Next-gen Lighthouse Base Station Could Bring “rapid cost reductions”

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Nov 29, 2016

Valve is continuing to improve upon the design of the ‘Lighthouse’ Base Stations, the laser-beacons that form a crucial part of the SteamVR Tracking system. Future iterations are expected to become dramatically simplified, reducing size, noise, and perhaps most importantly, cost.

VR is awesome, but it’s still expensive. Until costs come down significantly, the sort of experience you can get from the HTC Vive isn’t likely to see mainstream consumer usage on the scale of the smartphone. But, just like the smartphone, it’s likely that we’ll see significant reductions in price as the market and the devices mature.

One step toward getting there is making the tracking technology less expensive. Valve’s SteamVR Tracking (AKA Lighthouse), which is employed by the HTC Vive, relies on a pair of laser-beacons called Base Stations. Each Base Station houses motors, lasers, LEDs, and an array of electronics to control it all. Judging by the $134 cost of a replacement Base Station on the Vive’s accessory page, the component may be the single most expensive part of the Vive system beyond the headset—and you need two of them.

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So it makes sense that Valve is focusing a lot of attention on continuing to hone the Base Station design into something that’s more simple and affordable. At Steam Dev Days last month, the company showed a glimpse into the future of the Base Station, including a design insight that could dramatically reduce the cost.

Each current Base Station uses two motors to sweep laser lines across the tracked space; one line sweeps along the X axis and the other line sweeps along the Y axis, allowing independent tracking of each direction. Each motor also needs its own laser diode, optics, motor controller, wheel assembly, etc.

But, as Valve Engineer Ben Jackson pointed out at Steam Dev Days last month, it’s actually possible to get X and Y axis information from a single spinning motor. The key insight is generating a ‘V’ shaped pattern with two lines from the same motor, instead of one axial line per motor.

base-station-lines — Left: the present two motor layout. Right: the single motor layout. | Photo courtesy Ben Jackson / Valve

And that of course means that one of the motors, and all the components it’s reliant on, can be removed from the Base Station. As Jackson put it, “What better way to make [the Base Station] lighter, quieter, cheaper, and more power efficient, than to chop out half the parts?”

Reid Wender of Triad Semiconductor, who has been working with Valve on SteamVR Tracking since 2014, says he expects the system will see “rapid cost reductions” due to changes like this.

present-and-future-base-station — Photo courtesy Ben Jackson / Valve

Chopping out half the parts will definitely have a dramatic impact on component and manufacturing costs, but Wender points out that a more simple system, with a single motor instead of two, is easier to calibrate and also likely to be more reliable, which could further reduce support costs.

In the same presentation at Steam Dev Days, Jackson also highlighted the new custom made SteamVR Tracking chip that Triad is producing for Valve, another cost-saving move that could even increase the system’s tracking performance.

So what might costs look like with these improvements taken into account? Let’s rough out some guesses with a little back-of-the-envelop reasoning:

The current cost of the HTC Vive is $800, and it includes the headset, two Base Stations, and two controllers (I’ve tossed out a few of the smaller pieces like the Link Box for the sake of this guestimate). Just going by known prices on the Vive’s accessories page (which are almost certainly more than the out-of-the-box cost), the Base Stations contribute $270 and the controllers $260, leaving $320 for the headset itself (again, that’s probably far off, but we’re more interested in the relative figures. Halving the cost of the Base Stations would bring their contribution down to $135, reducing the entire package to $665, about 17% less than the current price.

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Once more, this is a very imprecise guess, but the point remains that, if the Base Station is the biggest cost to the system aside from the headset (which stands to reason from the present cost on the Vive accessories page), smarter Base Station design could make a big dent in the overall cost of the system, and that’s before considering any other improvements like Triad’s new SteamVR Tracking chip, and more optimizations that are surely in the works.

A big question arises however: Would Valve and HTC put new, cheaper base stations into the existing Vive package, or wait until the launch of an entirely new headset? For now, only time will tell.

DiGiCT Ltd

The cost down is also important for themselves as 100+ VR bars in China will use thousands of headsets and lighthouses.
Altho the tech is simpler and cheaper it does not mean it is still as accurate as the 2 motor solution.
I hope when they do this it is compatible with the earlier vive.
Improvements are always welcome, but if it requires you to dig deeply in your pockets again for a full replacements its not something most people are waiting for.

