Virtual World: The Evolution of VR

            Virtual Reality is taking over the world.  Slowly Virtual Reality is becoming a source of revenue for more and more large companies such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook.  

Many of these were actually designed for video games originally, like when this kind of hardware was originally released in 1995 with Nintendo’s Virtual Boy.  The $179 system didn’t sell well and sales were stopped before the system became popular. It was made for the user to sit down at a table, with the goggles on top of the base and the M-shaped controller plugged into the goggles.  Virtual Reality is considered by many business owners to  be the next medium.

         Since VR has hit the mainstream, a lot of systems have been released including the $799 HTC Vive, $1,699.99 Oculus Rift,$599.99 Playstation VR and $99.99 Samsung Gear VR.  Most of these require at least a $1,000 desktop to run, however to get the best experience a 2,000 dollar desktop is recommended.  Costing more than the average PC or game system and intended for people who have the money and time set up and play or work them, these systems have still made money for the sheer amount of money that they cost.

                It is still unclear whether or not the negatives outweigh the positives here due to the fact that these systems are borderline reality.  The fear factor is still present in the games on the systems that include the feature of video games and is very, very real to the person playing the game.  Multiple experiments have been done where the person playing the game was asked to do something such as jump off a virtual cliff or plank into a pit and the user has refused to do it despite knowing about it being a virtual environment.  We are being asked the question of what to with a technology with seemingly infinite possibilities.

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