The issues
Virtual reality seems to fall short in areas other than what you experience when you’re wearing the headset.
To be frank, paired with a capable PC and using the latest gear, such as the HTC Vive Cosmos Elite or HP’s Reverb G2, which we test in this feature, VR gameplay is very solid and enjoyable on the whole. That, however, is part of the problem. For the vast majority of folk, who aren’t as into PCs as us enthusiasts, you also need to get a fairly powerful, usually expensive, rig to pair with your brand-new tethered headset in order to get the premium experience. The high frame rates that give you a smooth VR experience rely on a fairly powerful setup. Running on any old office PC just won’t be enough – frame rates will be rather choppy and it will certainly taint your immersive experience. Paired with the already expensive costs of the top-end VR systems, it’s simply out of reach for many consumers.
Setting up is another key issue – the process can often be long and tedious, and the tethered systems are not the greatest if you need to take your setup around with you. Also, you’re going to want to make sure you have the room for it; you at least need to dedicate a room for the full experience. In many households, this simply isn’t a viable option. This, of course, is different from person to person, but VR also is susceptible to issues that many other wearable peripherals encounter.
Wearing a headset for a long duration can be a hot, sweaty, and rather uncomfortable ordeal. Some headsets are pretty heavy, causing strain on the head, neck, and face. It’s also easy to get caught in the cables used in tethered systems. And if you are tired or in some form of physical pain, you’re not going to be able to get involved in a full VR experience sitting on your couch. So, it can be restrictive in those regards. Nausea and motion sickness have also plagued VR systems forever and are unfortunately unavoidable for some people (especially the editor of this humble publication). If it sounds like it’s a fairly long list of negatives, well, it is. So, if you haven’t experienced VR before, please try it out before investing in your own setup.
By 2014, Facebook, interested in the sector, bought Oculus for around $2 billion. Google and Samsung, also attempting a go at VR, developed their own smartphone headsets as well. Google VR consisted of a DIY kit of cardboard and lenses, letting the phone do all the hard work, splitting the image stereoscopically, and using the gyroscope for the tracking. It was a cheap and easy way for the public to experience immersion on the go. Nevertheless, the experience was lackluster compared to PC-powered systems, but it was the interest in VR that the phone headsets were capitalising on that brought more consumers to the market.
2016 was when the market really started to become saturated, and when it gained a solid position in the gaming scene. The companies at the forefront of VR gaming were Oculus, HTC Vive, and Sony, with its PlayStation VR. All of the headsets used motion-tracking controllers for an immersive in-game experience, and for the ability to interact with in-game items, much like the concepts pushed by NASA in the 1980s. These were not stand-alone systems, though – they required a PC or console to deliver the games to the headset. With that came tedious cables and an annoying setup process, but the gameplay was strong. Such systems are known as tethered.
Fast-forward to 2018, and we start to see a more advanced system with the Oculus Go, a stand-alone, seamless-touse, fully wireless console. It offered a full, more immersive experience, due to its wireless capabilities –but this also resulted in poor battery life. Its library was a little lacking, too, due to its three degrees of freedom capabilities. By 2019, every company’s version of their headsets had been updated multiple times, with clearer displays, advanced tracking, and more powerful components. Oculus released the Quest, followed by the Quest 2 shortly after – two more stand-alone wireless consoles, with the latter also being able to pair with a PC. This is definitely the direction the industry needs to head. The ultimate VR experience has to be completely wireless fully powered PC gaming on a headset. Currently, tethered systems deliver the most full-fledged package, but lack the seamless nature of wireless technology.