Why sliding - and not walking - is the future of VR

Now a virtual reality game lets you go into the painting and move around for a closer look at objects from different angles.

Most people would do this by wearing headsets while seated or standing. This can cause motion sickness after a while because of a mismatch between what you’re seeing through the headset and what your body is experiencing in its relatively static state. And this is one reason for VR failing to live up to its promise.”

Why slide and not walk

Walking involves lifting a foot for the next step. And that requires balancing momentarily on one foot, which is an unstable state. That’s why we topple over as toddlers before we learn how to balance ourselves while walking.

Will this be the year of VR?

Virtual reality remains on the periphery of the consumer market despite the attention it has received since Facebook’s acquisition of VR headset maker Oculus in 2014. IDC data shows 9.6 million VR headsets were shipped in 2017. Most of them were low-power ones, like Samsung’s Gear VR and Google’s Daydream, that work with mobile phones but can’t provide full-blown VR experiences like those you get from headsets linked to PCs or game consoles.

The number of high-end headsets like those from Sony, HTC, and Oculus was just 3.4 million. To put that into perspective, Nintendo alone sold over 10 million of its new Switch video game consoles last year.

But what will really give VR a boost is a better experience. And that’s where innovations like a more realistic and less sickening way of moving about in the VR world will play a vital part.

This is an excerpt from an article published on Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.