Feature: The Nintendo Switch Games That Could Work In VR

Stop making lists please.

Definitely Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.
I recently got the Steam version as a gift and I have no idea how this game works without VR yet.

While I agree with @BigKing, I would actually like to experience Thumper in VR from a first-person perspective. It'd probably be the same experience as an acid trip, coupled with hellish visions.

Splatoon in VR? Yes please. And how come there's no mention of Mario or Zelda? Remember that everything works well in VR. Nothing is off limits!

@Blizzia Can confirm Thumper in VR is a real trip.

Not Awesome At ALL !!
The Only Great games are just ARMS, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Tennis Aces.
The rest are just bunch of disgusting rated 18+ games.

I don’t know about VARMS. Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. 3rd person is perfect for the game, why ruin that?

Gone Home - "Those who haven't played it might find the horror elements particularly troublesome in this mode, too."

I must have missed those horror elements, what horror?

@Medic_alert If VR support was added to those games, I imagine the developers would rework them. Wolfenstein would work with some adjustments. Splatoon would work, especially if there was a new game mode with VR users playing in a god-view perspective. There's lots of potential for cool new mechanics there even for those who don't have VR, since it would be cross-compatible in that case.

Metroid Prime in VR would be amazing.

You know what I don't need? VR. You know what I think is overhyped? VR. You know what I keep seeing everywhere with a handful of people vaguely interested in it? VR.

I guess this is a fad that just wont die and I need to teach myself to just ignore it.

@Heavyarms55 Then ignore it. It's that simple. It will not die. It can only get bigger from here on out.

@Heavyarms55 best to ignore it and let others enjoy

@OorWullie Must be the "Circuit Breaker" DLC that hasn't released yet. Remember? The one that will trip a circuit if you flip the light on and off 20 times in a row? Then you have to go in a dimly lit basement to reset the breaker. That's all. But, it's horror, right?

Considering that the Switch struggles to play some of these games at 30fps now I wouldn't get your hopes up at playing any of these in VR (where you essentially need two displays running at at least 60fps) unless the Switch somehow gets 4x more powerful when you put it in the face harness.

My favourite vr game to date is Wind Waker.. Yup that Wind Waker..
And I pre-ordered the HTC Vive.
scaling Fire Roost Island gave me the chills, when reaching the top, I'm not a big fan of BotW, but I'd enjoy it much more in vr.. And no, it wouldn't need first person.

Second place goes to Super Mario Galaxy.

I'm still at a loss regarding people (and most importantly; devs!) that can't see 3rd person games are amazeballs in vr..

Mario Oddyssey would be great too.

(but most of all I really want a Black & White VS. Act Raiser)

@kukabuksilaks I'm not surprised that people don't think 3rd person games are possible as VR is always hard to understand without trying it. I didn't even see the point of the Xbox streaming app on Oculus when I saw it a few years ago. Everyone bashed it saying how it's pointless having a screen inside a screen. Yet it makes perfect sense to me now.

And Black and White in VR is the game we all need...

You know what unofficial means. A new batch of fresh baked bricks in the making!

@DartBuzzer maybe it's good we haven't gotten it.. I could see myself disappearing in the world of such a game.. 😜

LOL I hope they are joking... Google Cardboard is bad enough with a cellphone, wearing a Switch on your face is going to be painful. The Switch games will all turned into 8 bit pixel art games.

Speaking of Google Cardboard, they should make a Labo version, it will be cheaper.

@SmaggTheSmug well then lets keep talking!

@Medic_alert Hardware power does not dictate whether the above games would run in VR or not from a mechanics stand point. The mechanics needed to get them working aren't exactly resource intensive or anything.

It doesn't actually matter what most VR games are like because you can always build something that strays from that. There is nothing that says you can't build a mechanically deep 20 hour VR game or have full VR support for Wolfenstein.

With Splatoon I gave an example that would absolutely work as a new game mode. But they could also just add VR support across the whole game as well since most people are able to get their VR legs and that hasn't stopped developers making 3rd person camera-movement VR games.

Switch running VR is like trying to play Halo on a game boy color.

@Anti-Matter I swear, whenever you appear here you seem to think your word is gospel.

You don't get it: Basically all Nintendo Switch games could work in VR if done right, and be even more fun because of it too.

I was literally playing Eternal Darkness from the GameCube era the other week on my Oculus Rift inside VR--in full stereoscopic 3D no less--and it was frikin' awesome. And that game clearly wasn't even close to being made properly for VR.

Just imagine what could be done if Nintendo decided to tweak a few of its games to run properly in VR, in at least stereoscopic 3D, and put them on a VR headset. . . . Imagine something like Eternal Darkness' insanity effect made to fully take advantage of what VR brings to the table for example. . . .

Even just playing most Switch games on a huge virtual screen (probably in stereoscopic 3D like the 3DS) inside a virtual [Nintendo themed] room would be awesome.

@Medic_alert I wasn't talking about difficulty in rendering, only about the mechanics lending themselves to VR as that's what I thought you were talking about.