The cost as you mentioned are much lower, laser diodes are not that expensive for manufacturers.
For example laser mouse cost for consumers much more as led, but the manufacture cost is only different around a simple 1 dollar.
It just sounds more pro using laser, and thats why they can ask more money for it.
The diodes in the HMD however will cost them much more I think.
An other thing is the laser power usgae, its not that much anyhow, as max of 5m is the range atm based on HTC saying, everyione knows lasers can reach a much longer distance if they are higher powered.
For the noise???? i have no idea what they try to say about that, i dont hear them, my liquid cooling system makes much more noise as the lighthouses !
Afterall i set them up with bluetooth, so they go into sleep mode when i am not using VR.
I hope they are as good as current ones, but that something we see later on.
People complaining about $800 for a VR set, i think its not a point, as a t the other hand they are willing to pay $800 for a smartphone to enjoy VR.
Smartphones are the real waste of money, but seems nowadays most peopel are addicted to it somehow, and it might be the reason not to complain about those prices instead.
Lucky for me a phone is just a phone, i bought high ends just for development tests, but the one im using is a simple one, as at the end its still just a phone.
Mobile has 1 big disadvantage, you always need to keep you screen very clean if you want to use it for VR, so yeah busy, busy , clean clean if you nkow what i mean ROFL
Get Schwifty!

Good to hear – reducing costs for any vendor in VR can only be a good thing and puts pressure on all players to reduce cost and (hopefully) improve quality.
David Herrington

The cost of 1 motor isn’t equal to half the cost of the base station. Along with development costs I could see a max decrease around $100 USD total for this motor optimization.

This obviously doesn’t take into account other cost reducing features like Tracking chips or better manufacturing processes. But hopefully, after these changes are made, we will see a decrease in price of $200 USD or so after all these are considered. Unless these changes are only meant for Vive 2.0…
- Bryan Ischo
  
  It’s all guesswork. My own pulled-from-my-butt figure is $133 reduction — assuming the base stations contribute 1/3 of the overall cost, that’s $266, so reducing the cost of that component by half yields a $133 reduction. But who knows really.
  
  I’m quite confident that the next gen headsets will be *better* (no more crappy fresnel lenses, slightly better field of view, better pixel density, wireless), and also lower cost. I can hardly wait!
- Dave
  
  I wouldn’t worry about it. This is a short term gain, the real inovation would be in Inside out tracking with a wireless streamed image, no need for base stations or messy cable configurations.
Jörgen

They would of course do both if possible,sell the old headset with new “Lighthouse” at a entrylevel and a new headset design for the entusiast slightly under current pricepoint.
Likely intruduction in two steps first a halfway pricedrop on the current model to say 600 in about a year from now an then in mid 2018 intruduction of the newer headset (first shown at CES 2018) an two pricepoint for the rest of that year 350/550 .
Then probably let the old one go.
Zerofool

Actually, all the rumors and tweets around the net point to announcement of a refreshed Vive version at CES 2017. HTC have indicated that hardware release cycle will be “sort of annual”. According to the leaks, the refreshed version will come in new formfactor, will be lighter, with better mounting system, with drastically less components (thanks to the lighthouse component consolidation). I’m pretty sure it will come with these new base stations, and I presume there’ll be the option to get the wireless kit as part of the bundle. However, I doubt it will feature higher resolution screens, eye tracking or the new SteamVR controllers. But I still hope at least for a switch to RGB OLED screens with the same (or very close) resolution, and following Sony’s example with the diffusing filter over the OLED panel for SDE reduction, and most of all, better optics. We’ll know for sure in 5-6 weeks time.
I believe that current Vive HMDs will be compatible with the new base stations and vice-versa, after a simple firmware upgrade. From technical perspective the approach is the same, just the timings will be slightly different, and the actual math for calculating the position.
- Sebastien Mathieu
  
  It’s exciting!! lo my VIVE !! Can’t wait to iterate!!
- Surykaty
  
  They should absolutely make a PRO version that would feature higher resolution displays for the market that can afford it. I have a few expensive multi-gpu setups that can handle 4K at 60fps (over 90fps actually) on everything I work with (I’m not talking about AAA titles).. also VR arcades that are popping up all around the places also could use a VIVE PRO as they can afford having more expensive setups. For normal consumers you have the normal VIVE.
  - Dave
    
    LOL, now get your system to render it twice for each eye… What you’re saying doesn’t make econimical sense even for VR early adoption. I don’t see the price of VR changing greatly in the imediate future – although microsoft partners may have something to say about this… but I’m sure if it does change it will get cheaper not more expensive.
- TonyVT SkarredGhost
  
