14 DAY TRIAL // Virtual Reality technology such as the Oculus VR's Oculus Rift or Sony's Project Morpheus faces a lot of skepticism, but many industry experts are of the opinion that it constitutes a game-changing development.
Dave Ranyard, creative services manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, addressed the issue of the technology's future in a keynote speech at DICE Europe, stating that the skepticism over the new technology was a normal reaction to a new method of interacting with established entertainment vectors.
The advent of VR
He cited the arrival of the television and the effects the technology had on radio broadcast, and even offered a humorous quote regarding the introduction of sound to silent film.
"Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo," Mary Pickford, one of the founders of United Artists during the age of silent film, was quoted to say.
The quote goes along other such near-sighted examples, such as Lord Kelvin's infamous "radio has no future" and "heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
There are many more such examples, coming from notorious figures who should have known better, which ultimately led to one of Arthur C. Clarke's famous three laws: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
However, that does not mean that the technology will be readily available anytime soon.
Still a long way to go
Although Ranyard compared the disruptive nature of virtual reality technology to the effects television had on radio broadcasts and the introduction of sound to movies during the era of the silent film, VR still has a lot of ground to cover before becoming mainstream.
For the time being, Ranyard acknowledged that all current experiments were still in a very early form, that will continue to evolve until finally crystallizing into a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives.
He listed a number of different experiments being conducted with VR tools, including haptic feedback, navigation with PS Move controllers and eye tracking, and said that at the time there was no standard when it comes to VR tech, but he was positive that a standard would soon be achieved.
"Is virtual reality a disruptive technology? I think it is, I think it could be. All the ingredients are there," Ranyard concluded, as quoted by Polygon.
For the time being, the consumer version of the Oculus Rift is expected to become available sometime around April 2015, and Project Morpheus has no such window tacked to it yet.