The worlds of gaming, sports, live music, commerce and adult entertainment are all primed for a revolutionary consumption shift with the advent of virtual reality (VR). Fantasy shall become reality; a new age of immersive entertainment lies just around the corner.
And just as the world progressed from radio to television, so too shall it do so with VR.
Lo and behold, we have the Samsung Gear VR as this Christmas’ must-have VR toy. Virtual reality, nestled under your tree, for the low, low price of only $99 (plus the $500 Samsung smartphone you need to actually power the Gear VR headset).
Whoa, whoa, hold up just a minute. We are a long ways off from the aforementioned VR Shangri-La with Samsung’s current VR headset. This “VR,” dubbed “mobile VR,” relative to true VR, is like thinking of your car phone (brick phone) relative to today’s powerful smartphone.
John Carmack, chief technical officer at Oculus (a partner of Samsung’s on the creation of the Gear VR device and software ecosystem), stated that “positional tracking” will be possible on future versions of the Gear VR. A chance to move around freely within replayed memories would be pretty cool.
For example, imagine having free range of motion inside a family video replay, walking around your child’s birthday party video and seeing the looks on everyone’s faces, enjoying these memories in a whole new way.