Doom 2016 wasn't given full VR support because it was more effort. Bethesda and ID Software are both still testing the waters. However Ninja Theory did add full VR support to Hellblade and did it very effectively.

I'm not even talking about VR games on the Switch, but rather just a theoretical future system or a standalone headset from Nintendo.

@impurekind Does Dolphin have a mode for Oculus?

@Medic_alert Well, regardless of whether some people get sick with full motion or not, all these games would in fact work perfectly well in VR. I'm making an old-school fps for VR right now, in the vain of something somewhere between Wolfenstein 3D and Doom I/II, and it's a blast. Yes, it will make many people sick, but if you can get beyond that then it's just as much fun to play an fps in VR as on any other system. In fact, it's actually way more fun to play an fps in VR than on other system.

@TheFanatic It never gets old though. I always get a chuckle out of it, so that has to count for something.

@impurekind I don't disagree with you that Nintendo games in VR would be great, I don't think any games will "work" in VR on Switch, ever. As someone that also owned a Rift, the screen door effect bothered me a bit already. I can't imagine how awful it would be with a 720p (360p per eye) screen.

@Trajan Yup, that's what I used to play Eternal Darkness on my Rift.

I only play it with regular Dolphin though, as opposed Dolphin VR, as the full VR version of Dolphin was just far too clunky for me. But even just playing something like Eternal Darkness inside my VR headset on a giant screen in stereoscopic 3D (can't believe it can do this even though the game was never originally made with stereoscopic 3D) inside a virtual room/cinema was awesome. It made the game feel fresh and new again.

I can only dream of how utterly stunning an official Eternal Darkness game made properly for VR could be--and those insanity effects if made to take full advantage of VR. . . .

Seriously, it boggles my mind that no one has jumped on this.

@Medic_alert I won't speak for him, but to me, it doesn't appear he is ignoring it. It's just a side effect of the technology. It bothers some people, others it doesn't. Do we really want to limit VR to only games that are cockpit based, or use teleportation for movement? I don't think so. If some people can enjoy standard games without any adverse symptoms, have at it. For those that it bothers, they should stay away from those types of games.

@Medic_alert It's not ignoring it for all the people that don't get sick moving around in VR, which is actually a decent number of people.

I'm saying that as long as you are one of the people who don't get sick--and, as one of the people who do get stick, trust me, you slowly get used it and don't feel quick as sick with each new play session--then the experience of playing these games in VR is even better than on a traditional console.

It's well worth doing purely because of how much better everything like this is in VR just by virtue of what it brings to the table. And, if needed, you can always add in teleportation to any fps games with a little bit of work as an option for the people who get sick.

@roadrunner343 Well, they would "work" but they'd be hella low resolution, almost to the point that it would likely just be detrimental to the experience. But, I'd actually have to see a Switch game running on a proper VR headset to really decide. It's possible the resolution might be bearable. I mean, the Switch's resolution of 1280x720 is pretty close to the original Oculus Rift DK1's 1280 x 800 resolution, and that was actually workable.

At the very least you could just play your Switch games in VR on a giant virtual screen in stereoscopic 3D inside cool themed virtual [game-specific or Nintendo-themed] rooms, and even that would add a whole load to the experience. As playing Eternal Darkness in VR in exactly that way recently absolutely convinced me of.

If the resolution is just enough, it could be awesome.

@Medic_alert Usually developers don't try to ignore it; they work around it. Onward established the Onward style locomotion system with controller-direction movement. It's not perfect but it did make a difference and allowed FPS games to be playable for most people. Echo Combat is another example, an even greater one in terms of reducing motion sickness. You're rarely going to find someone who has any sickness issues with that game as they couple physical actions with movement.

You see, NintendoLife does listen to lame-pun headline suggestions.

@impurekind I had no idea there was a VR Dolphin. Now I'm wondering what Xenoblade with the HD pack and in full VR would be like...

Or Luigi's Mansion like how it was supposed to be...

Stay tuned tomorrow for: The Top Ten Playstation Games That Would be PERFECT on Nintendo Switch!

And the day after for: This is what Nintendo Switch would be like if it played on XBox Live!

Followed by: Gabe Newell has uncomfortable laughter when asked about Steam on Switch (a Portal to the future?!)

And finally: If Virtual Boy was a success, here's the games that we think would have been on it.

Seriously guys, I know you need the traffic, and I know it's hard coming up with article topics that have substance, can be cranked out daily, and generate hits while not alienating readers, but this is not that. I know Nintendo news is sometimes lean, but October 2018 isn't one of those times. NL is a serious site with a position to cover interesting content, and these articles look more and more like a no name content-mill designed to game Google SEO rather than an actual curated site. As regulars we know what the site is and what it's capable of outputting, it's one thing to tell us to just "not click" on these articles. But if I were coming in cold from a search on Nintendo articles on Google, found this site and these articles, I'd turn right back out looking for "one of the real sites."
Heck I'd have better odds landing on IGN, bad as it is.

