I have read for years that "augmented reality" is the next big thing, but like most next big things, it isn't changing the world. But as far as gaming, is there much need or use for Oculus, Hololens, etc.? I might have missed a bit of news or I might be living in a cave, so please indulge my ignorance. Thanks

google tried 'augmented reality' and failed. also(someone correct me if im wrong) VR and augmented reality aren't really the same thing. VR is still too expensive and the tech is still in its infancy.

augmented reality doesn't require u have to be so close to the lens of a VR, changes the area around u from the device with a screen to view by
VR, changes view around u or be in a completely different area but u have sensor to detect movement with headpiece & controllers, many people can be motion sickness & whatever else, not many great games at the moment
prices r super high still
we should already have holodeck like startrek already really, the 2thing above basically greed-in for cash

Pokemon GO can be seen as a very basic implementation of AR, concept-wise.
As for VR, for me, it will only be worthwhile once I can get a proper .hack experience. Too bad we are still decades away from that.

Thanks for the replies. I am gonna see how I can do more research on this.

The problem is nausea. Using virtual reality headsets will cause you to become nauseated if you use them for long enough. How long depends on the individual and the game in question, but if you're the sort of person who is prone to car sickness... it's not going to be a fun experience for you. There are ways to mitigate the problem, but all they do is delay the onset of nausea.

This isn't just a problem for getting users to adopt the platform; developing for a VR game is very expensive as well since you need to complete rework the visual systems of the game and implement anti-nausea optical techniques. It also increases developer costs because your developers and QA-testers can get nauseous on the job and have to take additional breaks. Particular nausea-prone employees might not even be able to work on the project at all, which is a staffing nightmare. And when the user-base is tiny to begin with, most developers are scared away from releasing anything on these VR platforms. As a result there's almost nothing in terms of games to attract in the curious, so you get a vicious cycle of "developers don't make games, so users don't buy onto the platform, which means developers really don't want to make games".

Overall it doesn't look like VR has any viable way to reach a mass-market appeal where it can enter mainstream gaming, at least not with where the tech is today.

I own an Occulus Rift, and I don't use that often. For me, the games I have most fun with are what I call the "workout games", like Beat Saber or Soundboxing. These are games where you're stationary in VR, and objects are coming toward you. With the games where you sit, but there's motion where the entire scenery is changing, like Skyrim VR... yeah I don't last long. The motion sickness gets to me after about 30 minutes, and if I don't put it down, I end up feeling it for the next few hours. Some of them do look pretty good in VR though. Elite Dangerous looks pretty good. Sometimes they have the headsets on demo at stores for you to try out.

I can see the VR headsets more useful for assistance with building things or teaching aides than anything else - though way too pricey. They do have one application that involves building/repairing PCs which looks interesting to try.

There is also the major issue of participating with a story in real time. The view likely has to be locked when certain events transpire in order to make sure you see what you need to see to understand the progression of the story (or figure out how to proceed), like the cutscenes in games on the computer screen.

I read in a magazine long ago how the writer of a review article of a VR project missed the important part of someone getting away (and knowing which direction they went) by being interested in the person who got hurt and was on the ground. The people who were demoing the VR story had to point that out to the article writer as it was happening, and of course they also ended up realizing they had to rethink their presentation. Hmm, I think that was probably about making a movie for VR.

It seems to me like a combination of VR equipment and AR perspective, meaning wearing glasses of sorts that allow seeing reality as it is combined with augmentation, would eliminate any issues with nausea. Much like as is described in The Caryatids (2009) by Bruce Sterling. So instead of replacing all of reality, just put additions into the view. Likely very difficult to do convincingly when allowing reality to overlap the additions. Overlapping of reality on top of an addition (better term anyone?) is something I've yet to see with AR. It's usually reality on the bottom, like on a real world table top.

VR is Puerile garbage I have a VR headset and my phone BUT my phone has VR drifting Pretty bad and because It's a ULEPHONE it can't be fixed NOTHING works to fix it NOT A THING

And it's ANNOYING to try and twist my body around to get a perfect view then yep starts drifting all over the place.