How many of you remember what the gaming ecosystem looked like in 2007? There were consoles, PC gaming, Macs were practically a no-show except for “light” games, and mobile gaming was ports of 8 bit gaming engines and evolved versions of snake.

No one cared about playing games on the phone, that’s not what they were for, they were for email (Windows CE, Blackberry), messaging, and phone calls. Nokia’s N-Gage platform notwithstanding

Fast forward to today, iOS and Android (phones) own the market that was created when the iPhone was released… that market is called “Casual Games.” There’s been no shortage of debate about how powerful the phones are, and how well they can play games, but without a doubt, nearly everyone plays games on their phones.

These games aren’t typically using the latest whiz-bang graphics, or VR, or or even team play. They’re nothing like what a “gamer” would play. They’re far to uninteresting. The gamer wants wicked refresh rates, absurd FPS, and the latest and greatest GPUs and CPUs with as much memory as possible. Add a VR headset and the requirements increase further.

The casual gamer wants to be able to enjoy themselves, play puzzle games, grow farms, checkers, peer to peer backgammon, and so on. Things that run perfectly on their mobile devices.

What’s happening today is a very similar revolution. Oculus released the Oculus go, powered by what amounts to a mobile phone’s core. They’ve stripped the non-essential software and hardware and put it in the market.

What’s different this time? The Oculus Go leverages a well tuned app store ecosystem, developed with their partners at Samsung while building Gear VR. Why does the app store matter? Says Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of iOS, iPad and iPhone marketing, in a Rolling Stone story called “Apple: How iPhone Gaming Revolutionized Video Games”

“We thought maybe we’d get 50 apps to start, but on the first day we had 500, and we thought that was an omen. But I’d be lying if I said we thought it would be as revolutionary as it would become. It’s changed the world. It’s changed the way software is written and distributed. It’s changed the gaming industry.”

Simply? Consumers want an easy button. The Oculus Go is incredibly simple, and easy. The Oculus Go is not for the “gamers” among us. It’s a very simple and elegant entry into the consumer VR space. It provides exactly the same experience that the current casual games do on iOS and Android, but in VR. You can play with friends, watch movies and TV, and of course you can do most of it in real time with friends.

Here’s a quote from a friend of mine, and new Go convert/evangelist Elie Finegold: “Got another one today for my wife so we can hang together while I’m traveling.” This comes from our first experience in Oculus Rooms. He and I spent the better part of an hour just chatting and catching up. He was so taken by it, well, you see what happened.

We’re on the edge of something great here. I hope you’ll follow along for more as it unfolds.

Previous Go stories:
New to the Oculus Go? Here are 10 apps to get you started.
Wireless consumer VR: slip it on and Go. Anywhere.

Without further ado…

1. Claro. Claro is an incredibly detailed puzzle game that uses sounds and fine motion to great a serene setting. It’s one of the best examples of what the Oculus Go platform can be. It’s not a AAA VR gaming title with blood and gore, it’s far better. It’s peaceful and makes you think.
2. Amaze 3D Videos. The Amaze team is building a platform with true 3D videos. They’re not full 360, and frankly they don’t need to be. While the Oculus Go certainly can do 360° video, and well, most people I know use it sitting down. Have you ever watched a 360° video sitting on a couch?
3. Facebook 360. There are many different type of videos within the Facebook 360 app, but I found the true 360 experiences to be the best. Specifically, watch the video with Bill Gates in Africa (and be prepared to look around in his car. It’s fascinating.).
4. Proton Pulse. One of my favorite types of games is the breakout game. In these games your job is to move a paddle across the screen to keep a ball bouncing into bricks. It’s a classic game. The goal is to clear the bricks and move to the next level. Proton Pulse takes this into VR, and changes the plane of play. You use your head to move the “paddle” and clear the bricks. There are power-ups and interesting treats as you get better at the game. This one experience solidified the value of the purchase. It’s a great example of an immersive world, straight out of 90’s scifi. It’s now been updated to use the Oculus Go controller!
5. Wonderglade. This casual game caught me by surprise. The graphics are incredibly detailed, and the app itself is constructed like a board game. It’s not a board game by any means, but it has that feel – it’s more like a launch pad. You move a character to each experience, then enter the experience. Your view turns into the game you selected, and you play away. My favorites are the putt putt game, and the basketball challenge. Neither of which are what you just imagined. At all.
6. Retarget. This is a puzzle game, with a casual “toss” game play. You toss a red ball toward glass containers, and if you shatter the wrong objects, you lose the level. It felt a lot like an Angry Birds wherein you can complete the level with grading. You can immediate try again to improve your finish. It’s very addicting, and uses the 3D space well.
7. Art Plunge. If you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to go into a painting like the Mona Lisa, now is your chance. The world inside the painting has been meticulously recreated to show action and scenes that would have surrounded the setting of the painting. You have to see this to believe it. What caught my eye more than anything though is the navigation technique. Incredibly creative… pick it up to see what it’s like.
8. Gala360. This is a very simple concept – take incredible 360° photos and show them in a slide show. The unique value here is that in some cases the artists that have taken the photos are available for hire. There are photos from all over the world. Jungles, cityscapes, rooms… everything you can imagine. It’s well worth the $3.99 to unlock all of the images. That’s a Latte from your favorite coffee shop, and it goes to the photographers that have included their works.
9. Oculus Venues. A few nights ago, Vance Joy graced the stage at Red Rocks Amphitheater and along for the ride was NextVR. This particular experience gave you several views of the venue, changing intermittently as you chat with your seat mates. If you choose to, you’ll have up to four seat mates, with the full ability to chat. If you turn and look around, you’ll be surrounded by other people wearing the Oculus Go or Gear VR. The Facebook details of your seat mates play a role in who you’re seated next to. It’s incredibly helpful to see what things you have in common (friends, groups, etc.) before engaging in conversation. The content is still evolving, but I can’t recommend it enough. Social VR is the future, and Venues does a great job of showing us how and why.
10. Along Together. I’ll be completely frank, I haven’t purchased this one… yet. It’s two to three times as much as the average title in the Go store, but based on the reviews it’s worth every penny. Out of 37 reviews, 92% are 5 stars, the rest are four stars. Right, nothing below four stars. It’s billed as a VR platformer with problem solving and puzzles that will keep you entertained for hours. It certainly is nice to look at, and showcases what’s possible when experiences leverage the available hardware.

