Here's my predictions:

In 2017, Virtual Reality gaming is pretty mainstream. Still, a lot of people still play off-VR, because they prefer more casual controlled gaming instead of that all-dominating VR experience. Some Gamers are directly hostile toward VR-gaming, and argues that off-VR is the only way to play.

The resolution in VR helmets has evolved, so that old "screen door effect" is now tinted with the same nostalgia as pixelart.

A few indie retro games picks up that old virtual reality cyberspace trope. A recursive gimmick where the player can pick up a VR helmet inside the VR-game.

VR porn and VR cam girls are no longer news. It is now so old hat that various TV-shows picks it up.

A few intellectuals are looking into what effect VR have on the human mind, and they make some really thought provoking discoveries. But they are mostly ignored.

What says you?

You're alive? You disappeared after the drunk thread...

And no, considering the costs required for VR i don't see as a mainstream system. I know that there will be a country where VR will be very popular due to VR "porn" though...

I guess it depends on what you personally define as "mainstream". If you mean "available for purchase to anyone", then yes it will be mainstream. However if you mean "owned by any appreciable dent of the entire cross section of gamers" then I'd have to disagree with that being likely for several reasons.

1) The cost of the Oculus Rift is set at $599 USD / $849 CAD which is far more expensive than the average gamer would be willing to spend, and that is if that is all they had to do to get VR... but it isn't.

2) The overwhelming massive majority of gamers out there do not have a computer that is powerful enough to handle the Rift/Vive as per the publicly released specifications with high resolution at 90Hz refresh rate, using the Steam hardware statistics as the premise I'm basing this on where the average gamer computer is about 5000 years old. Most gamers will need to buy a new PC if they haven't upgraded to something modern and beefy in the last 3 years or so.

3) With the high resolution and refresh rate of the VR headsets, it practically guarantees that anyone that wants to use VR will need to buy at least one if not two high end GPUs at a cost of $500-800 or more to even consider it. Steam's hardware stats show that only about 1% of gamers have such hardware.

So to get into the VR ballgame, the cash outlay for the majority of gamers is going to realistically be $1200-2000 or more depending on what all components they need to upgrade, and the majority of gamers simply do not have such hardware according to Steam's rather reliable hardware statistics.

I'm a big fan of the new VR hardware and the experiences it could bring us, but there's no chance in hell I'd consider spending $850 CAD for a Rift, and another $600+ for a new GPU etc. and I dont think the majority of gamers are likely to either.

Thus my prediction is that VR is something that is talked about by the many, but owned and used by the extreme few 1%ers that can afford it and are willing to spend the money. It's going to remain a very very niche thing until the price comes down to $300 or so, and people have computers and GPUs that are capable to handle it. So yeah, basically about 20 years from now.

Both fascinated by the new VR hardware and greatly disappointed that it wont be likely to catch on by any big amount, and quite frankly I don't think game developers as a whole will throw too many resources into designing and debugging special VR support for their games just for 1% or less of their potential customers.

Sadly, I don't think the porn uptake will change the game appreciably either.

Having said that, I hope you're right and I'm totally way off the mark.

This is the time when "consoles come to the rescue" (again) to make this kind of things affordable. Don't forget that owning a PS4 is the first step for affording a mainstream device for VR. All you need is to add a PS Camera + a PS Move Controller + Sony's VR Headset and you are ready to go. It might be a more affordable thing on the next console generation (if that's their way to go) so that 20 years won't be necessary as you might have predicted.

REDVWIN

I think it'll still be (very) niche in 2017, we'll see.

You mean just like 3D gaming became the next big thing with the PS3? =P

No. Just like how the ATARI 2600 and more noticeably the FAMICOM / NES made gaming affordable to many. ;)

Ah... and 3D gaming became the next thing with both the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation (special mention goes to 3D controls courtesy of Nintendo 64's Super Mario 64). :D

REDVWIN

You should move your "predictions" to 2020.
Until its price won't drop by more than half, VR won't become mainstream.
Even the GPUs for it are still way too expensive.
Anyway, porn and hentai will be quite a strong push, lol. (pun unintentional)

I foresee lots of first-person porn games.

