John Carmack was on The Joe Rogan Experience recently and he had some interesting comments about virtual reality. It comes as no surprise that the avid Quake fan Joe Rogan would talk to Mr. Carmack about video games right from the outset, but the response that he received revealed a surprising belief from one of the creators of modern first-person shooters: he thinks that VR is going to eventually kill all other screen-based devices.
“In the end, VR should be a replacement for anything you do on screens today,” John Carmack began in the opening minutes of his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. “Whether it’s your phone, your tablet, your TV, your laptop. your PC — all of these should eventually be superceded by just having more flexible screens in VR.”
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“We have lots of challenges now with resolution and comfort for long-term use, but this is the direction that everything’s going,” he continued. “Not only do you have things in VR that you couldn’t do anywhere else — just experiences that you can’t have with that level of immersion — but it should pull along every other thing that people do with screens [and] devices today.”
John Carmack’s statement came after he noted a surprising fact about the Oculus Rift devices: quite a few people used them for things other than games. Netflix was highlighted as a particular example, and it certainly makes sense — it is, after all, ultimately a screen that attaches to your face.
While some might be skeptical of the future popularity of VR, Mr. Carmack noted that it’s an appealing choice for people who live in places where space is at a premium. It’s particularly caught on in Japan, a place where some people’s apartments are overall smaller than one or two rooms in a modern American home.
Will VR kill televisions and other gaming systems? It might and it might not, but one thing is certain: the increasing resolution and lowering prices are going to make it a much more appealing choice in the coming years. You can see John Carmack on The Joe Rogan Experience below.