Of course there’s always Oculus Rooms (social game play, like checkers, boggle, etc.) with fellow Oculus Go users, Netflix, Hulu, the web browser (YouTube, gmail, Flipboard, Reddit, etc.) and other things you’ll find entertaining. Look at the reviews of the things I posted above, and view similar things. Also, be sure to keep up with the What’s New section. Find and join the Facebook Oculus Go groups (here, here), and the Reddit dedicated to the device.

If you haven’t yet picked up the go, here’s a link to Amazon. Yes, it’s an affiliate link, so I will earn either $1.99 or $2.49 if you buy the Oculus Go with that link. If you do, thank you!

The 65 inch range is great, and, in fact is what we have in the living room. Ours is 8 years old, plasma, and weighs about as much as a full barge on the Mississippi, but I digress. The size of the TV is a great match for the room.

Today’s consumers demand larger, higher resolution screens, to replicate the 100+ year old movie going experience. Thinner, lighter, and with internet connectivity and apps. You want all of the latest apps: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and it would be idea to have a complete operating system for the ultimate in expandability. Content is king.

But a change is coming. I’m not talking 3DTV, or the gimmicky curved screen tech of the past few years. Those are just micro iterations on the same old technology. I’m talking about something as big as the jump from VHS to 4k just in time streaming through Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube.

What if the best screen for the single person’s living room of the very, very near future was just 10% of the size of today’s best selling TVs?

Wait. Ten percent? 6.5 inches?

Let me introduce the living room of the future. Today’s TVs have a viewing angle of 30° to 40° based on how far away the screen is from the viewer. The living room of the future will feature 120° angles or more. That’s right, you’ll be able to use your peripheral vision to see content! It’ll feel so close, you’ll want to reach out and touch it.

But that’s not where the fun ends. It’s where it begins. Today’s audio systems are spatial – a popular setup is to have 7 speakers, and one subwoofer. This is known as 7.1 surround sound. In the future, you’ll just want to keep the subwoofer – it’s the speaker that delivers the real punch, the lows, the sounds that shake things. A “Bass Shaker” will easily suffice in lieu of a subwoofer.

So what’s this crazy future? A massive improvement in viewing angle, and just one speaker? Instead of one giant screen, I predict that it will be two ultra high resolution 6 inch screens, just inches from your retina. Content will be delivered in streams thanks to the proliferation of 100 to 300 megabit internet connections, viewable in a full 360 degrees, or rendered on the device itself. Audio will be delivered directly to your ears with the lows coming from the one remaining speaker.

People all over the globe are already living in a similar future. The future where the perfect TV for the living room is no TV at all, actually. It’s a PC, driving a Virtual Reality headset, with great headphones.

You see, in the future, entertainment will no longer be about size and simulated immersion. It will be about actual immersion, and that takes no space at all.