Unpopular Opinion: PC VR will never be mainstream!

Nivek TT

PC gaming isn't mainstream. It ebbs and flows in popularity, you hear about stats like there are more World of Warcraft subscribers than Xbox Live subscribers, but PC Gaming does not occupy the masses' minds in the way Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox do. PC Gaming does not create the big money that the consoles do, though it does create enough to stay relevant.

In terms of hardware sales, most seem to generally agree the PSVR soundly thrashed all PC VR headsets.

But I think this is ok.

VR, at its most basic level, is a peripheral. Much like a monitor, a force feedback wheel or a HOTAS. Some of these peripherals ain't cheap and serve extremely small niches of the niche PC Gaming market. And yet they're still available from multiple sources. No developer is gonna make mega bucks producing an ultra realistic flight sim, and likely no mainstream publisher is gonna fund it, yet this software still comes along and the developers feed their families.

Some of these peripherals, and the software to support them, find their way to the console market and, I'd wager, often sell better than their PC equivalents when they do. The 'best' and often most expensive of these peripherals are always on PC. In finding their way to consoles they drive some interest in their PC equivalents which, in the long run, is good for the PC.

TL;DR: PC VR will never be mainstream but it will survive. Console and mobile VR may drive interest in PC VR.

Presuming Ed

@Nivek TT the only thing I disagree with is your assumption that this opinion will be unpopular!

Maybe this is the conclusion that Oculus have come to also, which is why they appear to have put a focus on the mobile, or standalone, market.

But where does that leave PC gamers?

Well, I think the cockpit based PC VR bunch will continue to be well catered for. Polls and general heresay suggest that as many as 35% of serious simracers now do their racing in VR.

I'd be interested to see what proportion of continuing Elite Dangerous players use VR.

Maybe in a generation or two of consoles, VR will be more embedded. Maybe then we'll see titles like GTA come to console first with VR, then make their way onto PC.

But it makes the current state of PC VR play - maybe for the next 5 years at least - an unprofitable prospect for developers, in terms of time invested to get VR into a game versus extra sales it would produce.

So, if you're happy with the content that's out there on Steam and the sniffs of what's maybe to come, then good for you.

If you're a bit bored of the quality stuff that's already there - and has been there for the last year or two, might be time to wonder whether viewing it all again through a new headset would be worth the £1000 it would cost.

thesnowdog

I've mentioned it on here and on the Oculus forums about mainstream adoption of VR. It's going to be in three stages:

1) The Enthusiast Gamer Stage. These are people such as our good selves who own a high end PC and don't bat an eyelid at building a new rig for $1000/£1000  or don't bat an eyelid at spending 600-1000 dollars or pounds to buy a new graphics card. This is the easiest stage to complete and we're well on the way to doing so. The sweet spot price for Enthusiast Gamer adoption is $600/£600 or less for a headset, but on the flip side this type of gamer on average (because of their rigs) value resolution and eye candy above everything else.

Enthusiast Gamer adoption is only partially complete. We all saw a big increase in sales numbers when the price of the Rift and Vive was cut to 600 notes but it's going to take a while before the Index comes down that low, the Rift S is already under that price and, whilst the HP Reverb is at that price point, it isn't going to sell that well due to being a mid-range headset rather than a high end headset like the Rift S, Vive, Pimax or Index. The Enthusiast Gamer will want decent tracking and most likely won't be buying the Reverb in droves. The Rift S, on the other hand, should prove to be attractive to the less well off Enthusiast Gamer.

2) The Mainstream Gamer Stage. This demographic are the likes of console owners or PC owners that don't have a beefy PC but build or upgrade a PC to play the latest GTA, Assassin's Creed or Elder Scrolls game because their current rig doesn't have enough grunt to play them. They may spend around 400 quid/dollars upgrading their GPU but when building or buying a rig they either go for a gaming laptop or budget desktop. For these type of gamers to adopt PC VR they need those popular mainstream games like the ones I've listed to support VR headsets.

The pricing sweet spot for these people is under $300/£300.