@Heavyarms55 VR is actually kind of cool if you keep in perspective it's a toy/tech demo still. It's like those outlandish experimental super cars at car shows with "future technology". They're cool to look at, probably fun to play with, but it's not meant for every day and it's too impractical for anything but amusement. A preview of what could be normal in 10+ years.

@impurekind The problem with VR remains it isn't, and likely will never be truly mainstream. I have PSVR and I really like it. I've rarely used it mostly because of camera positioning issues, but I love it when I use it. But for a company like Nintendo, they need all their products to really hit a broad canvas. Most companies do. VR is very restrictive not just in who can even participate, but scattershot in how enjoyable that experience is. Strapping the helmet on, calibrating the camera etc is a hassle (as is having the right room for it), then if your vision sucks you have glasses to worry about. If not, your eyelashes may be constantly contaminating the lenses leaving a smeared mess every 5 minutes (ask me how I know), the cables, the weight isn't for everyone. It's anti-social, and even if you have 2 VR fans in one room you can't help each other out without getting out of the gear. Some will see it well, some will see it blurry, some will get nauseous, and not everyone wants dorky goggles on their head with cables tethering them to a chair, etc.

It's just not mass market friendly at all. The same reason MS never got into it. They were going to and decided that until it's wireless it's not happening. Well now Occulus has wireless....kinda....but it's underpowered and isn't really full VR. Maybe that leads to great things, or maybe it's another foray down the "this is why this just doesn't work" path. It's cool. We've been dreaming of VR since the 80's. But the tech, while finally available to play with and enjoy for the niche, just isn't there, and looks like it still won't be for quite a long while. I can't see Nintendo jumping into such a fragmented, fractured, niche market (again.) It's not a reliable market position, and Sony keeps it on the sidelines while Occulus has facebook money to throw around at it. HTC spends on it mostly to use gamers to fund their business tech research.

@NEStalgia You're ignorant about VR--claiming it might never be mainstream and all the other mostly short-term-only issues you've pointed out--but I don't want to get into it with you. Just know that you are.

The distance commercial VR has come in only a few years is amazing (with us only having 720p wired headsets with around 100 degrees field of view initially), and it's only getting better and better and better:

https://www.oculus.com/quest/

https://www.roadtovr.com/pimax-8k-m1-preview-backer-reviews/

We've already gotten to fully wireless with 6 degrees of freedom tracking on both the headsets and controllers, 4K+ resolution, 90Hz-120Hz, around 200 degrees field of view, at reasonably affordable prices--and it's only going to get better and better.

And VR adds so much to the experience, even when just playing more traditional games in it (like my recent amazing experience playing Eternal Darkness for GameCube on a giant virtual screen in full stereoscopic 3D--being in stereoscopic 3D alone was worth it--and inside a private virtual [themed] room/cinema), that it's actually beyond debate.

VR's future is extremely bright, and only slightly blind people can't see it at this point.

@NEStalgia Thing is, you're making a point for VR likely never being mainstream even though all issues you brought up are fixable. Camera calibration is not a thing on Windows MR. There are no cameras to mess with. Headsets will get better at supporting glasses, new types of display technology will diminish lens smudges, cables are already on their way out, headset weight will eventually be comparable to sunglasses, and the anti-social nature is wrong; it's isolating, not anti-social. In fact, VR is the most social technology out there since it connects you across distances to the highest degree.

And today you can get around the isolation issue with asymmetrical gameplay. One of them is already on this list: Keep Talking and Nobody explodes.

In the near future, VR will just reconstruct reality around you in real time and overlay it into VR, letting you see anything in real life like normal in addition to VR. This lets you use a headset around the house even if you were doing chores. Blurriness will also be fixed as there are various display technologies that allow for an infinite sweet spot.

And MS has got into it. They have 6 VR headsets with their partners.

Also the new Oculus headset is full VR. It's the same thing as a Switch; a portable console that is 'underpowered' as you say.

@Anti-Matter you'll understand one day when you experience adulthood

Also the next article will be Nintendo Franchises that Could Get a Porn Game and contain just as much actual facts as this article.

@saintayu
I Don't Need to Understand that adulthood.
I HATE such an Adulthood like that.
I REFUSE to get into that disgusting life stage.

@DartBuzzer "it's isolating, not anti-social."

This right here.

Ignorant people think VR is anti-social--as they sit there in a crowded room or on a full bus typing away on their smartphone and updating their "social" media feed with their head down not talking to anyone.

And newer VR headsets are only going to offer more and more ways of bringing other people into the interaction as the technology progresses and evolves.

@Trajan Yeah, these games rock even just when played in stereoscopic 3D on a giant virtual screen in your own private virtual cinema--and that's not even sniffing at the full potential of what VR can bring to the table.

@Anti-Matter it's OK.

Soon you will understand the metaphorical nature of Mario Golf.

@DartBuzzer I too love VR - but for the most part, I agree with @NEStalgia that it may never be "Mainstream". Of course, that may mean something different from person to person. And it's also a bit absurd to know what the future 10-20 years from now will look like. Maybe MR/AR is the future, and everyone will adopt it en masse - but I have my doubts. VR in its current (And near future state) of wearing a headset, with or without wires, I do not believe will ever be the next big thing. That doesn't diminish the experience IMO, and I still really love it - it's just not without it's fair share of issues.

