this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
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Every few years for over half a century, someone decides that VR is finally going to be a big thing, spends a bucketload of cash on it, only to learn the exact same lesson: VR doesn't actually solve any kind of practical problem anyone ever had, but it does create a whole bunch of new ones.
Fundamentally they believe 3D will take off. Recall the 3D tv hype?
People don’t want any of that.
The manufacturers and the marketplaces need us to buy a new thing otherwise we would just enjoy the thing that we have until the wheels fall off. TVs had to get innovative to keep fueling replacements.
CRT's still minimally existed in consumer spaces when 3D TVs were being crammed down our throats. I was grateful when the DLP versus plasma versus LCD wars were over.
But there always has to be a new product platform around the corner for businesses that are requiring endless growth will die. Consider the InstantPot as an object lesson, and then look at the absolutely ludicrous ecosystem of kitchen branded appliances that the Ninja Bullet spawned.
Those of us that bought into vr, and then bought into it again. And then again. Like it or believe in it for reasons that clearly aren't going to make us profit.
I do not anticipate any AR Revolution, after both Microsoft and Google drink deeply from that goblet and clearly lost. I don't think meta is new project in that space will be ultimately useful for anyone but perverts and con artists.
I'm increasingly skeptical of growth and Innovation for growth and Innovations sake. I kind of just want to play, now. And also I would do crimes for a refrigerator and a washing machine that was supposed to last 20+ years of continuous operation like our grandparents had.
I do want 3D, but the implementations just have too many drawbacks.
If the nearest store still has one, do a demo of it. It is quite impressive. You can see where they’re trying to get ready for whatever comes after smartphones
I don't recall any hype around it at all except that it was a thing that companies made. Most of them require glasses so I really don't understand how they thought that would ever catch on.
Before goldeneye there was no 3d Nintendo gaming.
VirtualBoy
Mario 64 was first
It does allow for some awesome games though.
You'd think, and yet all the gamers I know who own a headset has it gathering dust on the shelf.
That's because it doesn't take very long to blow through all the great games. They exist, just not that many.
Guilty as charged…
You're not wrong, and I'm included in that because I'm a dumbass who bought an Oculus Rift (i.e. not a Vive) some 6 years ago or so, and I've since gone 100% Linux. But man was it a magical upgrade for my sim racing setup. In many ways better than a triple screen setup, but occupies less space.
My headset was extremely immersive for DCS and IL-2, but I could never use the keyboard well enough with it on.
Which one? Beat saber or beat saber?
Half life Alyx. Superhot VR. Walkabout mini golf. VR boxing. Any VR flight/racing sim.
VR is more about having fun than practical solutions.
AR will bring the practical applications.
By the same token, AR is no longer new technology. Every AR app I've ever had on my phone got used a couple of times at the start, and have since been auto-offloaded from disuse. There might be some edge case stuff relating to accessibility tools, but companies like Apple weren't the ones leading research into those in the first place.
In fact now I come to think of it, the most successful AR app I'm aware of is Pokemon Go...
In fairness, though, an app on your smartphone is basically the worst form AR. It forces you to try to look at the world around you through a tiny screen, you can only interact with the app by touching that screen while keeping the camera pointed at the right thing, and you absolutely can’t use your phone for any of the other things you’d normally use it for.
Clunky headsets are better, but only good for use in private spaces and IMO if you’re only going to use the headset in one place, that seems like a better candidate for VR anyways.
IMO the best case for AR basically is a pair of glasses or contacts. Something that takes little to no effort to use and has the ability to augment any area of your vision. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen so far, assholes and perverts seem all too happy to take any device with a camera in it and ruin things for the rest of us.
It's pretty great for socializing at home, so if someome can't get out they can still have something similar avaliable. Otherwise there isn't really a killer feature.
See that's the thing, it sounds like it should be good for that, but really it doesn't facilitate any kind of social interaction you weren't able to get from your PC, and at the same time makes a bunch of other stuff more awkward.
It's pretty great for socializing at home, so if someome can't get out they can still have something similar avaliable. Otherwise there isn't really a killer feature.