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Virtual reality headsets are too expensive and full of useless cruft

On June of last year, I wrote a blog post about how I think the development of VR headsets is taken too far, which will increase their price for no benefit. On January this year the Oculus Rift was finally announced for preordering... and surprise surprise, it's hugely expensive.

Now one of OR's biggest competitors, the HTC Vive, has likewise been announced for preordering... and it's even more expensive, at 900€. And it's also stock full of useless augmented reality crap that no gamer will use for anything.

Will they ever learn? We don't need augmented reality crap! We don't want augmented reality crap! It's useless! It may entertain us for a half hour, but other than that it's completely useless cruft that adds absolutely nothing to what really matters, ie. playing games.

You do not play games by walking around your room. You play games by sitting on a chair or sofa. At most you might want to turn your head to look around, but that's it! All that augmented reality crap is completely useless for practical gaming. We don't need it! We don't need to be able to walk around the room while playing. We don't need fancy controllers to simulate augmented reality hands. That part is a useless toy. Cut it out already!

My only hope is that they will realize this soon enough, and create a simpler, more bare-bones version of their headsets, with all the useless cruft left out, and release it at half the price. Head-tracking is ok, but other than that, leave the useless crap out. Maybe then I might consider purchasing one.

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