Virtual reality has always been an interesting topic in the world of gaming and with good reason, although previous attempts (I'm looking at you Virtual Boy!) have missed the mark, I think with the technology available today we can make that dream a reality, although it will take some time to perfect; the incredible potential as seen in the early iterations of project 'Morpheus' and the oculus rift cannot be ignored.

we've come a long way from the battery powered, 384 x 224 resolution days of the virtual boy some problems there are many problems that still present themselves, such as:

• Motion sickness & motion blur
• Display coverage
• Applications (gaming, watching movies etc)
• Control schemes
• comfort

the main function of this headset is to immerse the player into a fully realised 3D experience - and in a product that relies solely on immersion as it's goal, there are too many immersion breaking challenges that need to be overcome, the topic of motion sickness plays a huge factor in the usability of these headsets of course, why would you want to use a system that makes you feel like vomiting every time?, in certain games this problem is more obvious, take Unreal tournament 3 for example, the movement speed in that game is extremely high, but the change in acceleration immediately in the opposite direction is equally high with barely any slow down period, resulting in the body feeling a sort of simulated G force, with no effects to the body, this in turn results in confusion and ultimately sickness, Although the feeling of motion sickness varies from person to person it has been said that the new build of the Oculus rift has eliminated a lot of motion sickness issues in some content, this shows promise but for the VR headsets to appeal this problem must be overcame or for the most part stamped out. Motion blur and frame rate issues can also tie into this, they can break immersion and in the worst case scenario contribute to motion sickness - a way to combat this would be to increase frame rates, but this cannot be guaranteed as there are optimization issues, screen tearing, texture popping etc that can occur in both console and PC versions of games, also another factor with PC's can be that simply everyone's system specifications are different - how can you develop a stable game that will run at or over the necessary frame rate threshold on these systems varying in power? do you effectively gate off that part of the audience that will not be able too, or make them reduce their graphical quality which will in itself break immersion? this I can see being a large factor in VR technology as it advances.

in many of the tech demo's I've seen and read ( Morpheus mainly) there are some 'dead spots' in the displays facial coverage - points at which you can see your hands holding the controller or Playstation move, this can be an immersion breaker in some cases and while not a big problem, the disparity between seeing your in game character holding a sword and shield for example then looking down and your holding a standard controller. while i don't see this as a huge problem personally I could see this being an issue for some.

while the benefits of it's usage in gaming are apparent, i can see this tech being used in other industries, the two I can see the most promise in are the movie industry, and in the medical field also, i'll explain:

ever been on an extremely long flight trying to watch a film on a tablet or mobile phone? or simply don't want to watch the awful selection of in flight movies on offer? then this tech is for you, imagine being able to sit back, relax and watch a movie in a cinema like experience complete with a huge panoramic view and crisp audio, while not worrying if your elbows are nudging the guy next to you or even just relaxing at home, I can see VR becoming a staple of this industry, with companies tailoring specific experiences (like that seen in the game deep) that take advantage of the devices motion tracking technology. To a certain extent VR is already being used in the medical field to deal with mental illness - mainly post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The national alliance on Mental illness currently use it to help soldiers deal with PTSD gained from the stresses of war.

Control schemes I feel will be a great point of contention with this system. do you use the headset motion tracking? use PlayStation move or a normal dual shock? this will be a choice purely based on the preference of the gamer and/or game they are playing for example your not gonna try and play a twitch shooter like Call of duty using head tracking and/or PlayStation Move (unless your fond of dying or want to break something in your house) but I think , why should this tech make you feel like you have to use motion to play all games? i'd be content just using the headset as I would a monitor because it would be a damn site more immersive than my current set up and I don't have to flail around trying to hit someone with a sword on a game like skyrim, this also benefits those of us who are unfortunately stuck with the small bedroom where movement is restricted to a couple of paces.Comfort i feel is going to play a big role in the headsets, it's great that you are immersed, but will you want to play more if the headbands make you sweat? or the size of the headset is restrictive or in the worst case the display gets steamed up? this could be a deal breaker for me personally as I need to feel comfortable while enjoying the game, especially in a game like the elder scrolls of fallout in which i could loose hours playing.

These are a few of the opinions and concerns I have with this technology from a gamer's point of view, but I am extremely excited to see where this technology ends up in 10 years, and i truly believe this will take off and revolutionize the way we view and interact with media in the future, but only time will tell.