I disagree with you. That trailer makes it a lot more appealing to a broader audience.
It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and Wii.
Even if they can sell VR as a fully immersive experience, I doubt that would be something that drives more sales than a bunch of people smiling after they've experience what the headset offers.
If Meta wants this thing to be big, they can't just capture people that want fully immersive experiences.
If that was the intent, I think they failed miserably. Nothing in that trailer looked even a fraction as fun or high quality as a Nintendo experience. In fact it just reaffirmed why I'd much rather play Mario or Zelda on Switch for a fraction of the price.
> In fact it just reaffirmed why I'd much rather play Mario or Zelda on Switch for a fraction of the price
No debate from me the Nintendo games are vastly better and I'd take a Switch before a Quest almost any day of the year, but I think it's important to point out pricing is closer than your comment indicates - an OLED switch is 349, a quest 2 is 399 in the US and still competitive as a headset if you are looking for one. Obviously there is also the non-OLED switch, but I think point remains they aren't miles apart in pricing.
> It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and Wii.
Nintendo doesn't make fully immersive games. They make fun games with often cartoon graphics and logic.
Which happens to be how people play "immersive" games anyway. The number of glitched GTA5 videos I've seen proves that its not really about immersion as much as it is about seeing if the physics engine of GTA5 can handle a car hopping across the skyscrapers or not.
Nintendo's entire pitch is: "Here's something we found fun", and it works. Because its not very clear that anyone else is focusing on ya know, fun things.
You are using a very narrow definition of "immersive" here - personally I don't think graphical realism is necessary to provide immersive experiences. Sure it can help, but its a very shallow way to think about gaming broadly.
People spend literally weeks of game time deeply immersed in both of the Zelda titles, as the obvious example.
I'm talking about shoving fire breathing blocks together with fans in the most recent Zelda game (so that you can build your own flying tank or platform). Its designed for fun and play, not immersion.
If anything, VR's issue is that instead of trying to be fun, they're trying to be immersive. No. You know why Beat Saber is one of the best games on VR? Because its fun.
I don't think the Beat Saber blocks realistically represent anything. The scoring system is pretty arbitrary (wider swings for more points as opposed to timing), etc. etc. But it works and is fun. That's the important bit.
Considering the dozens of billions of USD already spent, instead of playing half-way, Facebook could have considered to have a fully immersive experience by choosing the same path as Neuralink; connecting directly within the brain, or in some areas nearby (like one company that Neuralink allegedly tried to purchase).
If it is possible to read your mind, then it will be possible to inject game and ads at some point.
Facebook could open a gigantic business model: "we are directly in the brain of our users, our users are happy and are connected to the Matrix (Meta), you will not find better ad placement than here".
You aren’t thinking deeply enough if you think ads is what they'd do. Electrically connected chips can just zap the pleasure center, conditioning you to a level beyond the word brainwashing.
I think people talk too much about AI apocalypse and too little about neuralink. Neuralink will be the death of humanity in principle, eviscerating whatever hopes of freewill we hoped we had.
Imagine your employer programming the chip to give you pleasure when you work. Imagine autocratic nations implanting it into every newborn, and algorithmically controlling the nation’s thoughts —- leaving propaganda as a laughable, feeble relic of the past.
The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.
On an infinite time scale, I think this comment will not age well, personally. Who knows if it will be Neuralink, but some kind of widely used brain interface seems inevitable to me now.
Who is to say subsequent versions will require anything like the invasive procedures we see today - pacemakers can be installed with keyhole surgery now and so forth, compared to the giant things we put in people in the 50s. People regularly get wireless subcutaneous glucose meters that pair with their phones or insulin pumps installed for diabetes too, the threshold of installing tech in bodies has already been crossed really.
>Neuralink is a thing that will never achieve any sort of mass-market appeal, though, so I'm not nervous.
The only way I see it happening is if not having it becomes a significant competitive disadvantage in the workplace. If it could also stimulate parts of the pleasure center, perhaps that too.
If we reach a point where having brain surgery in order to avoid a competitive disadvantage in the workplace is a common thing, then I really do need to stop and get off of this planet. Things are already dystopic enough as it is.
It gave me strong vibes of Nintendo's ads for the Switch and Wii.
Even if they can sell VR as a fully immersive experience, I doubt that would be something that drives more sales than a bunch of people smiling after they've experience what the headset offers.
If Meta wants this thing to be big, they can't just capture people that want fully immersive experiences.