With Sony bringing console VR to PS4 owners and soon to be PS5 owners we're partially through this stage too, but once Microsoft start to do the same we'll start to see more widespread Mainstream Gamer adoption, and once there are enough headsets on heads (10m  on consoles and a similar amount of PC VR headsets, so 20m  altogether) we'll start to see those sort of mainstream game titles coming to VR. But this is going to take YEARS.

Mainstream PC Gamer adoption is entirely dependant on getting console owners on board first to get those important headset owning numbers up. It WILL happen though. VR gaming is too big and too popular (over 4m PSVR headsets sold and spread between the different headsets there must be around the same amount of PC VR headsets out there too) to die out this time compared to the first two generations in the 80s and 90s.

3) Mainstream Consumer Adoption. This is the big one and the one that Facebook are planning on dominating. This is your average household that isn't necessarily into gaming. There are going to be several key factors that will launch Mainstream Consumer Adoption. Firstly the price sweet spot. This needs to be under $100/£100. We then need to see non-gaming VR applications such as social media, major sports events and films. Once there are around half a billion to a billion headset owners the big Hollywood studios will start to produce VR films and we've already seen the last World Cup and Basketball being broadcast in VR. Soon(ish) we'll see Football, American Football, Boxing, Olympics, Wimbledon etc all being broadcast in VR.



So it's not an unpopular opinion - it's a sensible one.

aoaaron

The only two hopes of VR becoming mainstream are the Quest (leading to Rift S adoption in PC gamers who were oblivious to VR) and PSVR.

Valve and Pimax have the best hardware on the market but have no part to play in trying to increase the target population of VR, as illustrated by their respective price tags and software offerings.

If Sony can just nail a wireless headset with good resolution and good controllers, they will be set to dominate in the next generation. However I do fear it would be too expensive to make.

By far the most promising player, if they ever decided to join the VR competitive space, is Nintendo. I have no doubt they would amaze us with their game design and innovation within virtual reality. However I don't see them taking VR seriously for the next 10 years as they have a monopoly on the portable market now.

Jimster71

I think the quest could be the nintendo wii of VR (once the price drops a bit) and get the more casual market into trying it. I think this form factor is the one that will eventually go mainstream, in a couple of iterations time.

PCVR, like PC gaming in general, has the potential for the best fidelity, but incurs the costs associated with that. I think it will always remain as the domain of hardcore gamers.

I have a PSVR. The system is a good middle ground between those other platforms. I'm interested to see what Sony do next, but glad to see they intend to keep supporting VR with PS5.

huxley

I think Sony have already stated the next console will support the current headset.

jjgreenwood

I don't think VR will be mainstream until it gets a lot better but PCVR could well get there before everything else. It has the best chance for playing current releases in a VR version.

ArmitageShanks

It'll become mainstream in the next couple of console generations I reckon, once console hardware has caught up with the PC specs we have today. Currently the cost of entry is too steep for mainstream adoption, so it's really just a small percentage of PC users pushing it forward.

Hopefully stuff like PSVR doesn't go the way of Wii controllers and get dropped before that happens.

thesnowdog

You're all confusing mainstream consumer adoption with mainstream gamer adoption.

VR going truly mainstream will only happen when just about every home worldwide has at least one headset, like DVD players and Blu-ray players or mobile phones are today, and when the use of VR headsets is common in the workplace too.

This is why Zuckerberg paid $3m for Oculus, this is his end game. For this to happen though there are two things that need to happen:

1) The purchase price for standalone headsets needs to come down considerably, certainly under $100/£100 but preferably under $50/£50.

2) The non-gaming content needs to be there. So, as I mentioned above, we're talking about social media use, sports events, porn and other films like the big blockbusters being filmed in VR.

The porn industry will be key to VR going truly mainstream as it was with DVDs and Blu-rays, we've already seen a huge adoption by the porn industry including the amateur porn industry now that VR cameras have lowered in price considerably these last few years.

And number 2) is also why Sony adopting VR for their Playstation line of consoles is so important. Sony will probably be the first film producing company to release a VR version of a big film.

VR gaming is only a small piece of a rather large VR pie.