I do agree with you of isolating vs. anti-social, but I don't think that's the point that was trying to be made either. It is clearly anti-social to the people in the same room/house for 99% of the VR experiences. Yes, some games like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes are AMAZING social games - one of the very few I got my entire family (Wife, parents, brothers, and their wives) to play with me - but that's not the norm. For the most part, you are very cutoff from the outside world, and it's the main reason I don't play VR anymore - I can't really be cutoff from my kids & wife. So I fully agree, calling it an isolating experience is more accurate, but it is still an issue for some scenarios. Again, not a bad thing per se, just a trade off of the tech in its current state.

EDIT: @NEStalgia I also agree with you for the most part that VR isn't ready for the masses, and some still view it as a tech demo. One thing I would say that feels 100% ready, is anything cockpit based. I used to have a full racing cockpit I built, and switching from triple monitors (They now reside happily on my task) to VR was the best decision I ever made. Racing sims, EVE Valkyrie, and Elite Dangerous were all amazing. Even Lucky's Tale, while short, easy, and not cockpit based, was a great experience that felt polished and really showed the benefits of what VR could be in non-cockpit based games. I know I'll get into VR again in the future when my kids are older and the tech matures a bit, pretty much solely for racing sims. It's the most immersive experience I've ever had. Now we're talking niche within a niche, but still... outstanding for anyone interested in that type of experience.

@roadrunner343 Well, put it like this: If we consider modern consoles as mainstream--and the current generation of home consoles plus handhelds is barely a few hundred million strong all combined worldwide--then it is basically beyond doubt that VR will be mainstream too in the not too distant future as far as I'm concerned.

There's under 20 million Switch consoles out there right now--a new console released by one of thee most successful video game companies of all time--and no one is really debating how successful that system is at this point.

VR will do just fine and dandy from everything I've seen and experienced firsthand.

@roadrunner343 If it's not the norm, maketh it the norm. No really, Nintendo could add asymmetrical support for lots of their franchises. They already do a lot of local co-op gameplay on Switch as is. But I did say that real world reconstruction would solve the isolation issue anyway, we're just not there yet. AR/VR/MR will all meld together which is why it will no longer be isolating.

@impurekind Yeah, I've always said that VR has the potential to be bigger than both the PC and console gaming market combined. Because it's not just an entertainment device, but a full computing platform using spatial computing.

@DartBuzzer Exactly.

And, even though I totally prefer VR, I think AR will like be even more successful in terms of overall adoption--just because it's a bit more like a smartphone vs VR being closer to a console imo.

@impurekind We'll see - I have no intentions of arguing about it, because I honestly don't know. I wouldn't mind seeing several hundred million VR/AR/MR devices out there - my gut just says it isn't happening anytime soon. Also, it would depend on what you and I mean by soon. I'm thinking within the next 10 years we'll see VR continue to grow, but still not be anywhere near as successful as the mainstream consoles of the time. Again, I have no issues with being wrong here, that's just my gut reaction to how I've seen technology adopted in the past.

@DartBuzzer I don't really agree that it needs to be the norm. Using my favorite VR experience as an example, racing sims, they will remain a very isolating experience for the most part. There's no need to make asymmetrical game play the norm, imo. That's not a problem - it's part of what makes that experience great - but it's also a large part of what make VR hard for me to get into now, with little kids running around. However, I do agree that the ability to view the real world through the headset will become the norm in the next generation of VR - AR/VR/MR will continue to meld as you say, and the issue will be much smaller for me. I stepped away from VR for now, but I have no doubts I'll be back.

EDIT: And to be clear, I'm not against more asymmetrical experiences - as I said, KTANBE was one of my favorite party games ever - I just don't think it's a requirements. Traditional experiences will remain, and the disconnectedness that accompanies those experiences in VR's current state will remain an issue for some.

Emphasis on "Could"

@Anti-Matter ARMS isnt great. It's probably Nintendo's worst game this gen besides Mario Tennis Aces.

@roadrunner343 For a VR headset to sell as well as a console it would need to be a standalone headset with: At least 4K x 4K per eye, 140-160 degrees FoV, real world reconstruction, lifelike human avatars with full body tracking, eye tracking, hand tracking, facial tracking, and the ability to replace 1080p screens, dynamic foveated rendering, and a small form factor.

I can see all of that happening in a standalone headset within 6-7 years as Oculus is expecting that (and more) for high-end within 4 years.

When you have a headset that capable paired with really great software, I can totally see it selling as well as a Switch or PS4.

But I'm glad you acknowledge that real world reconstruction will help with isolation, because it's an important step towards legitimatizing VR.

As for asymmetrical games, I suppose it doesn't need to be the norm, just enough there for someone to dig through when they don't want to be isolated. There will (I imagine) still be times when someone wants to isolate themselves because we all need our alone time.

