devoted to VR. Which makes sense, who else would not only spend a ton of money but also go through the hardship of strapping on ridiculously heavy and uncomfortable crap just to pretend to be something else? I mean, no later than when you saw them don those animal costumes costing a couple thousand bucks, which are uncomfortable and hot as all hell (ponder wearing a full-sized fur coat inside)

  • VR has a major hurdle in front of it. Current input and output devices for VR are not casual.

    1. Can't use them on the move.
    2. Need a dedicated space in order to consume it.
    3. Input devices are crude an bulky. Usually requiring them to be strapped to your hands/arms.
    4. Output device excludes your environment, excludes those around you. You literally blind yourself from your surroundings.
    5. Price of entry is high.

    This makes VR a dedicated novelty. Casual engagement is impossible.

  • We were at a pause in my Photoshop class, which is primarily 8th graders. Admin had pulled a few kids and I didn't want to go over the same material now and when they come back. So, I discussed this article.

    of 16 kids, two of them have VR sets. One uses it every time he gets on his PlayStation, the other seldom uses his. He said that he would rather be able to chat with friends on his phone while gaming.

    As far as intending to get one. None of the students without VR expressed an interest in getting on

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