  Hope for them that they’ll wait a bit more: this would be a very little improvement on Vive, giving Oculus more time to compete with more interesting features like resolution and foveat rendering
  - Dave
    
    Hi Tony. I don’t think that is possible. High resolution and foveat rendering are not a 12 month project, more like 3-5 years for this sort of development.
    - TonyVT SkarredGhost
      
      Whaaaat? Really?
OkinKun

I still think camera-based computer-vision tracking is the future. These current IR systems work fine for now, but neither is really better than the other accuracy wise, and they’re really just stepping-stones until better tech works. They just aren’t much more flexible in their use, than QR-codes everywhere is.. They’re not easily compatible with more mobile VR or AR.
- D.L
  
  Camera-based inside-out tracking has it’s own problems. Tracking one object alone currently takes a lot of computing power and is far from perfect as it tends to drift a lot and rely on a consistently lit, unchanging environment in order to work properly.
  
  What about controllers and other tracked objects? You can’t completely rely on cameras on a headset as you’d end up occluding yourself too often when your arms are down low, so each device would need a camera and either a wireless connection to whatever processes and determines it’s position or have the processing on board, introducing additional cost and complexity.
  
  Lighthouses don’t require an RF connection to anything, you could mount them in public spaces and any device that is compatible could use them without any security schema needed. No actual cameras either, even lessening the effect they devices have on security.
  
  The way I see it eventually happening is this: Set up lighthouses indoors where the higher quality tracking is desirable and fall back on inside-out camera tracking when out of these bounds. The two technologies are perfectly capable of co-existing and complimenting each other.
  - Sponge Bob
    
    RF is required for hand-held controllers to report their positions to the headset
    And this is really tricky part… low latency RF link… forget bluetooth
    Inside-out headset tracking by pure (stereo) computer vision is just a sales gimmick to keep clueless public excited – not gonna happen
    depth cameras on headsets, a lot of them, can help but $$$$
    - D.L
      
      RF is required, sure, but sending a HD video over it for tracking each object is a bit wasteful. The only other solution is having the processing hardware on-board which is expensive in both power and price.
      
      A stereo camera is a depth camera, that’s what stereo is. I don’t think inside-out tracking using cameras is a bad idea by any means, Hololens shows it can work okay, it just isn’t a perfect solution.
      - Sponge Bob
        
        stereo camera is NOT a depth camera – does not give you the depth map like the real IR time-of-flight depth camera does
      - Sponge Bob
        
        can you buy “hololens” to try it out for real without gimmicky sales pitches from MS ?
    - beestee
      
      The benefits gained from computer vision for inside-out tracking do not have to remain computationally expensive. Once spatial data is available the computational requirements necessary to use and update the data are significantly less.
      
      There are hurdles, no doubt, that will take time for inside-out tracking to become equal or superior to other tracking solutions that are superior today, but the bones are there for it to be entirely possible to overtake all other solutions.
      
      I do think the technology behind it is much more complex and difficult to grasp, making many more people clueless about how it works, but that doesn’t mean it is a gimmick just because it is more difficult to understand.
      
      https://developers.google.com/tango/overview/area-learning
      - Sponge Bob
        
        there is nothing complex about tech
        you just need to know basic physics to make predictions:
        without IR time-of-flight depth cameras (several of them) + several regular cameras + all the associated processing power ON TOP of what is required for hi-res rendering for VR, inside-out tracking is DOA
      - beestee
        
        …it is complex enough that you are glossing over the difference that solved spaces make in the process.
        
        Your claim is that a brute-force real-time high-fidelity capture is a requirement for the technology to compete, in which case it becomes prohibitively expensive. Correct?
      - Sponge Bob
        
        Its a requirement for mobile or semi-mobile VR to be useful immediately in any space previously unattended (unmapped)
        yes it is a requirement – unsolvable at present for consumer devices (unless you want to spend upward of 5-10K).
      - beestee
        
        We don’t expect ‘no setup or bust’ from the other tracking solutions available, so why is inside-out tracking DOA if it requires some set up (multi-pass low fidelity data sent to cloud compute)?
      - Sponge Bob
        
        cloud compute ? meaning good wifi at the very least ?
        
        now you are making it even more DOA for the rest of the world
        and even for a very sizable portion of US population
      - beestee
        
        …and the Vive with it’s Lighthouses require a significant clear space, making it DOA for much of the world where this space is not so readily available.
        
