Topic: Facebook buys Oculus: virtual farms, real motion sickness.

[NWR_insanolord]

VR really only makes sense in first person games, which limits the possibilities of what you could do with it. Something like Mario pretty much requires a third person camera, for instance. This is going to be like motion control, in that in specific contexts it can really enhance the experience, but in a lot of cases it doesn't really work at all.

[Ceric]

VR can make conformity.

Do you remember that really cool XBox experiment that used a projector to augment the experience to your whole room?  You could do that in VR.

Your game looks best on a 50 Inch screen at X distance.  You can do that in VR.

You like a breeze to be felt in a level?  You could do that in VR.

[Ian Sane]

it more relaxing to go into a virtual world than to sit and stare at the TV and still be able to see your crappy wallpaper and tacky furniture to distract you?

See, that's the immersion argument and it doesn't matter to me.  When I watch TV I don't even think about the TV and the stand it rests on or the wall behind it.  As I get into it those extra details in my line of vision are effectively tuned out.
 
I think the whole VR thing would be a cool option but not to the point where I would buy a whole console that revolves around it.  I think a VR headset as an accessory to a "normal" console would be more up my alley.  I found the Wii restrictive because of motion control because it's an all-out console and it just feels like it should offer broader options but I thought the Guitar Hero controller was cool because it seemed to do the exact opposite - it provided MORE options.  You had "normal" games and now you also could play plastic guitar games!  With the Wii it was like Nintendo was saying "do you really need normal games?  Isn't motion control so awesome by itself?"  The Virtual Boy, Vectrex, CD-i, Laseractive all were these one-trick pony consoles that revolved around this specific feature or hardware and offered nothing else.  They all said "isn't feature X so awesome that it's cool to have a console that offers nothing but?" and the Wii is the only one to really have any notable success (and notice that is wasn't nearly as restrictive with its gimmick as the others were) and all of these systems turned me off for that reason.  A concept can expand gaming and provide options but building an entire platform based on one concept is actually restrictive.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

I thought that is what Oculus was, a headset that worked with other devices? Is it restricted to a single device? If so why the hell would Facebook even be interested? Sony is also making their own headset so the idea of it being an accessory is what they are doing so I still think it will be cool. I think it is more one of those if they do it right once people try it they will like it. But I could be just getting my hopes up because I have always wanted proper VR so for me it is exciting to be getting closer.

And no offense but the Wii is not motion controls only, they offer several choices of controllers so that argument is lame anyways. In fact I think the problem wasn't focus on motion controls but they had too many options which is plaguing the Wii U because now you have more options and people don't want too many choices they want simple choices, an optional upgrade that enhances the experience is fine but having to have several controllers just to play all your games is too much.