You figure being the year 2012 and all we would have flying cars and cyborgs. Well it looks like the future we all dreamed about after watching too much Ghost in the Shell is coming sooner than you think. At E3 2012 John Carmack unveiled a Virtual Reality headset that had Doom 3 BFG Edition available for play. At its current stage it is not capable of being integrated with a newer PC game. After trying it out David Boddington of PC Gamer said "The level of immersion was unlike any other gaming experience I’ve ever had, and that bodes well for the future if Carmack or someone else can take the tech to the next level.”
Carmack reinforces this with ". . . somebody big is going to turn this into a real product in the coming years.” So it should only be a matter of time before we see this peripheral available for current gen PC games. Like a PC, improvements aren't restricted to highly funded R&D treams. "For a certain part of the hacker/maker crowd, this is going to be awesomely cool to work with, because there is honest to god cutting edge research to be done on the ergonomics, the focusing adjustment, software integration with other titles. These are things that people can do in their workshop that can make a difference in the next twelve months" It would seem that Carmack welcomes anyone to try their hand at improving this gizmo.
John goes so far to say that unless someone like NASA has something better this is the best VR headset out there. This technology so far is aiming to be moderately affordable. A kit with the bare bones parts for this headset is set to run $500. If everything that John says is true you can expect the tech to evolve quickly enough to run recent games. Could this device cement the PC's position as the superior platform for this upcoming generation? Just imagine how smug us PC gamers are gonna get. "Oh don't mind me. Just playing video games using a FU*&ING VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSET."
If you are interested in picking at Carmack's brain then check out this link with a three part video discussion from the genius himself. PC Gamer They were kind enough to give us a "nuts and bolts" version of John's explanation.