        What do you suggest persons without internet access capable to handle the point cloud data would do for acquiring their VR experiences (apps/games)?
      - Sponge Bob
        
        Is’t it a goal of “room-scale” VR to actually experience VR by walking in VR ?
        
        Otherwise all you need is a 360 video where you can jump from one location to another using your controller – much like Daydream does, not by actually walking
        
        There is plenty of open space in the world – the only problem is that current tech does not work outside because sunlight messes up with IR-based tracking
        so you are talking not just about space but about some dedicated empty room without furniture, no or draped windows and no mirrors
        
        i would say that good internet acces is more important to most people than playing in VR but still, one should not be tied to another
  - marcushast
    
    The problem with Lighthouse in the current variant is that you can only have two base stations in the same area. That pretty severely limits the size of the area and the number of people in the area you can have.
    
    It’s not a fundamental limitation of the tech though, you can get around it. But OTOH you can say the same about Constellation. (You could have a lot of cameras covering an area and have one program combining them into feeds for separate users.)
    
    EDIT: And I think you can probably do a inside-out tracking camera which can both use normal light / scenes for a bit rougher tracking. And then have a static IR laser grid for really high quality tracking. Basically if you have a room where you want good tracking you put a device in there similar to a gen 1 Kinect which projects a pattern around the room which makes the inside-out tracking easier/better.
    - Sponge Bob
      
      The problems with Vive AND Rift is that they have TOO many basestations – 2 instead of 1.
      This means calibration is required before first use and setup is difficult and not easily movable to another room or space
      This is DOA for most consumers
      - marcushast
        
        I haven’t tried the Rift with two Sensors yet, but the single sensor setup doesn’t require any calibration. For Vive the calibration is for telling the system where your “safe space” is, it’s not really to calibrate the base stations. It’s been a while since I ran the Vive setup though, so I might be mis-remembering.
        
        But I agree with you that a complicated setup is definitely a problem. The Vive is particularly problematic with this. The Rift is better since even in the two sensor setup you can get away with putting them on a desk in front of you. (Kind of like speakers.)
      - Sponge Bob
        
        Any system based on triangulation requires calibration (or very precise setup – not just slapping cameras on your desk). Period.
        
        Single camera Rift setup is for sitting VR experience – basically just 360 view
        – it will absolutely suck in sensing HMD movement toward and away from the camera at a distance of 3-5 meters – that’s why they introduced 2nd camera and now 3rd and 4th(!!!) camera to track controllers and avoid occlusion
        
        insane
  - Get Schwifty!
    
    I agree with OkinKun and it’s the reason Oculus went camera over light-based tracking. While it does take resources it’s not as bad as one might think and processing rates and camera development continue upwards (just think of live face recognition systems). Considering that it is using IR emitters the consistently lit issue doesn’t come in normal use. No one is suggesting cameras just in the headset, but a combination inside and out, and they do quite well in that regard.
    
    As everyone is entitled to an opinion, I will give mine. Light-bases systems like Lighthouse are a temporary solution that doesn’t really scale without putting reflectors on everything, nor will it allow a mixed AR/VR system to “bring in” the user into the VR space (and quite possibly reduce the need for controllers outside of haptics). My prediction is that HTC will one day abandon light-based systems down the road maybe 4 or 5 years from now and move to a camera-based system effectively like Oculus.
psuedonymous

Oh hey, further replicaiton of the Nikon iGPS system! http://www.nikonmetrology.com/en_EU/Products/Large-Volume-Applications/iGPS/iGPS/
Walter Sharrow

Would be nice if these cheaper base stations would come out soon. One of my hands keep drifting off at random, so I’m pretty sure I need more coverage.
- Dylan
  
  You dont have a big mirror in your room do you? Or any other form of IR blaster?
  - marcushast
    
    A window can cause the same issue. It happens to me every now and then if I have left the blinders too open. (I generally don’t have to cover it completely.)
- Sebastien Mathieu
  
  never had any tracking problem…
- CaptainAwesomer
  
  Haha you should probably see a doctor if your hand is doing that.
Rodrigo Martinelli

Seeing all the improvements being made for 2.0 i guess i’m happy to have lost my window to buy one last month..
- David Herrington
  
  I guess if you are ok with waiting another year or 2 then you are right, but don’t expect Vive 2.0 to come out for a while until then.
  