@roadrunner343 Well, given that we're around at a few tens of millions of VR units worldwide just now, taking the various headsets into account (including the likes of Gear VR), and VR is just getting better and better and cheaper and cheaper--unbelievably quickly--I expect we'll be there in ten years pretty comfortably. I would put money on whatever VR generation we're in in 2038 having headset numbers out there that can match what this current gen has managed so far. Unless something really unforeseen happens, I don't see it playing out any other way to be honest.

Despite the sensationalist article title, and the fact they're lumping AR headsets in with VR headsets, which I personally think is just wrong because VR is actually delivering AR is largely just gimmicky junk at present:

'According to IDC, there will be good news in future for headset manufacturers, with shipments of VR headset expected: “To grow from 8.1 million in 2018 to 39.2 million by the end of 2022, representing a five-year CAGR of 48.1 per cent.”' - https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/06/reports-shows-dip-in-vr-headset-sales/

Just under 40 million VR headsets a year by 2022 doesn't sound too shabby to me.

Good news for the writer! VR is absolutely a thing, and a few of these games are even available to be played in VR.

Just not on Nintendo hardware, because it requires a lot of OOOMPH!, and the Switch doesn't have a fifth of the resources it needs to provide a decent VR experience.

Nintendo went with portability. I think it was the right choice. But it does close off stuff like this that requires more powerful hardware.

@waluigifan1
What are you talking about ??
I was impressed with ARMS a lot from First Trailer on 12 January 2017 before.
The idea of Dhalsim style of "Boxing" games was really matched with my main interest.
For peoples who likes Boxing / Kickboxing / Muay Thai / K-1, ARMS is Perfect game for me.

@DartBuzzer @impurekind First, both of you sound kind of defensive about the tech in your replies, but as I said, I do like it, I just don't see it becoming TV-console-like ubiquitous. I never said it won't grow and won't improve, but I also don't see the average person who might play Just Dance and Candy Crush strapping on a headset, let alone even the average person that plays FIFA. But I think before it's truly "mainstream" friendly, we're a long time from that. So long as it requires a wearable device and disconnects people from their environment, which it needs to be, and as long as it can still induce nausea in a portion of the population it won't be truly mainstream. Heck 3DS's 3D was built in, easy, and required no special equipment - it just worked - and the 3D was still widely rejected and disabled by most people. I've no doubt that will have you spout tech reasons why it's oh so different and that's not the same based on all these technical differences between the two, and while you'd be right, you wouldn't be right from the consumer mindset. Convenience and comfort always wins. We're still a long way from a comfortable, intrusive self contained device without lens issues that accomodate all physical head capabilities well that's not isolating/anti-social for under $500 for the total package.

Again, I'm not saying there's no growth coming, nor am I saying I dislike it. But I just don't see any reality where everyone walks into Walmart and Best Buy buying VR like they buy TVs and tablets now for at least 15-20 years, if ever depending on how physical eye/head issues are handled by then.

The isolation/anti-social part....I stick with anti-social. l It's enough of a problem with everyone (including us) sticking our heads in phones, tablets, and Switches while the people in our own household are entirely ignored around us, but that's amped to 11 and beyond when you're inside a headset. And no, replicating the outside room in the headset dosen't fix that, if everyone in the room is looking at everyone through cameras, isolated inside their own helmet/glasses/etc that's not just anti-social, that's purely dystopian. Most people will not head in that directtion. Kids will, adults won't. I feel like most people who ignore that aspect live alone and don't really consider how awkward it is to be literally encased in your own headgear while other people are living their lives around you. It's like building a cardboard fort and hiding in it when you're 8.

@impurekind Thanks for the link. I won't complain if it happens. 40 million headsets by 2022 is great growth. However, due to the fragmented nature of VR/AR in it's current state, I still don't think 40 million is all that mainstream. I.E., if the entire console market was 40 million consoles, would you consider that mainstream? I'm not saying you're wrong if you would, just elaborating that personally, I would not. That's what I'm saying I have my doubts of in the next 10 years or so - I don't think we'll see a truly mainstream VR/AR platform get as big as one of the other major platforms.

@impurekind
Have you player ED:SR in Dolphin Vr? (not the virtual screen) I have and it's a great experience as well (it's my favourite game of all time, so I might be biased ).
Dolphin VR does require a good deal of fiddling to have the games look and feel proper, but NGC are among the best 'VR' games out there, imo.

Too bad luigi's mansion has some weird non-fixable artifacts in VR.

@NEStalgia The average Just Dance player would very likely be into Beat Saber. They'd also love to dance with other people in virtual dance clubs. I can't see smartphones being here indefinitely. It makes sense for AR/VR to replace them, and in turn mobile gaming shifts towards AR gaming with holographic mini-games and such, so Candy Crush fans may like their Angry Birds AR game (it exists) or something like that.

You note that we are a long way from that $500 device and yet it is still inevitable. So given that device solves almost all of your issues, why is it highly unlikely that VR will never be mainstream in your mind? Everything can be fixed and likely all within 5-10 years. The only problem that we don't know for sure that can be fixed is motion sickness which only applies to certain areas of gaming. It does not apply to a virtual theater. It does not apply to a room-scale form of movement or teleportation, and it doesn't apply to just sitting with your distant friends on a virtual couch and chatting together. Point is, motion sickness can be completely worked around for a large amount of VR uses.

