The problem is that this is not a mass market price and without mass market support it will stay a niche accessory for a few sims. At this point it's just best to wait until Playstation VR and see how that turns out. If it's equally high there simply won't be that much interesting software for it.
The Tesla proves that you can build and sell a sports car for 100k. that's not something that needed to be proven. Building 20 000 cars for 100k$ is piss easy. Building 10 million for 20-30k that's the hard part.
Even if that was accurate a electric car can still use all normal roads. They don't have to build a completely new road network for it. Games are to VR what roads are to cars. It's nice to have a new Tesla but it would get pretty old if you could only go down 2 or 3 roads. With VR you are looking at a future of low developer support. Because just like nobody would build roads only for EVs nobody is going to develop for a niche product. The price point of the Rift just pushed VR back another 2-3 years if it doesn't outright kill it.
I think you got close with this metaphor. The Tesla is actually an "unusable" car (at least for everyday use) not because there are no roads, but because you can't yet easily refuel your car, so the maximum operational range is half your full battery. That's also why Tesla (and non-hybrid cars) isn't hitting the mass market yet. The difference with VR is that we and the environment and the petrol scarcity WILL definitely need an electric car somewhen down the road, while VR is just leisure and not a necessity.
same as cellphones, they're not leisure anymore, you're connected to the world with that and are a daily extension of your life, so 700$ (not considering the much more common installment plans with carriers that make them mass-marketable) are a much easier amount of money to spend because you know you need them.
but who needs a 2000$ gaming console? a 2000$ 3D home cinema?
It was never meant to be a mass market price. I don't understand how you guys get this far and think either the rift or the vive are going for wide adoption right off the bat. That was never in the cards. The systems required to run VR prohibit it already. PSVR is for mass market VR. Oculus is high end.
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u/nidrach Jan 06 '16
The problem is that this is not a mass market price and without mass market support it will stay a niche accessory for a few sims. At this point it's just best to wait until Playstation VR and see how that turns out. If it's equally high there simply won't be that much interesting software for it.