Friday, February 17th 2017
Valve Reportedly Indifferent to Fate of Virtual Reality Tech
It seems Valve is far from concerned about rumors of an underwhelming Virtual Reality headset market. In a recent interview with the head of the game studio, Gabe Newell said his company was still "optimistic" in regards to VR's present state of affairs, and that it's "going in a way that's consistent with our expectations." He also added that Valve was "pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure."
VR Tech sales have come under scrutiny due, in part, to lack of information. Neither Valve nor Oculus' respective marketplaces have produced sales data, leaving speculation to run rampant. To further fuel the fire, leaked figures from late last year suggest only 140,000 HTC Vive headsets had been sold, below market expectations for what is supposed to be the next "big thing."
Valve is probably maneuvering itself into a comfortable, mostly neutral position in regards to the drama, considering that the company has invested little in the VR technologies hardware itself (the closest they have to a headset is a partnership with the HTC Vive line in the Steam Store) and Steam serves mostly as a software marketplace for whatever is selling, thus they can do well regardless of VR's success by simply selling software products from whichever field ends up being the most successful.
Sources:
BBC, Polygon
VR Tech sales have come under scrutiny due, in part, to lack of information. Neither Valve nor Oculus' respective marketplaces have produced sales data, leaving speculation to run rampant. To further fuel the fire, leaked figures from late last year suggest only 140,000 HTC Vive headsets had been sold, below market expectations for what is supposed to be the next "big thing."
73 Comments on Valve Reportedly Indifferent to Fate of Virtual Reality Tech
Valve backed away from consoles and that's bad because Psvr has enough power and potential to grab people's attention and money , everyone should try resident evil 7 on it ,it's quite a thing.
I just think what valve Could do.
"people wants games, we sell games from the biggest game shop the world has ever seen, if they are Vr or not is not our problem"?
Sure, we get exception simulation tools. But mainstream? Fuggidaboutit.
I think the framework for a market has been successfully created, now it is just a matter of maturity and market proliferation. Valve can help with the former through producing AAA games which creates demand in the market. The latter takes partners and time.
I personally am not opposed to the tech, just cannot afford the investment. :)
The problem is price... VR is just too expensive for most people. It needs time to mature and for costs to be boiled down. I do think this will inevitably happen given the massive potential and promise, but if the whole venture does fall flat on its face, then it will be a Concorde moment in the tech world, which will be a terrible shame. Given adequate time and a sustained creative/technical push, VR promises an absolutely mind blowing immersive gaming/entertainment experience like nothing else. You only need to experience where it's at now to come to that understanding. I hope the industry can ride this out and keep driving it in the right direction.
the future:
gizmodo.com/guy-faceplants-while-rock-climbing-in-virtual-reality-1788150449
Why have a 400-500€ equipment for what mouse+keyboard for 30€ can do not only perfectly fine, but exactly the same if not better since it's more precise. It's ridiculous how people push this VR nonsense just for sake of using it, even though it's cumbersome, bulky, clumsy, expensive and not really any better.
Until we somehow manage to make virtual movement of our body seamless with VR one, it'll be a pointless useless gimmick. When you'll be able to run forward and do the same in game for as long as yo want without hitting a room wall, then it'll be interesting. They'll also have to make arms detection more seamless as well, so you don't have to hold silly controllers. You'd only hold a rough aproximation of a prop you're using in a game, like rifle or steering wheel to give the physical feedback...
I'd want a control and precision of keyboard+mouse, but with in the face immersion of VR. And with ability to have head motion independent of body. So you can actually look around without moving the mouse. Or even without it, just for the sake of immersion as you don't see any screen and room around, just the in-game happenings. Something easy to port in 95% of games instead of 5% VR dedicated ones that are basically garbage.
Monitor 2D based trailer does 0 justice for how awesome VR is.