Bethesda’s Todd Howard Sides With VR Over AR

VR has not really been adopted by the masses and the first wave of VR was pretty expensive to adopt. If you talk about VR for PC then you need a $500 headset and around $500 PC that is capable of running games on the headset. That is not something that everyone can afford. Bethesda’s Todd Howard talked about VR and AR and it seems that he still has hope for the technology and maybe we should have too. The following is what he had to say:

“I’m a little more VR than AR. We did Fallout and Skyrim in VR. We’re just about to enter the second generation of VR. Historically, the third generation is where it starts to become popular.”

VR has not been as popular as we all expected and the main reason is the barrier to entry and that is the price. The PSVR offered a cheaper alternative but does not match the quality that PC headsets have to offer. Bethesda is not new to VR and has released games in VR in the past. It seems that the third generation of VR might be where the technology becomes mainstream. It the technology does become cheaper then more people will adopt it, there is no doubt about that. Todd Howard further went on to mention the following:

 “The idea is to keep being ambitious. Playing it safe is the worst way to do things. Morrowind was hard. It was our first time on console. If it didn’t do well, the company was probably out of business. Oblivion was really difficult. We really pushed the tech. I liked that line in the movie Shakespeare in Love: How is this going to work out? I don’t know, but it always does.”

While it is pleasing to know that notable people in the gaming industry still have faith in the future and growth of VR, I do not see it. But then again Todd Howard is a person on great stature in the gaming industry and knows more than I do. It should be interesting to see what the future holds for VR.