PlayStation Creator Ken Kutaragi Thinks VR Headsets are 'Annoying'

gamerant.com:

Formed in 2012 and purchased by social media mega-corporation Facebook in 2014, Oculus and its various headsets represented a major leap forward in VR technology developed for personal use. Facebook would further innovate on the technology with the release of the Oculus Quest 2 in 2020, and, the following year, it would revolutionize their use by way of the Metaverse. Ken Kutaragi, the man most responsible for getting Sony into the video game business, doesn’t seem to think VR headsets are here to stay, however.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Kutaragi highlights the importance of real-world connections and pontificates on the longevity of products that jeopardize them. Facebook’s Metaverse—something around which the company recently rebranded—as Kutaragi puts it, is all about placing users in a “quasi-virtual world” in which they are simplified avatars of themselves. Though they may be still connected to names and faces which have meaning in the material world, there’s a disconnect between that and the virtual reality space. Kutaragi compares it to the anonymity afforded to users of internet chat rooms decades ago.

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Kutaragi continues by lamenting the isolation headsets more or less necessitate. Current VR technology and Facebook’s implementation of it may feign a sense of social interaction, but they can only emulate a world of which the user isn’t necessarily an active part. Kutaragi seems to adopt a moral stance against the practice, saying that he “can’t agree with that,” and further adding that he finds VR headsets to be annoying—a sentiment echoed by Niantic's founder in August of 2021.

That said, Kutaragi isn’t exactly an impartial party; he