And why does it matter if we see the world through a camera or not? It eventually all becomes the same to your brain. Real photons and artifical photons; it matters not. Life exists only as a perception of your brain.

And the final frontier for AR/VR/MR is not just real world reconstruction, but simply glasses that black out on demand. That way you can switch between a true transparent mode with no camera and a full VR mode or anything inbetween that.

@roadrunner343 Well, 40 million a year isn't too shabby. That's around what the current console market is probably pulling in per year--and the core console industry has been going for like 30-40 years at this point. So, while I still expect VR to grow well beyond the 40 million sales per year number eventually, I'd certainly be happy to see VR selling 40 million units a year across a few main headsets in 2022 to be honest.

@kukabuksilaks Sadly, I tried to get the proper Dolphin VR working but just couldn't get around all the setup issues and stuff. Still, even just playing Eternal Darkness on the virtual screen in stereoscopic 3D was awesome. Maybe one day we'll all be able to play games like that properly in VR. . . .

@NEStalgia I honestly just think you're looking at most of this from the point of view of someone who can't really look forward into the future of this kind of technology and entertainment too well. Much like someone looking at early video games might have complained about them just being white dots on a black screen with horrible beepy sounds and clunky controls--which actually happened--not really grasping where that kind of tech was inevitably going to go in the future. At just look at where video games are now. . . . Same is and will be true of VR in almost every way imo. All of the things you think are issues are only issues in the here and now; they will almost all be eliminated or greatly improved to the point of being non-issues in the near future. And, while it may seem like sticking a headset on and disappearing into it is just antisocial and bad or whatever, I think you could have described the way most people use mobile phones today to some granddad ten or twenty years ago and gotten exactly the same negative reaction--but just look how many mobile phones are out there now turning people into antisocial robots. AR will possibly be the tech that goes more widely mainstream than VR, but I think VR will easily be selling in the same kinds of numbers we see home consoles selling now in the pretty near future. Nothing I've seen seems to suggest it would play out particularly differently to what I imagine, and indeed where things are already going, slowly but steadily, as I type.

@impurekind I may have mis-read your earlier post. I thought it was stating the total market was estimated to be 40 million - not 40 million per year. 40 million per year would be very impressive, ineed. At that point, I would be hard pressed to argue it wasn't mainstream. I still have my doubts that we will see 40 million units moved per year by 2022, but I absolutely hope we do, because that means the tech will have improved drastically to receive such widespread adoption. Unfortunately, your link disappeared... so I can't go back and read the article.

@roadrunner343 Yeah, I have no idea if we'll reach that number in that time or not, but I do think it's inevitable at some point in the not too distant future. And I don't mean like 20-50 years or whatever, but more like say 10 maybe. If things keep progressing as fast as they have been with the tech, and VR really is advancing at a great speed, then I can see the mainstream future of VR coming a lot sooner than most people likely realise.

@impurekind
When i was thinking about VR, i was thinking about Deadly / Lethal devices that can kill you instantly.
I got a bad feedback from Dot Hack Anime, i saw a player DIED after his HP was ZERO, attacked by enemy. He DIED by playing VR !
I knew it was a Fiction Anime story, but still..... it still have a Bitter leftover taste from Negative effect from VR devices.

@Anti-Matter What? lol

@DartBuzzer yeah, no
Lots of games don't work in vr, have you ever heard of sim sickness in vr, it's very real and most games that haven't been specifically designed with not causing sim sickness, will cause nausea. TL:DR If you aren't careful in designing your vr game, it could cause most players to get sick.

@Anti-Matter lol. You are funny

@DartBuzzer All the futurist kind of thinking always amazes me because it always sounds so grand when you hear it, but the reality tends to actually present itself differently, and then the way things actually go is so much worse and totally unexpected. All the futurist talk of how the internet would be used back in the 90's painted different shades of awesome and scary. What did we really end up with? Facebook.

The argument though still focuses around improving the technical barriers, but still can't solve that it's still a wearable device. That's really the hard sell. The tech can be great, light, comfortable, solve all the problems, and be the dream people want it to be. But the question is will consumers actually buy into having to wear it? Instead of using a phone? A phone is analagous to 10,000 years of human tool usage. stones, papers, etc. A device you hold and interact with in a perpetual state. It needs physical input. You interact with your hands. If you shift to no more phones and TVs and everything is in goggles/glasses....you still need inputs. And superimposed reality may still not be desirable to many. Even if it's fun, even if it's useful, even if it's even required in some business situations, will the general public adopt it as a normal facet of functioning day to day? Tech evangelists will always believe yes, but consumer behavior is never that predictable.

Plus there's the current zeitgeist to consider of the concern of spending too much time looking at screens, not just in child protection but in the "is this the society we want to live in" framing. That debate is just beginning and will grow for some time I think.

