Looks pretty, but is it going sim heavy,light or further down the console path?
Laminar Research (X-Plane) just posted this on their Facebook page - encouraging since Austin initially poo-poo’d VR last year, but if he makes it native, that’d be awesome!
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Interesting to see that they are showing the Touch controllers for the Rift. I kind of think that the Leap Motion sensor is the better direction to go for hand manipulation of switches buttons and knobs, but Touch and the Vive motion controllers will certainly add a new dimension.
I dislike the clunkiness of those controllers. If they were proper gloves I’d like them. But I need my hands to grab my HOTAS.
So nope, no money from me for that.
Leap motion? Interesting idea but very limited at the moment.
I’m leaning in the same direction…
I got the Oculus touch controllers because…well…they sold them…! 
They are clunky, and I want to be able to grab the HOTAS.
OTOH, I let go of my stick to use the trackball to manipulate switches in the virtual cockpit… I’m thinking velcro, and leaving the touch controllers on my thighs, where I can pick them up quickly. Maybe it’s doable. I’m sceptical, but cautiously optimistic.
Of course, bare hands, or VR gloves would be better. But then again, what happens when that hand reaches out into the VR environment and wants to manipulate a switch. We would need some seriously precise gesture control. Here’s an advantage with hand controllers that have physical buttons to press.
I don’t know…?
I’m not ruling anything out at present.
One thing is for certain. It will be very interesting to see how VR interaction is solved in the near future. 
This is one area where the Vive has an advantage. The tracking tech can be made quite small and OEM’d into gloves and things like that. The Rift uses USB camera sensors and light diodes on the headset/touch, while the Vive uses light pulses from the sensors (meaning they don’t need that USB bandwidth and a cable back to the PC like a camera) and the tracker decodes a timestamp id’d signal of light. Even though the headsets are such similar tech, and superficially look alike, the Vive and Rift tracking systems are almost opposite approaches.
It helps that Valve wants to give the license away to anyone that wants to make cheap trackers as well, so it seems likely that even for flight-sims we’ll see finger detection gloves or stuff like HOTAS’s and MFD’s with VR finger tracking.
If companies like Saitek and NaturalPoint want to adapt, now is the time to get on-board. There’s going to be a nice sim market for this stuff.
Honestly, the Vive has the largest potential of establishing a bigger customer base due to the price(well, they are all expensive…) and the mindset of getting it implemented as widely as possible as quickly as possible.
Still curious if this will turn into a proper thing and not fade away in the next few years.
For flight, driving, space (basically anything sat down) sims I almost feel we’re just along for the ride, in that it’s fantastic in VR but we’re not large enough numbers to move or create a market. The main consumer gaming market will decide if this is going to be a ‘3D TVs’ or something that actually breaks through to mainstream.
Stuff like this for the PSVR is a promising sign though:
Mobile VR and what Apple does next is going to help decide too. My best guess is that a phone that mixes AR/VR and gets it right (iPhone vs Palm history) will provide the cash and excitement for gen 2 and gen 3 VR.
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I think VR on phones is more likely to come from Samsung/Sony in a potential collaboration to be honest. Google is much more vested in that segment already then Apple has shown to have any idea if it exists at all…
Oh well, we really are in it for the ride unfortunately.
Also, what’s the deal with Natural Point?! Do they not care about TIR anymore?
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Apple are all secrety though They never tend to move first, just sit back and observe like a cash-encrusted fat python and then one day, ‘one more thing’ when it’s ready and nailed in terms of real usability. Then they charge a fortune for it and everyone says ‘they invented it so it’s worth it’. 
This look awesome…but what exactly is the fascination with VR developers and dinosaurs. I think there is a dinosaur in every VR game I’ve seen. (I’m guessing there is a hidden “jump the dinosaur” level in 4x4 Paradise…)
https://scontent.oculuscdn.com/t64.7195-25/12727789_1715401212108399_5047369373539368960_n.mp4
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Well, I guess most VR devs are boys… You do the math.
No spoilers, I don’t want to find out if it sinks or not until Act 3.
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If it sinks? Read up on your history man! The Titanic was unsinkable…
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I once read an interesting theory that because our main interaction with dinosaurs has been through CGI or models used in things like Jurassic Park, then the Uncanny Valley issue isn’t a factor. We just think that Dinosaurs look like that now as we don’t have any other frame of reference (say, compared to a Tiger at the zoo), plus it helps they are really nicely textured mapped lizard skins too - so much easier than skin or hair.
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I read that. As a shareholder I stand by the company’s decision to cut down on extravagant unnecessary lifeboats then - they really spoil the design of the ship, break the flow of the lines etc.
Spoiler - when you open the safe…a dinosaur dressed like Geraldo Rivera jump-scares you…
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Plus you can now market the voyage as an adventure cruise…millennials will eat it up…
This looks pretty cool - probably not something I’d buy except at a discount. I think @EinsteinEP was pretty big into train sims with his kid for a while…
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