Imagine it's 1930.
You're friend just bought a new invention, the TV.
You chastise him and call him a 'nerd' or 'hermit' because nothing can be better than radio, can it?
Of course not. Radio is the best. Just like pre-smart-phones.
Enter the oculus rift, what tech writers are calling the first 'big invention' in entertainment since television.
Is it on console? Nope. Will it ever be? Perhaps.
But for now, only PC gamers can watch 'TV' in the coming years. Console (radio) gamers are left in the dust yet again.
Do I care? Yes, yes I do. Why? Because I love my fellow man, and my brothers, I implore you ... drop your aging radios and buy into the new hotness, lest you become a mere dust cloud in the cycle of technology. [which frankly, you already are]
I'm sure smart phones won't catch on either though, so you may have something sticking to this archaic format and tech release cycle.
Impressions from CES:
From PopSci Article titled "CES 2013: Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset Is Freaking Amazing": "It's impossible to really get across how world-shifting the Rift is; it's exactly like we'd dreamed virtual reality would be. You put on these goggles and you slip into a completely new world, in which your body movements respond pretty much the way they would in the real world. It's comfortable, too, and not particularly heavy, which I was worried about. Feels mostly like ski goggles."
From PopSci "The Rift is certainly one of the most amazing things I've seen at CES this year--hell, in any year. It's not really possible to describe what it's like to use it, but as soon as I put the goggles on and turned my head, I think my mouth dropped. It's flat-out awesome."
From PCWorld "Oculus Rift VR headset prototype works so well its a little scary"
From PCMag "After the 3D effect of the Oculus Rift, the head tracking provided the most sense of immersion. I didn't just see objects with depth, I saw them as if I was looking at them with my own eyes. The Oculus Rift tracked every movement of my head as I looked around, tilting and shifting the picture appropriately. I found myself watching a snowflake fall from the sky and moving my head to follow it. I looked from high above my head down to the ground as the snowflake fell. I couldn't see my feet or any other part of my body, but, again, this is a software issue. The effect was still incredible."
From TechRadar "The experience is extremely fluid and natural, to an amazing degree. And in less than a minute, one comes to the realization that this is the bold face of the future of gaming that so many have longed for."
From IGN "This virtual world became more palpable, more real, more believable and instantly became more of a character than just about any other game world I had ever played through. And perhaps thats the best way to phrase it. In the past, I simply played through worlds. I moved through them. This one made me feel like I was physically in that space. Living in it. Unable to look away, because it was all around me. Its immersion on an entirely different level."
From CNET "guess what it comes down to is this: the Oculus Rift is the virtual reality we've been promised since the dawn of video gaming, and really, the early days of science fiction. It leaps past all other attempts at the technology and moves into the realm of total immersion. The feeling is so natural that it's effortless to suspend disbelief that you are standing in that place, in that world. And that's with the prototype's crappy LCD screen and early pre-pre-preproduction software and drivers.
When this thing finally ships, with a better screen (can a boy dream for OLED?), and a bunch of software available, it could be a radical shift in gaming and who knows what else."
Makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck to think about the possibilities."
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