I still think it has a place and will keep getting better for those interested in it. But I'm a long, long, long way away from believing it will simply become a standard thing. Even your description of the social aspect of "virtual dance parties" comes back to this image of people living in total isolation, their interaction with the world coming through simulated experiences. Ever read Larry Niven? It feels very much like a Niven future, and that's not a good thing.

@impurekind Nah, I was there for the 90's hype. I tried the Virtuality machines. I was ready for "the inevitable future of VR" 25+ years ago. I bought a Virtual Boy. I have PSVR. The problem was VR wasn't really ready for me I'll always be fascinated by it, and it is improving, but it's not improving at the pace and ultimate direction I think it needs to to get the inevitable future people see for it. Will it get good enough for me in my lifetime? Probably, and that's cool. It's close to where I pictured it in 1994. But will it be mainstream-ready? I'm pretty unconvinced of that. Will it be mainstream desirable (ever?) I'm extremely unconvinced of that. A world where everyone walks around with basically sunglasses on, and we're talking about idealized VR of wireless, rechargeable, no clunkier than a pair of Ray-Bans, cloud driven VR.....is a world that would horrify a lot of people and a great deal would not wish to participate. Worse that kind of imagery cements the notion that everyone are simply enslaved robots in a world run by AMZN/AAPL/MSFT/GOOGL which not only would people suddenly become more resistant to, but those companies might not like drawing attention to that. There's a lot of politik that goes into that VR dream too.

People seem to not mind being spied on, non-stop, as long as they can't see the creepy guy with the clipboard following them around. Google Glass went down spectacularly, not even VR, for that very reason: They could now see the creepy guy with the clipboard following them...and it turned out he was everywhere. Google then burried that product's memory so everyone goes back to not seeing the guy with the clipboard again.

Of course if it's not an all-day-every-day mainstream thing which is more dartbuzzer's point, then it's just an entertainment device, and will still remain more niche, as long as panel displays still dominate the real world.

@SARankDirector I have played almost every genre in VR and seen the rest from those I haven't played. I am living proof that everything works in VR. If a game has motion sickness for a set of people, it doesn't mean that it's not possible. In fact, many games have options for movement. You can play Skyrim without sickness for example.

@impurekind Also (you added more to your post after I read it) as for it being adopted like phones, the consumer angle always has to be, people are addicted to the phones, part because they're using them to find information, and/or communicate with people, and do so in a convenient way. The question of VR replacing phones when thinking of consumer use is: Does that make it less conveneint or more convenient. Not does it do it better, or is it cooler or whatever, but is it easier and more convenient to put the glasses on and use it however versus just picking up a flat object and typing into it. And can they multitask while doing it like they do with their phones? The convenience factor is key. Make VR more convenient to use than the phone and you'll definitely have a point for mainstream use. For now I still see tech in search of a problem rather than a solution the public is demanding. The closest to mainstream so far is Samsung Galaxy VR By Occulus (oh, yeah, I have that too I never use it...it involves taking the bumper case off my phone.....back to that convenience thing ) but that's still more or less a toy. I want to love it all...but it's just so dang inconvenient!

@DartBuzzer awesome as Skyrim VR is, I really wish it let you share saves with the 2D version. No way I'm keeping that headset on for 200+ hours of an RPG, though I'd love to see all its locations in VR. Plus the menus kinda suck in VR (that's a game issue not a VR issue.)

@Anti-matter VR is just a screen and two lenses....nothing plugging into your brain (yet)

Will consumers want to wear a pair of sunglasses that can warp reality both real and virtual, replace tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment (such as projectors, TVs, smartphones, IMAX theaters, unnecessary travel) and be used to communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere as if they are physically present in front of you, and the ability to visit any real world place as if you are there, as well as record memories, and a place for true escapism?

All for the price of what, slipping on a pair of lightweight sunglasses in half a second? Yes, people will be all over that. It's human nature to want to connect and have fun. VR is the ultimate realization of that.

As for phones, well VR and AR will have many inputs for any given situation. Eye tracking for UI, using your bare hands as a touch screen, attaching UI widgets to your wrist, mind typing, voice recognition etc.

Newer generations will simply grow up with the technology and fears will go away. I don't see us humans sticking with smartphones for another million years. Our species has to accept transhumanism and deeply integrated technology if we ever want to progress further than the next few decades.

@NEStalgia Oculus Go effectively supersedes the Gear VR. It's just standalone so you spend half a second getting it on or off and it puts you right in to wherever you last left off. That's convenience, at least a step forwards anyway.

@DartBuzzer Definitely, yeah. The catch is it's still mostly a toy for now....merging the power needed to be really immersive (I'd argue big occulus still isn't there yet either) or the utility to make it practical as a daily tool, and still reducing the footprint of the unit needs to happen yet. As long as there's a strap around the head, it's still not mass market ready.

Seriously, take the ""VR"" headset article down. It's a scam startup that claims they have a relationship with nintendo

@NEStalgia Well, as far as I'm concerned, VR isn't actually trying to compete with or replace phones, same as consoles aren't. So I don't see that being part of the equation really.

