🚀 go-pugleaf

http://www.psu.com/news/28711/Sony-recommends-90fps-at-minimum-for-best-PlayStation-VR-experience-on-PS4

Being a Playstation related article, it will seem wrong and off-topic
in this NG at first, but I think it's relevant to PC gaming and here's
why:

Consoles have enjoyed "sales superiority" over PCs for gaming over the
last 10 years or so, for a number of reasons.  Lower cost of larger HD
screens encouraged living room gaming, while lower cost of computing
hardware / GPUs pushed "good enough" consoles below the price point of
a minimalist PC.

Most televisions can plod along at a measley 60 frames per second well
enough, and as long as the game is designed to accomodate that (third
person takes a lot of the sting out of panning left and right at lower
frame rates for example, playing games with a controller encourages
slower movement such that the fluidity of higher frame rates is not
needed, sitting many feet away from the TV/monitor makes all this
easier to stomach, etc).

However, with the Oculus Rift and other VR devices, the viewing
monitor is essentially jammed up against the user's eyes.  Poor
framerates will be felt in droves as the user becomes completely
intolerant of any stutter or lack of fludity when looking around the
environment.  No more of this third person bullshit, it's first person
on steriods.

Now that framerate has become important again, guess which platform
wins?  PC, hands down.  The advantage of having a small box that looks
okay in the living room becomes a non issue once the TV is out of the
picture and you're wearing the viewport on your face -- nobody cares
about the size of the box.  This largely removes the last of the
console's advantages.  

Yes it's possible that consoles could just become "VR machines" that
are basically PCs, sit in tower cases that have decent enough airflow
and cooling to handle high-framerate hardware, with PC-like pricetags,
but then who would pay $2000 or similar for a box that can only play
games and stream movies when a PC can already do it all?

The disadvantage to PC gaming that a lot of companies (including
Valve) have been working to eliminate (the need for mouse+keyboard and
getting that requirement to play well in the living room) is a non
issue with VR -- in fact being in the living room at all becomes a non
issue since a VR headset doesn't care where you are.