Even if it does take off, it's entirely a game design problem. Production, whether it's the engineering side or the art side, won't change even slightly.

Yes, it will. A few I could think of:

• Normal mapped lighting doesn't work well in VR, because with stereo vision you can see the surface is flat.
• Tricks like always drawing users weapons/hands over all geometry (e.g. Half Life 2) are horrible in VR.
• Maintaining a consistently high FPS (90+) is of very high priority.

Anyway, In general I'm a big fan of VR. It really opens up a lot of possibilities. Feeling like you're there (to an extent) really changes the feeling of a game. Enemies I wouldn't have thought intimidating suddenly are, eye contact evokes a reaction, exploring is suddenly interesting and so on. I'm expecting to see some really interesting games/demos over the next two years (although I have no doubts it will remain niche in that time).

At 180 degrees, that's over 10,000 horizontal pixels for us not to see the actual boundaries. VR obviously won't operate on the 16:9 aspect ratio, but that's still a hell of a lot of pixels.

Sharp, Panasonic and LG all showed off TVs with 8k horizontal resolution in CES way back in 2012. Apple ships a consumer PC with 5k horizontal resolution.

More pixels costs more money, but the resolutions you desire are by no means out of reach.

There's actually a bunch of work that could be done with OS's to better support VR

While I agree it would be nice to not have the desktop environment actively fight me whenever I am wearing the rift... The thought of having to put a helmet on to check my email is not a pleasant one.

Hah, I've been misinterpreted, I meant more of your first point, where the OS actually worked with VR, but not required for using as part of the OS. I'll be curious to see what Sony does with their headset in this regard, if they ever actually release theirs for the PS4.

(And it's not about wanting to use Windows with VR, but more just making the experience of doing something as simple as swapping to a new game less painful)

Windows 10 will support VR/AR out of the box and MS is shipping their own AR headset this year to work with it. Look up HoloLens.

VR will provide for new kinds of games and applications, but it will not get rid of old ones. Most games made today do not work in VR at all for a myriad of reasons ranging from the camera perspective (first versus third) to the UI (2d UI doesn't work well) to basic game design (most FPS games shove the gun in your face and have the player character standing, which causes nausea).

Also keep in mind you're basically asking your user to buy a second monitor, which is an additional up-front cost for something with a (for now) limited use.

I'm 38 and VR has been "The Next Big Thing™" since I was a small child. I wont hold my breath...

That's because the concept (AR/VR) was ahead of technology (processing speed/power) at that time. Now processing speed is catching up

They've been saying THAT since we were young too.

Oh the horrors.

I remember when VR was the next big thing when i was about 13. They had these startup arcades that were going to be "really successful" and lots of people invested big money in them, and their inadequate hardware and feeble software renderers.

Of course lots of people got stung and lost a lot of cash and these days you won't find one of these virtual reality arcades any more. I believe there was one here in Nottingham UK.

They were powered by a pair of amigas and some custom hardware cards if i remember correctly. Does anyone else remember their rather infamous appearance in "Hackers", making one of the antagonists look even more of a douche than normal? :)

Even if it does take off, it's entirely a game design problem. Production, whether it's the engineering side or the art side, won't change even slightly.

Yes, it will. A few I could think of:

• Normal mapped lighting doesn't work well in VR, because with stereo vision you can see the surface is flat.
• Tricks like always drawing users weapons/hands over all geometry (e.g. Half Life 2) are horrible in VR.
• Maintaining a consistently high FPS (90+) is of very high priority.

Anyway, In general I'm a big fan of VR. It really opens up a lot of possibilities. Feeling like you're there (to an extent) really changes the feeling of a game. Enemies I wouldn't have thought intimidating suddenly are, eye contact evokes a reaction, exploring is suddenly interesting and so on. I'm expecting to see some really interesting games/demos over the next two years (although I have no doubts it will remain niche in that time).

I guess you can argue those are at least 'slight' changes, but I don't see them as particularly interesting to the engineering side of things. Minor shift in requirements, nothing more. Change over normal maps to parallax or actual tessellation, and simplify your scenes as necessary to hit frame rate. Your second point isn't an engineering concern, it's a design concern.

I should note that I see AR and VR as wildly disparate things and talking about them in one breath is unwise at best. I'm very optimistic about the potential of AR in speciality applications, though MS' message of consumer relevance remains unconvincing. You better believe I'm getting my hands on a HoloLens as soon as humanly possible.

As for those terrible arcades... There's some indies in my town who have cobbled together a modern one, using poweful PCs in custom backpack cases, Oculus DK2's, surround sound headsets, and Sony's tracking system.
You're free to walk around and shoot things, with your head, body and (plastic) gun being tracked rekarkably accurately.
I played the beta for an hour and didn't want to stop :D

I can't wait for their public launch. Even if it's something like $100/hour, people will be queueing up for this.

Despite the low resolution, the screen door, and the fact that I can't really play it for more than half an hour at a sitting... The ability to keep an eye on your opponent over your shoulder, as you come around to finish him off - that's unparalleled. It immerses me in the cockpit of this spaceship to a degree that wrap-around monitors and positional audio will never be able to accomplish.

The non-VR solution to that so far has been head trackers like thr trackIR. You configure it to exaggerate your movements, so when you've turned your head as far as you can while comfotably keeping your eyes on the screeen that your game camera is looking 180deg backwards.
After using one for long enough, your brain just clicks with it and you feel like your in-game neck/head is what you're controlling, and forget about your real neck, which is making all these funny movements...
Highly recommended to anyone who doesnt like the goggles. Too bad even less games seem to support these though. I justuse them in Codemasters racing games and Bohemia shhoter/simulators.

The non-VR solution to that so far has been head trackers like thr trackIR. You configure it to exaggerate your movements, so when you've turned your head as far as you can while comfotably keeping your eyes on the screeen that your game camera is looking 180deg backwards.
After using one for long enough, your brain just clicks with it and you feel like your in-game neck/head is what you're controlling, and forget about your real neck, which is making all these funny movements...
Highly recommended to anyone who doesnt like the goggles. Too bad even less games seem to support these though. I justuse them in Codemasters racing games and Bohemia shhoter/simulators.

I'm using ED Tracker for Elite Dangerous while I wait for the consumer version of the oculus. It's a homebrew head tracker that works surprisingly well and costs almost nothing, especially if you build it yourself (I didn't).

I rented an oculus back in January and it was an interesting experiment for FPS games, but for Elite? It was a revelation. I could easily have spent the week just doing space tourism.

I'm excited for VR, but... I don't want to give up my keyboard and play with a gamepad all the time, and I am not good enough to know where my fingers are at all times without peeking.

I also get simulator sickness fairly easily (usually from watching others playing, but games with particular camera angles and/or head bobbing -- like Antichamber -- make me sick even when I'm the one playing.)

Am I doomed?

I'm excited for VR, but... I don't want to give up my keyboard and play with a gamepad all the time, and I am not good enough to know where my fingers are at all times without peeking.

It's the one thing I found that really annoyed me when I had a rift. Most of the time, I was playing Elite with a HOTAS. That, and voice attack meant I pretty much never had to take my hands off the controls, but when I did, I couldn't see what I was doing and had to take the headset off.

I really think a set of phone cameras and a hardware "transparency" button are almost mandatory for a VR headset. I can't imagine it would add much to the cost.

Ideally it would pause the game if possible too.

Because, and this is really important, I almost spilled my beer. That is not cool when I am space trucking.

Although, if I was really wishing for the impossible? I'd have a Leap Motion, with some kind of tag for my beer (or coffee) and the game would render my hand movements to show me drinking. Immersion FTW! :D