That was a really interesting panel.
Short (bad) summary:
- A lot of talk about the relationship between VR and AR, the idea is that to get good AR you need to solve all the problems of VR and then additional ones on top of that. So VR is actually ready sooner.
- Discussion about why this hasn't happened 5 years ago, and why large electronics and existing VR companies didn't try to tackle the problem. The usual candidates are risk tradeoff, target audience questions, and incompatibility with existing business models.
- Palmer reiterated the point that you shouldn't see the kickstarter units as a final consumer product, with the expectations that go along with that. The goal is to get units into developers' hands.
- No support for glasses. The distance required for glasses makes them incompatible with the goal of providing a large FoV. People with moderate nearsightedness should be fine simply without glasses, for others the only readily available solution for the prototype unit are contact lenses.
- Input devices were also discussed, and the conclusion was that, while it's possible to combine VR with existing input methods and work well, it should also be possible to do better than that. All the participants are skeptical that any technology will be able to realistically encompass full body movement anytime soon.
- In terms of game support, both Abrash and Carmack tried VR with game types other than FPS, and they both agree that it's great for almost anything that uses a 3D camera, including third person and god games.
There was a lot more interesting stuff, but that's what was most relevant to the Rift.