John Carmack, the Chief Technical Officer over Oculus, was recently on the Joe Rogan Podcast. The Joe Rogan Podcast is one of the most popular in the world, with millions of listeners daily and millions of subscribers on each platform the podcast is on. John Carmack was invited by Rogan to be interviewed on this podcast about virtual reality, how it can change our lives today, what the future holds, and even touching on social media.
Although there was a lot of information and insight given by Carmack in this 2.5 hour interview, we are going to touch on what he said in regards to virtual reality and HMD’s being more accessible.
When Rogan asked Carmack if he had a vision for virtual reality and the direction of Oculus, Carmack really took a stand on this subject. The first point he brings up is how the entire world isn’t fair. He says that “I’ve said that my pitch for VR is that the promise of Vr is to make the world as you want it. Where it is not possible on earth to be able to give everybody all that they would want. Not everybody can have Richard Bransons private island, there just not enough private amount of islands in the world to give to them to people.”
This is very telling on what his plan is for virtual reality. It isn’t to immerse people in a world where they can’t tell the difference between the real and the fake, but rather give them something that they are unable to see or hear in real life. He went on to say that “even on a much more mundane level, not everyone can have a mansion of a house, not everyone can even necessarily gave a home theater room. There are things that we some things we can simulate to some degree in virtual reality”
It is clear through these quotes what Carmack’s objective is for virtual reality. Now if you are wondering how this is going to be possible, Carmack has a few ideas. He knows that people that are more well off than others won’t necessarily need a VR headset, it still can add convenience. As for people that don’t have their own mansions and private islands, virtual reality is built for them.
Carmack later in the interview says that “Moore’s Law may be crapping out in terms of absolute performance, but we’ve still got a lot of price performances that we can drive out of these things. We can have virtual reality devices that can get cheap enough that lots and lots of people will be able to have these and we can make better and better software and it can be a better world in many ways.”
Now we don’t believe that he is saying the real world will essentially be better, but the pain of living in a real world will not be as bad, especially when you have a virtual reality headset you can fall back on in times of needing relaxation. If you haven’t ever used a virtual reality headset, especially one from Oculus, then you don’t know the relaxation and fun it can provide on a day to day basis.
Oculus is the best at what they do, and knowing Carmack has a solid plan in place for the future is exciting. Virtual reality isn’t meant to drown out your life, just enhance it. Oculus and Carmack know what they are doing, and this only adds to the excitement of the Oculus Connect event coming up at the end of September.
