<story><title>VR</title><url>https://blog.ycombinator.com/vr/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aphextron</author><text>As someone who owns both headsets from day one and has been developing software for Vive, I&amp;#x27;d honestly say the current generation of tech just isn&amp;#x27;t worth it for most people. In five years when we have wireless headsets with eye tracking and full FOV displays with no discernible pixelation and the library of games are finally here it will be worth it. As it is most people would probably be let down after the initial wow factor wears off.&lt;p&gt;I think VR is at the point smartphones were from 2000-2007 until the iPhone showed up. It&amp;#x27;s going to take another generation of devices that incorporate all of those features in a really well designed package before it goes mainstream.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ensiferum</author><text>I completely agree with this sentiment. I too develop for both Vive and Oculus and they&amp;#x27;re just so unfinished products that I&amp;#x27;d never recommend anyone to buy them.&lt;p&gt;* Vive has huge problems with tracking devices. It needs to track 3 things and usually 1 has a problem and is not tracking properly &lt;i&gt;sigh&lt;/i&gt;
* The coords are annoying
* FOV is too narrow
* picture quality is crap (low resolution)
* steam vr (as steam itself) is low quality software
* the device is heavy on your face, uncomfortable and makes you sweat (in the face.. nasty)
* lack of compelling content that has things &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; right (i.e. doesn&amp;#x27;t make you sick)&lt;p&gt;From developer point of view:
* openvr library can be confusing, documentation is lacking and it&amp;#x27;s married to steam :(&lt;p&gt;I think the author is overshooting the importance of VR. The next generation hardware will undoubtedly improve much and there&amp;#x27;s definately potential especially in fields like visualization work and gaming too. But lets be honest there&amp;#x27;s a whole bunch of basic &amp;quot;productivity&amp;quot; apps and light user content apps (think your average phone app) that really doesn&amp;#x27;t have much to gain from VR. Undoubetedly some of these will want to jump on the VR hype (once it comes) and quickly make totally horrible half-assed versions of their software for VR.</text></comment>
<story><title>VR</title><url>https://blog.ycombinator.com/vr/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aphextron</author><text>As someone who owns both headsets from day one and has been developing software for Vive, I&amp;#x27;d honestly say the current generation of tech just isn&amp;#x27;t worth it for most people. In five years when we have wireless headsets with eye tracking and full FOV displays with no discernible pixelation and the library of games are finally here it will be worth it. As it is most people would probably be let down after the initial wow factor wears off.&lt;p&gt;I think VR is at the point smartphones were from 2000-2007 until the iPhone showed up. It&amp;#x27;s going to take another generation of devices that incorporate all of those features in a really well designed package before it goes mainstream.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rictic</author><text>I think that the Vive is a little like the release iPhone. It has all of the pieces, but it&amp;#x27;s also clunky and extravagant.&lt;p&gt;You had to have a pretty good imagination to look at any 2004 phone and envision the iPhone, but once you had the 1st gen iPhone it&amp;#x27;s pretty easy to imagine a modern smartphone. It&amp;#x27;s pretty much just the same thing only more so.</text></comment>