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One of the nice things about 2016 is that it's finally the year companies stop talking about Virtual Reality and actually let people buy it.
This last week was the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo (better known as E3), where all the exciting new video game stuff comes out to play—and Sony showed off some of the most exciting VR games yet, from a detective-centric Batman experience to a crazy-spooky looking Resident Evil sequel. It'll all be on the market soon, and finally, you'll be able to tell if VR really is cool and worth having or if it's just a load of BS—hopefully because you have a cousin or something who bought it first.
In a world of games like Uncharted 4, what does a movie have left to offer?
But let's say you want to take a dive into the VR future yourself. What you'll find, most likely, is that VR experiences are trickier to participate in than all the cool marketing implies.
For example—and this is something we can't stress enough—you need more than just a headset in order to enter the virtual world. VR headsets aren't magical devices you just pull over your head and start using—they're connected to something, usually a computer. That's a huge caveat, especially if you don't have a computer capable of supporting the kind of VR experience you want. There are all kinds of VR experiences, from video games to Everest simulations, and they all require a different level of horsepower to make things happen.
Essentially, here's what you need to know about these different levels:
- If all you're interested in is a fun party trick, a smartphone and Google Cardboard works fine, or something like Samsung's Gear VR if you want to get a little bit fancier.
- Wanna floor yourself and friends? Fly virtual spaceships and shit? That'll take a bit more work: A more expensive headset (like the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive) and a machine to power it. (Again, usually a computer. What sort will depend on the headset you buy and the things you want to use it for.) It can get complicated...
- ...But again, it doesn't have to be that complicated, which is why we're pretty into Playstation VR at the moment. Considering the cost of other headsets, it's definitely on the more affordable end, and even better: All you need is a Playstation.
Granted, having played several in-development Playstation VR games, we can tell you that most of them are merely okay (although the games displayed at E3 all look terrific)—and beyond that, of course, all this is still provisional: Half of this stuff isn't even out yet, no one knows if it'll work all that great, and there's a strong chance VR will probably make you want to hurl your first couple times out.
VR is still in its infancy, and the iterative nature of tech makes it a pretty reasonable for you to sit this first round out, see if it sticks, and then maybe pick up next year's model of whatever setup you've got your eye on. After all, the first iPhone wasn't all that great. Let some other guy work out the kinks, and if you have a pathological need to show off your tech gadgets, that's what smartwatches are for.
That said, flying spaceships and being Batman sounds pretty dope.