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Comment by JauntTrooper | Hacker News Reader

I still remember when the original Nintendo came out in 1988. It was $149 for the system, the light gun + Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. ($320 in today's dollars).

I don't think the NES would have succeeded as much as it did were it not for the Mario Brothers + Duck Hunt bundle. The light gun turned out to be a gimmick, but at the time it felt like such a huge technological leap over Atari, and Duck Hunt was the way to show it off.

VR needs a Duck Hunt + Mario Brothers.

I think Nintendo gets this. Wii had Wii Sports, the Nintendo Switch has Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

They're more than just games, they're brands that through their ubiquity generate cultural capital for the platform.

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Maybe vr will turn out to be more like analog flight sticks than the NES.

Today, a vr rig, hotas controller setup and elite:dangerous already is a killer combination for vr. Put the price is steep and the appeal is much more narrow than Mario Bros.

[ed: personally I think vr will be more of a paradigm shift, than a game gimmick though. I think creative tools like tilt brush will combine with multi-user world's a la second life or croquet/open cobalt. And I think it'll grow a bit "top down" first: with early adopters and creators / developers.

But one thing that has to go are the wires - probably first by higher performance/watt and a move to "backpack pcs" to run the software.

Before that, Sony has the right idea: lower ambitions and let players sit in a sofa. Works fine for driving/simulators etc. ]

I suppose an alternative to backpacks would be a hybrid solution with "smart" headsets (much like cardboard/daydream) and a tradeoff in cpu/bandwidth doing some work on the pc, and some on the headset - and streaming over wlan. But I don't know if that's really feasible wrt getting the latency low enough with a high quality display.

DisplayLink already has a working wireless adapter for the Vive. I've tried it, and it's really good. No need for gimmicky backback computers or non-replacable headset computers.

I thought the issue with current wireless technology was getting the latency down, in order to work with true ~90hz refresh (so when you tilt your head looking at the horizon, or move your head quickly the display updates in seemingly real-time, not showing you one or two frames of old data).

Is this still not an issue?

I think part of the magic with the NES was that you could plug it into your TV and it would just work.

I can only use a Vive if I have a high powered gaming computer in a place conducive to gaming.

Bingo!

You highlighted two major barriers of entry for the larger market: 1. Initial Cost 2. Technological knowledge required (to inform the purchase and to set it up)

Another point adding to the cost is that VR games of any quality [or by larger studios with resources for quality development] are new games, and as such usually run around 60 to 100 dollars each. And they don't just come on a disk you pop in and play.

Sidenote: Playstation VR, which is substantially easier to set up -- the headset is more expensive than the console at this stage. If you get the starter bundle it's almost 3x the cost of the console.

To many people, it's outrageous. And the argument would likely follow, "there just aren't that many good games for VR" or "I just bought a new 4k tv, why would I buy that _now_". (At least this is what I've heard so far)

I haven't seen a single 100$ game. Maybe this is a Playstation specific thing? VR games tend to go for less than 60$ right now. Initially people tried to pass them off at 60$, but no one was having it. If you wait for the several times yearly sales you pay less even less than 40-50$

Playstation VR seems like a terrible deal at this point with the Rift price drops and deals. Most of the cost of a VR capable PC with a Rift with vastly inferior experience.

Oh, right. I'm Canadian. I regularly see new games range from 60 to 100 CAD.

I don't have a Playstation myself, I play on a PC when I do. The rest of what you said sounds about right.

For some people even Playstation VR is too cumbersome to set up, there are several cables, the camera has to face the right direction and you add the Moves (in each hand) there's even more equipment but at least the Moves are wireless. VR is not at the level where it is pick up and play phone/regular games level easy. It requires more commitment and most people, including myself are lazy, and so any inconvenience is enough to make you think twice, more technology breakthroughs are needed to make it all pick and up play / easier to use but I'd say the Playstation VR is definitely immersive.

VR needs a killer application. It needs a Lotus 1-2-3 or VisaCalc. Most likely will will come in the form of something productive.

> I still remember when the original Nintendo came out in 1988. It was $149 for the system, the light gun + Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt.

The system came out in the US in 1985; the Action Set bundle you described came out in 1988. The Japanese release of the system was in 1983. It was a huge leap in technology, as you would expect with 6 years between the release of the 2600 and the Famicom; the NES graphics chip is much more capable, and the system has much more ram and address space, but the cpu is only clocked 50% higher (and is essentially the same, but with a larger address bus, and interrupts in the NES), the sound chip is better too. None of this detracts from your main point -- packing in the right software sells the hardware.

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