Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss COVID gaming and Microsoft shutting down some Xbox Live features to keep up with increased demand, Apple acquiring DarkSky, providers keeping users connected, Uber’s response to the pandemic, and more.

James in Nashville, Tennessee listens online and asked: “With the advent of the newer VR headsets, Oculus, HTC Vive and some of the other ones that are 8K, do you think now is a good time to buy one of these headsets, or should I wait until the next generation?”

James, no one here is a big gamer so maybe gaming fans know better or would disagree, however, it looks to us at least like you really have to want to like the current VR games.

Lots of people are very impressed and get into them when they first play them, the question is, are they still interested in playing them 48 hours later? Our guess is that the novelty wears off pretty quickly.

In fact, remember how big the hype about VR was? No one seems to be stressing VR anymore these days, even as the next generation Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 are both being announced.

All games end up having to be relatively static, your range of motion is limited for obvious reasons, and it’s kind of awkward to use your body to look behind you but press a little button to run, so you mostly stand in one place when you play VR games.

That makes for decent puzzle games, but it can be awkward for other things. That problem has actually led Oculus to stress live concerts and streaming videos as one of the main uses for one for their standalone VR set.

We’d wait for future generations before buying any hardware, but if you’re really tempted by them now at least you’re already not a first gen adopter and can get a reasonably functional product.

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