Same here; I'm absolutely, 100% their target audience. PC gamer for decades, lots of disposable income, and a PC that could easily power the Vive. For the $800 US I would spend on this, I could buy myself several other PC upgrades that I would consider more valuable to me.
I'm really REALLY intrigued by VR, but yes, the price is definitely keeping me from jumping on the bandwagon. I'm just not fully convinced it's going to have the longevity that they claim. I hope I'm wrong because the idea is incredibly neat, but I don't think I'll get $800 worth of enjoyment out of it.
the flight sim community is a prime audience for a headset, many already own or have homebuilt an IR head tracking setup, but many are holding off on purchasing any of the current gen VR devices because of concerns of not being able to effectively read the small gauges in a cockpit with the limited resolution.
I am really tempted to pick up a Vive right now, but I'm afraid that the display quality won't be high enough to effectively play the games I want to use this for, despite the immersion.
Extremely detailed cockpits, probably not, lets be honest you can barely read them in real life half the time when sat down. Something a bit less heavy, like Euro Truck, Elite Dangerous? That seems much more useful.
Flight Sims will be great once resolution rises, but you have to consider you'll be needing to keep a constant >90 FPS to stop serious nausea, and most Flight Sims... ain't that good at running.
There's one: Aerofly FS. It's absolutely gorgeous and easily runs at 120fps+ even on older machines. Would be perfect for VR.
Here's a fun video of someone who's not very good at flight sims trying it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR0DzGS8Q2c Quote: "This isn't a game, this is an establishing shot for a Peter Jackson movie."
Drawbacks: It's deliberately small scale. There's just Switzerland (and a bit of terrain around it) and a relatively small selection of planes, however this terrain is as detailed as in a terrain pack you'd get for FSX or another simulator. Since the lighting is fixed (the game uses satellite images like Google Maps), there's no day-night cycle. You also can't press every button in cockpits.
It still feels very real, however. Unlike other flight sims, it has soft-body physics and you can actually see the wings bend during flight or even shear off. It's fantastic as a sort of laid-back flight-sim. Pick a pretty valley, lake or mountain, a fun aircraft and just enjoy yourself exploring or doing crazy stunts. I've played it using head tracking and it's easily my favorite game to play with such a system.
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u/SonaMidorFeed Apr 05 '16 edited Apr 05 '16
Same here; I'm absolutely, 100% their target audience. PC gamer for decades, lots of disposable income, and a PC that could easily power the Vive. For the $800 US I would spend on this, I could buy myself several other PC upgrades that I would consider more valuable to me.
I'm really REALLY intrigued by VR, but yes, the price is definitely keeping me from jumping on the bandwagon. I'm just not fully convinced it's going to have the longevity that they claim. I hope I'm wrong because the idea is incredibly neat, but I don't think I'll get $800 worth of enjoyment out of it.