  I myself got my Vive for $150 off on Black Friday. So it will be worth it to me to sell my Vive 1.0 when 2.0 comes out. I’m guessing I will be able to sell it for around $550 at that point in time (they are still going for $600 on Ebay right now) as there will still be high demand for VR, and I can use that money to get 2.0. Effectively letting me “rent” my Vive 1.0 for $100! XD
Sponge Bob

Eventually, there is going to be just one external base station for tracking the headset at room scale (5-10 m)

The hand-held controllers will become much smaller and they’ll be tracked by the headset itself, not by external base stations (no occlusion problem)

there is not going to be “inside-out” tracking of a headset in cheap consumer devices any time soon

mark my words
- Wishbringer
  
  No inside-out-tracking in a cheap consumer device? How amount Microsoft’s newly announced $300 VR headsets with…inside-out-tracking!
  
  http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/26/13418156/microsoft-windows-10-holographic-virtual-reality-headset-announced-price
  - Sponge Bob
    
    “announced” ?:-)
    so they announced hololens ages ago and google announced (and then denounced) google glasses…
    it depends on what you mean by “tracking”
    if you mean sub-mm precision 6DOF low-latency room-scale tracking like Vive currently does (with 2 lighthouses) then good luck waiting for your 300$ VR toy from MS…
  - Sponge Bob
    
    This MS dude is just b.shitting clueless public
    
    The picture shows tethered HMD which feeds sensor data for inside-out tracking (a LOT of data from all on-board cameras) in real-time for processing by main computer and gets rendered data for VR display from the same computer
    They say 299$ for what ?
    For dumb HMD with display, lenses and sensors (cameras) and no processing power ?
    I think that’s about what Rift or Vive HMD would cost if equipped with a few cameras instead of shitload of LEDs or IR diodes.
    The laptop itself would be like 2000$ to be able to process all that shitload of data in real time
    The tracking accuracy is most likely severely degraded compared to Vive (MS provides no figures, of course :-)
    and the wire is still there…
    
    This is marketing BS from MS
    - beestee
      
      You have seen the min spec for these $300 headsets, no?
      
      Daydeream and GearVR already do pretty good mobile, untethered tracking WITHOUT inside-out computer vision.
      - Sponge Bob
        
        Tell me how Daydream and GearVR “already do pretty good mobile untethered tracking without inside-out computer vision (which they can’t do anyway – no cameras and no processing power too) if all they have inside is accelerometer, magnetometer and a gyro ?
        
        You are confusing rotational tracking with XYZ positional tracking
        
        Otherwise there would be no need for add-on devices like that:
        
        http://vrtracker.xyz/
      - beestee
        
        Okay…Daydream and GearVR already do pretty good rotational tracking WITHOUT inside-out computer vision.
        
        That leaves the inside-out tracking with less burden in the overall tracking equation. Fidelity of the inside-out tracking data does not have to be perfect as if it were the only source of tracking info available.
        
        It very well may end up being little more than a novelty, or toy as you said, but it is still a milestone in the VR timeline.
      - Sponge Bob
        
        I’m not a computer vision guy but me thinks that inside-out rotational tracking (with or without cameras) is nothing compared to the difficulty of inside-out xyz positional tracking
        
        You can ask John Carmack or whoever
TonyVT SkarredGhost

Good to know. This, combined with cost reduction of the headset due to new sensors will help adoption of VR
OgreTactics

How about NO. Lighthouses are the main reason why we couldn’t sell any Vive project to anyone, although Oculus (and mainly GearVR) experiences slide like butter.

The momentum interest for VR is waning down and this christmas may be one if it’s last peak before the vast majority of consumer start concluding “I have one but I got bored because of limited use and quality of content” or for the majority “looks like a cool video game gadget but I don’t need it”.
–
All the technology for 1: 4k+ Res / 140°+ Fov and Headband design – 2: Wireless WiGig/AV1-like streaming – 3: External Depth/Tracking sensors…exist, are available and are now mobile, affordable and yieldable.

in fact they all showed their prototype for wireless streaming, both Vive and Oculus, and there are many wireless modules (not just the Quark VR) and softwares, so I hope it’s a given that Gen 2 at least is untethered and wireless. But still not having the single component package that does both environment see-through, and so AR which is probably a bigger drive than VR towards usability, experimentations, development, experiences or apps, but also head/motion tracking and hand tracking, is baffling since NO virtual headset is complete as a consumer device or makes sense without it.
–
Kind of like if the iPhone was released to compete with Palm but had no wide screen, no network capabilities, no tactile screen interface and no camera. Except there are now 3 billions smartphones out there just because the iPhone was a fully complete and “perfect” product as it was released, in fact what a smartphone is today is still the same thing the very first iPhone was: a pocket-sized flat slate with a wide tactile screen to a computing interface that is fully wirelessly connected and does everything prior portable devices (calculator, walkman/ipod, compact camera, cell phone, palm) did.

