Well, that made the headlines.
Money and roadmap wise, it makes sense. For so many other reasons, it’s super weird. Worrisome? We can only speculate.
Classic game developer paradox: Be angry at capitalism buying your favorite technology out but adore Nintendo, a capitalism champion. Anyway.
I’m more concerned about VR in itself, seen by a big part of the industry as the savior of the “videogame bastion”, where players get lost and forget about the real world. The Real Escapism.
To me, not including audio as part of the built-in experience is already a big design flaw (that they can now solve, thanks $$). But I have a bigger concern about Escapism. I think we need less of that, instead of more.
I feel like I want way more people playing on 7” to 70” tablets than having them plug VR sets. I feel like there’s still so much to do and bring to people before going nuts for something I have been dreaming of ever since the start of those helmets back in the early 90s. It’s not because I dreamed of how cool it could be that “it has to happen”. In today’s society, already battling a terrible plague of people incapable of not looking at their phones while talking to you, I think VR can wait a bit.
I want 2D. I want sharing. Collaboration, fair competition. Neat games, software, local services etc. I still want to empower people more than making them my bitch, my ultimate bitch with VR. VR is so far away in my head.
I want less excitement. I want people to chill. I want people to enjoy stuff, games, your game, my sound design, on devices that did not even exist a decade ago.
So much work to do. VR can wait.