The future is here:



Stereoscopic 3D headset (which tracks the movement of your head) plus a treadmill that lets you run and jump to control your movement in game.

Words can not explain how excited I am to have this technology in my home.

Not just for gaming. Come winter time, as snow comes full blast and snot freezes to my face, I find it hard to motivate myself to get any exercise. I used a treadmill for a bit, but it's just boring. Imagine using a rig like this to run the streets of Rome? Or jog on the moon? Or have some sort of Indiana Jones death trap giant boulder tumbling behind you as you dodge obstacles?

Yeah, I want this. I don't think the pricing is absurd. Neither are out on the consumer market. The VR headset, The Oculus Rift, is available as a developer's model and you can preorder one right now for $300, shipping in August. Some are out in the wild right now. The consumer model should be out in a year or so, will have a higher resolution and likely lower latency, and should be streamlined.

But I want it now. You don't need the headset with the treadmill, but it makes for a great combination, doesn't it?

The omnidirectional treadmill will have a Kickstarter campaign soon, as far as pricing for that, I've read between $400-$700.

The complete rig, at $1000, seems like a bargain to me. Yeah, it's a good chunk of change. But it's the future. In your living room. Don't tell me you don't want to go for a jog on the moon. Hell, imagine playing Portal on this rig!

I'm trying to resist preordering the Developer VR headset, but I'm sure CK will say something and that will be that and I will have handed over my $300.

I want this so bad. The Wii and the motion controls do nothing for me, nor does the Kinect or those projected environment systems. But this... this seems so close to bringing it all together.


Flying!

I want it now.

The makers of Excedrin are going to love this!

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

I can imagine there being some poor nerd having a heart attack on the treadmill.

Have you tried on yet, Brian, like in an arcade or expo?

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

No. The treadmill hasn't been released yet as far as I know, and the rift units have just recently made it out to developers and kickstarter backers.

'They' have had versions out in arcades for a while, different developers, but same idea. I think the last time I tried one it had a version of DOOM on it. If they remove the latency issues, it could be a winner, but having to move slowly and split second wait for it to react completely ruins the effect.

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

Honestly, I just want to play around and explore in sandbox worlds and play exercise games.

I imagine playing Portal or some other game that's not all about killing and headshots would be fantastic.

Hell, Minecraft would be a chill experience.

I went ahead and put money down to get a dev unit for the Oculus Rift. Lord help me.

I just feel every day I'm not flying around Superman style in the 1980's conception of the future, I'm not really living life.

I want to make creepy VR environments. The stuff of nightmares. Why? Why not? It's art. Not that I have experience or skill. It just needs to be done.

We're finally getting to the point where the "future" is here.

And it looks really fucking silly.

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...fuck you, JFelix, fuck you into the ground. - Ericubus

Of course it looks silly. But I wouldn't be embarrassed to use this in the comfort of my home. I mean, really, there's not much to differentiate that treadmill from a normal one. Just the stupid headset. Time will take care of that and hopefully miniaturize it. Doesn't change how awesome VR can be.

I want to use a paragliding simulator with proprietary paragliding controllers. Would be... awesome.

Granted, I thought Samba De Amigo, the maraca playing game with maraca controllers for the Dreamcast, was really awesome.

This will be the 4th decade that I've seen VR demonstrated, in almost exactly the same way. The last time people got "excited" about it (7 years ago), the treadmill looked WAY cooler:



Brian, I'm not going to talk you out of investing in the OR hardware (it's definitely a more interesting conversation piece than a Nintendo VirtualBoy), but it will be a commercial flop. People can't play VR games for more than 15 minutes before vomiting or getting migraines. There's 4 decades of research to back that claim up.

Until a holodeck comes along, or human beings are able to jack into a matrix, VR - like 3D - will remain a fad.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

Yeah, but this is consumer tech at consumer price levels. That has to count for something. We're entering an age where fancy tech is put into the hands of regular folk. Indie developers are creating software for this tech, so you're not reliant on a single publisher or two, as long as there are hobbyists, the tech has a chance.

Like, here's a spacewalk program made by students. Simple controls with a 360 controller, and a VR helmet and it looks really chill. I think a lot of people (VR enthusiasts) are focusing on strict traditional gaming, but apps like this and other oddball programs are what's going to make this a success, not necessarily what Valve or whoever might be pushing at any given moment.

Like I said, think about it from an exercise perspective. A good treadmill can cost you $700. A VR set-up around that cost can give you cardio and send you to the moon. Yes please.

I missed the 2nd half of your post.

Interestingly enough, there's a Virtual Boy emulator for the rift.

15 minutes of cardio sounds good to me. Two mile jog on mars in the morning!