I think when VR finally catches on will be when I give up gaming and get off the tech bus. Can't do it. I can't be a lab rat with some goofy looking Geordie La Forge space visor over my head, obstructing my peripheral vision and inducing crippling headaches from the constant bombardment of MKUltra laser beam signals going into my brain. F that for a bag of chips.

I still say it's a fad that will never quite catch on, it's pointless and silly and it will go the way of motion controllers. And it's not just my dislike of change, it's just not practical, and it's only applicable to a very limited type of games, and even for those it's not really practical.

If that's true then the tech delivery will fail, but the concept will continue. The ultimate goal is permanent human cybernetics. If you think it's really about porn and video games, you're believing the hype.

When you know that those that sold us on augmented reality are also big fans of the singularity and transhumanism, the issue becomes pretty clear what's going on. There's some wackos in the world that think that they can become God with the help of AI. Suddenly the Terminator movies don't seem like such fan fiction.

Well, the consoles will have their own VR solutions I'm sure but they aren't going to be of the capability of the Rift or Vive that's for sure because existing console hardware is way below the specs of what the current consoles are capable of pushing out. They struggle to do FHD at 30FPS let alone higher resolutions at 90FPS which is what the Rift/Vive require. I'm sure for the existing console gamers out there, the low end VR hardware that ends up being sold for the consoles will spark interest in VR as a tech and that's a good thing, but it isn't going to have much effect on the world outside of consoles I don't believe.

Consoles are popular and for those that appeal to them that may be a lightweight solution in the mean time, but the full VR experience that a PC gamer such myself desires isn't going to be met by any console any time soon, especially when reasonably current high end PCs are going to struggle a bit with it from the looks of it. I've spoken to numerous gamer friends about the current state of VR in general as well as the more exciting products like the Rift and Vive, and right now everyone I talk to feels the same way about it. We're all PC gamers for the most part although a few do have a console or two. None of us are willing to spend the money being asked for on the Rift, nor for the necessary PC upgrades. For the ones that have consoles already, I'm not sure how they'd embrace a VR solution for consoles, but I know none of us that are PC gamers would go buy a console, console games and everything else you'd need to buy just to experience VR on a console. The money put into that could be put into just upgrading our PCs to run the Rift and have a much more amazing experience.

There's no right or wrong decision other than what motivates the individual, but I can't see VR really taking off on anything for at least 2 years until the cost of things comes down and the quality of the solutions is there. There is no way the console VR solutions will provide what the Rift/Vive are aiming for. Many VR solutions have existed in the past and come and gone because they just didn't solve all of the critical problems well. The Rift/Vive aim to finally do that. Some cheap solution that mounts your iPhone to your head is never going to compete with that, not to mention you have to own some $600-900 iPhone or Android phone or whatever to use that. Sure many people already own such devices, but I certainly don't. Doesn't seem interesting to me at all. :)

I'll wait 2+ years for the real deal to happen, but it's a bummer it's going to take a while for it to materialize. ;/

My prediction, in 2017 I will be a year older.

Because there doesn't seem to be any standard and for now there will simply be a few available hardware solutions (namely, Rift, Vive, and Sony's stuff), no big distributor or developer will spend a truck of money on developing (and testing) an AAA game on all three of them. It's like it would be a three new hardware platforms to release a game on. That's simply too much a cost and hassle. I think that EA , Ubi, Activision and other big players will just wait and see how it goes. Others will have to take risks first - probably some projects sponsored by Facebook, Valve and Sony. But this will take time and it's hard to predict if they will succeed enough.

As I see it, VR will never go "mainstream". And the reason will be not as much about technical solutions , but about comfort. First, wearing a VR helmet is somewhat troublesome (I tried Rift DK1 and I was instantly getting very hot in it) and second, I see no way it could become popular for families. VR is for individuals - one person can enjoy at a time, unlike a TV-set, audio-set, even a dance mat or kinect can be good for parties and people can see how others perform. But VR? One person at a time, others can't take part in the fun, at least not in current implementation