VR is simply a new platform and indeed paradigm in gaming and entertainment (and it can obviously also do a lot more than that too).

In the same way millions of households have a console, regardless of all the other devices people own alongside consoles, I think many tens-hundreds of millions of households (and individuals) will own VR headsets in the not-too-distant future similarly.

And, unlike consoles, I think VR headsets will also be popular in the likes of schools and businesses and hospitals and other places like that too for various uses.

So, no matter how anyone else tries to look at it, I still see a very bright future for VR all round.

@NEStalgia The problem is simply that you are wrong. I can't convince you of that--but time will show it to be so. And, when I say "time", I literally just mean in a couple of generations give or take.

In the near future, VR is, quite simply, going to sit in many millions of households alongside the consoles and PCs and TVs and tablets and the like for playing games, watching movies, surfing the Internet, virtual tourism, virtual learning at home, face to face chat, etc. Ignoring every other use scenario, it will be owned by millions of geeky (in the good way) gamers who currently splash out on their PS4s and Xbox Ones and Switches and 3DSes and gaming PC rigs and Blu-Ray players and so on, and that alone with drive its use into the tens and eventually hundreds of millions figures. Never mind how big it can get when it stretches beyond those obvious uses and the obvious market of techy gamey consumers. It's not that complicated a picture; I find it funny so many people find it so difficult to see.

That will be enough to make it become another mainstream platform just like consoles are now. The tech is finally ready (this is the first time VR has ever really been properly viable commercially for normal users), it's only getting better and better, and it is basically inevitable at this point.

VR doesn't even look that good on a 1440p Pixel or Samsung phone. It would be basically unplayable on the 720p Switch screen. This is just a gimmick.

@Hawkstream It is a gimmick, but I played games on the original similarly-res Oculus Rift DK1, and, while clearly not great, it was totally playable and still enjoyable. I think, as gimmicky as it would be, it would still be cool to get some kind of VR headset for Switch.

@impurekind Yeah I think buzzer was talking more about a mainstream phone replacement kind of situation rather than just another console so the concepts were getting mixed. But all I can say is I disagree in terms of market impact/outlook. That's not the same argument as saying I dislike VR or am not interested in it succeeding. I'm just saying I read the market differently and don't see the commercial result going that direction, and see it more as a niche than a mass appeal product for a good long while. If not, that's great.

@TheFanatic Tbh, what do you expect from a 9-year old?

@Bensei Fair.

F-ZERO, Punch-Out!!, Starfox Zero, Endless Ocean, and Metroid Prime would be predestined for VR.

@Anti-Matter Time to put down the pacifier and grow up kid.

@DartBuzzer

we'll see. there's still a ton to work out (wireless, cheaper, better res, need more grunt on the pc side still imo).

so 4k per eye at the minimum. need 90-100's fps so 2080ti would still be too slow imo. and with 4k per eye you're looking at an expensive headset. add on wigig or whatever they'll need to cut the cords and yeah; it'll be 5-10 years imo.

and no; let's not bring psvr into this. it's a non-starter for only the folks who i guess are blind.

F-ZERO VR

But if WipeOut didn't get me to buy PSVR at this point. Safe to say VR is not my thing.

Splatoon 2 already works in VR (on the PSVR), and besides the resolution of that particular headset, it plays better in VR than on the TV, because you don't ever need to recenter your camera or use the right thumbstick, and makes for a more fluid experience (at least as long as you use motion controls). I would imagine Morphies Law to be pretty good in VR as well, but, I haven't tried it yet.

@kukabuksilaks there’s a wind waker vr??? That’s freakin awesome. On pc or what?

@Nintendo_Thumb Do elaborate or provide a source link on this wizardry you speak of.

Sheesh... all these people being negative about VR. I'm sure it will prove just as popular in the long run as 3D and motion control gaming.

@2legit2quit

It's the NGC version, played on Dolphin VR.
I have this crappy clip I made when I first got it running properly (it runs better now, I've got it to render all objects outside the normal fov, except npc's and enemies, so pots and all doesn't just pop into existence when you turn Link around).

https://youtu.be/6tmwXhvl78o (read the description)
it is a crappy clip, sorry, but I haven't gotten around to record a better one. It's over 2 years old and as I said before it looks and runs better now. I've also applied parts of a HD texture mod.
Maybe I should record a playthrough, as I was planning originally, it was just so fantastic playing it like this that I got so consumed and forgot all about recording..

Gonna scream scam until someone addresses it

Gone Home VR should be especially interesting for those who never walked through a house before.

Any game can work in VR, you just have to modify it a bit.

@roadrunner343 It's no big deal, but, if you have a PS4 and VR, you can hook the Switch up to the VR easy enough, and from there it will play anything from the Switch on the headset. It doesn't make much difference for most games, but in Splatoon, the motion controls work really well with it.

@Anti-Matter Oh boy, never start watching Sword Art Online... I mean... some characters explode into pixels and then they are dead!

Oh... and if you ever watched Yu-Gi-Oh!... the Shadow realm actually doesn't exist, 4Kids just changed it for games were the bet involved people dying.

...good Night!