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The future is here. |
Ever since the beginning of the modern technological age we have dreamed of machines that could transport us to lands beyond our imagination; virtual reality. While the closest thing to VR at the time were giant simulators used purely for such things as pilot training, the concept began to pick up steam in the 80's and in the 90's, fully fledged VR gaming platforms began to emerge but their popularity was short lived. The technology was expensive, not many existing platforms supported it, and most of them just weren't very good. There was a lot of snake oil involved with marketing VR in the 90's and a lot of it contributed to the sheer amount of disappointment that revolved around heavily marketed VR systems. The Virtual Boy for example was heavily marketed and proved to be a colossal turd, selling only around 350 thousand units out of it's projected 3 million. Between bad hardware and ones that were solid but either too big for home use or too expensive for the average consumer, VR failed in the 90's and died with the coming of the new millennium. The idea was still there, but nobody really wanted to dive back into something that already failed. The 2010's however saw a resurgence in the interest of VR and with the great advances in technology over the past decade, VR began to make a whole lot of noise once again. After nearly five years of development, one of the companies that helped fuel a renewed interest in VR finally released it's product. This is the Oculus Rift, virtual reality for the new generation.