Windows Help & Advice - UK (2020-03)

58 |^ |^ March 2020

VR technology has been around
since the ’90s, with the earliest
commercial attempt being Sega’s
brief demonstration at the Consumer
Electronics Show in 1993, which was
then canned before release. A few
other manufacturers took a shot, most
notably Sony, but the technology
wasn’t quite there yet. The experience
was fraught with latency issues and
tunnel vision, and while it was a
hopeful portent of things to come,
most gamers weren’t exactly
blown away.
Fast-forward a couple of decades,
and we find ourselves in the mystical,
futuristic land of 2012. Plucky tech
startup Oculus began a Kickstarter
campaign to crowdfund its advanced,
high-end Rift VR headset, designed by
Palmer Luckey, with the support of id
Software co-founder John Carmack, a
big proponent of VR. The fundraising
campaign was massively successful,
raising more than 10 times the original
goal of $250,000. The finished product
was released to consumers in 2016, and
was immediately popular, although the
initial retail price of over £500 meant
sales were hardly through the roof.
It was a successful innovation,
though, and everyone wanted a slice
of the VR pie. Sony came back with a
vengeance, giving its successful
PlayStation 4 console a VR headset,
the inventively named PlayStation VR.
Phone manufacturer HTC partnered
with Valve to produce its own
contender, the HTC Vive. The
competition was fierce, although
primarily between HTC and Oculus;
Sony’s offering was console-specific,
as opposed to the PC-oriented
applications of the other two.
Surprisingly, Sony came out ahead;
the PSVR was and still is the single
most successful system-tethered VR
headset ever, selling over four million
units in three years, thanks to a lower
initial price, compatibility with Sony’s
existing PS Move motion controllers,
and an assurance that the headset will
work perfectly with the static PS4 (and

PS4 Pro) hardware. Oculus outsold HTC

by a small margin on its first release

units, but both the Rift and Vive share

the same problem: needing to work

with a wide variety of consumers’ PCs,

both pre-built and custom systems.

This is an issue that has plagued the

majority of VR headsets designed to

work with PCs. The uncertainty as to

whether a particular rig can support a

specific VR platform drives potential

buyers away. With the PSVR, it’s simple:

if you have a PS4, you can use it. With

PC-tethered VR headsets, consumers

have to ensure that the system they

have is capable of running games in

VR – and with a huge variety of

custom-built machines in the homes

of PC gamers across the globe, that has

become a problem.

Going mobile

Of course, the companies behind

VR are aware of this, and have

been working on solutions. Oculus

produced the Oculus Go, a PC-less

offering that went without wires

thanks to an integrated Qualcomm

chip to handle graphics. It isn’t

incredible in terms of graphical fidelity,

but has sold well, even exceeding Rift

sales in some markets. A more

powerful follow-up, the Oculus Quest,

was also released recently.

A different strategy was employed by

Samsung, which collaborated with

Oculus to corner a slice of the market

with a super-cheap solution: a VR

headset with a slot for a Samsung

Galaxy smartphone, which acted both

as a screen and CPU. It sort of worked.

Launched in 2015, the GearVR headset

contained hardware for motion control

and head tracking, and at less than

£100 was affordable, although it did

require the user to own a Samsung

Galaxy phone.

GearVR sold well, shifting five million

units, and spawned legions of imitators

of varying degrees of quality. Slightly

before its release (but long after

Samsung’s plans for the GearVR were

conceived), Google announced Google

Cardboard, a hilarious but undeniably

effective VR solution that consumers

could buy or even build themselves. It

used the same ideas as the GearVR, but

was cheaper and less sophisticated

• because, well, it was made of
  cardboard. Google put out its own
  proper answer to Samsung’s GearVR,
  Google Daydream, a few years later.

Where next?

While all of these products did well,

none set the world alight. Google

Daydream was discontinued in October

From left to right: Forte’s VFX1 was one of the earliest attempts at VR, using a weird hockey-puck-

shaped controller. The original Oculus Rift was a true game-changer for VR. Samsung and Oculus

worked together to produce GearVR, a cheaper alternative to full VR headsets.

Palmer Luckey, the original creator of the Oculus

Rift, has since left the company.

© FORTE, SAMSUNG