I'm looking to play relaxing games or short-burst of energy exercise games. I think I'll do fine. I was the only one on a boat of like 70 people not barfing as we hit choppy water.

I would love to play that spacwalk sim.

Downhuman argued a year ago that the OUYA might be successful, because of indie developer support. This is turning out not to be the case (it might change for the better, but it's doubtful). Indie developers are not something you can leverage a commercial product on. As much as people hate EA and Ubisoft, those two companies are keeping videogaming financially viable (and thus, available to smaller companies).

Also, jogging on Mars is fun...once. I watch TV shows/movies on the treadmill, as it serves to distract me from what I'm actually doing. This would amplify the work-out to my brain, and perspiration would wreck the crap out of the headgear.

When EA releases Call Of Duty for this thing, it'll take off. Personally, I'd like a VR version of Hydro Thunder, or Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

I'm not looking for the indies to make this take off mainstream, just to keep it alive and interesting. People are making homebrew for Atari 8-bit computers still (And yeah, I've purchased some of the goofy hardware). Atari 2600 even. The hobbyists will keep this interesting. The Ouya - eh. The idea is nice, but I could also just run an HDMI cable from my phone.

Jogging is fun on mars once? I ran/walked the same route back in Wisconsin from 2003-2013. I can get some use out of Mars.

I'd want to re-enact the scene from Red Planet, where Benjamin Bratt takes a nose-dive off a cliff, and then tumbles forever into the canyon below...that would be cool...

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

I want to re-enact the opening set piece to Raiders of the Lost Ark...

Pretty sure I'd die every time.

http://jaywalkersinteractive.com/

More space stuff for you, CK.

I want to do some 2001 in virtual reality.

I'm sure these oddball little tableaus may become less interesting as the VR "wow" factor wears off, but for now, I think I'd be content to float in space for a while even if I had nothing to do. I want my Oculus Rift.

Also, I want a paragliding VR game complete with custom handles to steer my kite. I think that would be swell. May give me the false impression that I could paraglide in real life and I'd end up killing myself.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/194 ... ?ref=email

$400 for the Kickstarter Omni treadmill. Yeah, I'm in. $700 for the treadmill+headset (developer version). Maybe this is a really stupid purchase, I don't know. But I'm looking forward to just chillaxing in Skyrim and walking from one end of the map to the next. Come with me, Cicero!

Gosh, I feel like such a nerd. I see stuff about the Xbox 1 and say "Ho hum, another console with COD, but this one has a dog!"

Omni+Rift is a whole new thing (that only me and a few nerds will care about)

Don't know if this means anything to anyone here but the co-founder/co-creator of Oculus Rift was killed in a pedestrian/automoble accident while crossing the street last week. Pretty sad.

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"You know the best thing about necrophilia? You don't have to bring flowers. They're usually already there." -- George Carlin

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

I want this now. I will never leave my room.

That was truly the worst narration ever.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

It was bad. I just want to break my brain playing that game. Here's hoping part 2 integrates the Rift natively. I love some of the things I'm hearing about it - mostly how you truly appreciate the scale of things when you're viewing things through the Rift - you appreciate the size of skyscrapers, or looking characters in the eye, or that some people feel their stomach drop right before falling or crashing into something.

I am really psyched to get my Dev unit. I regret not ordering it earlier. Genuinely the most excited I've been for a tech gadget in ages.

I'm told I will have a Rift soon. This is good, because I want it. I want it yesterday.

Yes!

Brian...a review, when you get a chance...

http://kotaku.com/penis-powered-game-ge ... -919896530

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

If someone buys it for me, I'll even do a video review.

Some shemales use treadmills.

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Pender will beat off to anything....

Facebook acquires Oculus VR for 2 Billion dollars

And we're done.

Good job Oculus! You just managed to torpedo all the goodwill and trust you spent the last few years building in one fell swoop by selling-out to one of the most-reviled tech companies in the industry (with one of the emptiest shades of gaming on offer to boot).

I wasn't really watching this too closely but I did see the potential that well-executed VR held. Still, I can't imagine why anyone besides the bean-counters thought this would be a good idea. Did they want to piss off all of their supporters? I mean, what the fuck are they gonna get out of this? Candy Crush VR?

2 Billion is a lot of money, though. I'd have a real hard time saying no to that.

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"You know the best thing about necrophilia? You don't have to bring flowers. They're usually already there." -- George Carlin

I think they saw the writing on the wall at PAX, when Sony unveiled their clearly superior device - not to mention Valve's upcoming offering. If you develop games for consoles, you're going to code for whatever Sony and MS are developing; if you're developing for PC, you're damn well going to make sure it works with whatever Steam is doing.

These guys just took WAY too long to bring the device to market.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat