: I've been very lukewarm about the whole VR thing. It's largely seemed like
: interesting technology, a curiosity.

: Wow. I was legitimately delighted watching that.

I tried the 'old VR' about ~15 years ago, and it really was crap. A tiny field of view, low resolution, high latency tracking, heavy and bulky. VR died in my mind then, as a concept, I figured if technology hadn't come further than that it would never happen.

In 2012 when the Kickstarter for the Oculus Rift hit, I was sold immediately, the old dream still lived. I haven't looked back since. It's been a big source of entertainment for me, and conversation material. I got the second version as well after that, and next year will be crazy for enthusiasts as the consumer Rift, Vive and Playstation VR headsets will be on store shelves.

People I get to try VR now really are not expecting it to work as well as it does, many will not move their head even if I tell them to, they think it's at the most an electronic view master. The rise of mobile tech has enabled cheap head mounted displays to be made though, just that nobody actually did it before Oculus.

I've said this on Reddit many times, but I would have bought the first version as a consumer product, I pretty much did, but then I have always looked for immersion and perhaps escapism in games so I'm probably in the initial key target audience.

That said, it will not be for everyone or everything, resolution will still be far from the human fovea and then the limitations are in rendering capability. GPU vendors are probably frothing at the mouth as VR suddenly gave people (at least me) a reason to look at high end graphics cards. It's not a must, but the consumer Rift runs at 2060x1200 (after downsampling, so even higher really), at 90 frames per second, constant. Drops is bad.

Yeah, VR has become my main interest now, I can babble on for a while about it :p For the uninitiated, if you get the opportunity to try, at a friend's place, a convention or eventually at a store, I would say go for it. I think the entire concept has a negative legacy due to the failure in the consumer space in the 90's, but it's quite different this time around, software and hardware is so much more capable now.