Today, there is not ONE true Virtual Headset as it’s supposed to be yet, and that is the main overarching element that will determine if VR is a temporary fad, no matter what the kool-aid injected amateurs eyes see, or if it really is the start of the consumer market and global adoption of Virtual Devices as our main visual and interactional interface (rather than screens and controllers like keyboard, mouse, pads etc..)
- Sponge Bob
  
  “…although Oculus (and mainly GearVR) experiences slide like butter”
  
  As far as I remember until recently Rift “experience” was just sitting or standing mostly 360 viewing experience: they didn’t even have proper controllers
  And Gear VR has no positional tracking at all
  Vive was a walking VR experience from the beginning (walking around until you get caught in all those wires and fall :-)
- Dave
  
  Sounds like a statement made from a person who hasn’t experienced VR. The positives of VR far outweight the negatives of VR and while I might have agreed with you regarding the uptake of VR with expensively priced technology – the fact a decent VR headset has been released on the PS4 for me is a game changer and the more and more positive videos like the one I saw recently on the Frostbite Battlefront Star Wars VR experience we see the more this will be accepted into the community. Make no mistake VR is here to stay this time.
  - OgreTactics
    
    Sounds like a statement made from someone who just barely experienced VR. I’ve been doing so for the past 3 years, and unfortunately this is the statement that come after experimenting and pondering for a while.
    
    Also, given that work in a digital agency, meaning I have to budget, conceive or sell these experiences, I have a raw return from real-world business, brand or investor situation who would rather have a simple Gear-VR experience that just work and is accessible to any of the 2 millions who have one, than a Vive mess and I agree with them.
    
    “Make no mistake VR is here to stay this time.”
    
    Usually I would have to argue, again this is the statement from someone who just discovered the amazement of VR, but here is the crude market, consumer and technology adoption reality from Digitimes: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20161205PD204.html
    - Dave
      
      Thanks Augure, thats a very strong reply. I could try and argue that and would fail miserable LOL! You make some excellent points and yes I have only had my Oculus for a few weeks but my use has been pretty solid.
      
      However might I suggest that the wonder of VR still surrounds my comments while you have been invested in what is still an early adoption technology for a very long time. It’s no suprise at all the way you replied in that case.
      
      I see a similar pattern with the Star Citizen community, those who have stuck with the project for years, some are now wanting more return more reward for there investment, while others with more recent experience are still joyful at the experience.
      
      I can’t make VR technology speed up nor can I wipe your memory back to the day you first tried VR. All I can do is speak from my own experience and for me VR reaches senses and gives me experiences like never before in gaming and it’s amazing the amount of varied experiences one can have in a 3d world. I don’t believe VR will disapear this time because I don’t want it too and that’s probably the real reason why I said my first message.
      
      Thankyou for responding and I wish you the best of luck pushing VR forward, as a fellow VR adoptor that’s something I really appreciate.
      - OgreTactics
        
        Thanks for your answer. Well although Star Citizen is a media (video game) that isn’t dependant on paradigm shit market adoption, it’s still dependant on momentum interest: Star Citizen was slated for 2016 from the beginning of the campaign, and of course it’ll miss the spot.
        
        It’s okay as long as people are invested, but eventually there is so much people can do or will be willing to wait for an actual game to be released.
        
        VR is in more in a hurry than that: it’s a new technological paradigm, and new kind of critical consumer market, which means that people won’t settle eternally or too long for a device that they can’t yet put beside their other already proven devices (smartphones, laptops, screens etc…), can’t use casually or seriously because it doesn’t do anything substantial or in the way that makes sense, and doesn’t have content which is dependant on that.
        
        But, If I project myself advisably meaning that people in tech firm are as reactive and rational as they obviously should be, meaning that in 2017 they stop their pretend bullshit and actual release virtual headset as they’re supposed to be, then it’ll only go upward. Problem is we’re there yet, in fact it’s been 3 years since VR headset have been around and people are aware of it, but they won’t wait way longer.