Full Immersion Virtual Reality was a type of virtual reality in which the person was completely immersed in. The human brain would have no idea that what the person is experiencing was not real at all.
(Note: The background section uses most of what was written for the virtual reality page of Terra Futura to save time.)
Background[]
Console Timeline
Video games have been around since 1972. So have their consoles. The first console, the Magnavox Odyssey, came out in 1972. This and other early consoles were similar to the Pong arcade console by Atari. The video game crash of 1977 led to the introduction microprocessor-based consoles.
The dominant second generation console was the Atari 2600, originally called the Atari VCS. The entire video game industry was built on this console. Because of that, many subpar games were released for the Atari 2600, and this led to the video game crash of 1983.
The industry in North America was revitalized by the Nintendo Entertainment System from Japan. During the third generation that this console started, scrolling graphics replaced flip-screen graphics, and Japan came to dominate the videogame industry. This generation also introduced the line of hand held gaming device which would continue populatity with the younger crowd due to its cheaper costs (both for the console itself as well as the games) and portablity.
The fourth generation was marked by the competition between two Japanese consoles. They were the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Mega Drive, a.k.a. Sega Genesis. Both used 16-bit processors. Sega's console was claimed to be better than Nintendo's. Ultimately, it was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that won.
The fifth generation was dominated by three consoles. Two of them, the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, had 32-bit processors. The other, the Nintendo 64, was named for the fact that it had 64-bit processors. Among the three consoles, the one on top was the Sony PlayStation. Some argue that the reason for it's popularity and the popularity of future generations is mainly due to the games available to the different consoles. At the same time, computers started to emulate earlier video game consoles with help from the Internet.
In the sixth generation, there were four consoles, known as the Sega Dreamcast, the Sony PlayStation 2, the Nintendo Game Cube, and the Microsoft Xbox. The Sony PlayStation 2 was the dominant console this time just like its predecessor. Nintendo also released the Game Boy Advanced which dominated the handheld market primarity due to non-competition.
A year after Nintendo released it's new DS line, setting the standard for handheld devices, Sony joined into the handheld comopetition with their PSP (PlayStation Portable) which boasted better graphics. The later generations of handhelds would introduce the Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita respectively with some Mobile Smart Phones and larger Tablets entering the realm of portable entertainment.
The seventh generation had three consoles: the Microsoft Xbox 360, the Sony PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. The Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii shared dominance at this time. The Wii was helped by new motion sensor technology in its remote. This generation later saw the emergence of the Playstation Move and XBox Kinect to implement their own form of motion sensing and limited voice controls.
The eighth generation was dominated at first by the Nintendo Wii U which had an early start over the Sony PlayStation 4 and the Microsoft Xbox One. As the other consoles were released, however, the Playstation 4 took the lead with a superior system and cheaper cost to the XBox One. The Nintendo Wii U had a controller that allowed for handheld videogames to be played on the same console; however, this would not drive handheld consoles, such as Nintendo's own Game Boy and DS lines into obsolescence. The Nintendo 3DS in fact saw a resurgence in handheld consoles due to it's non-glasses 3 Dimentional technologies.
During this time it is noteable to acknowledge that PC gaming had evolved in its own right with new genres of gaming such as MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), RTS (Real-Time Strategy), MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and many games would be available for multiple consoles as well as the PC. Services like Steam, in fact, try to blur the lines between console gaming and PC gaming.
The ninth generation saw the incorporation of virtual reality into video games; as well as other mediums. This VR generation was crowd funded by a new indie developer, Oculus VR, with their head mounted display device, Rift. Sony quickly followed suit with their own heads up display called Project Morpheus. This eventually made video games the dominant form of entertainment.
Virtual Reality was not a new concept by the time ninth generation consoles. But this was time virtual reality became commonplace. As video game consoles already incorporated haptic technology, virtual reality benefited. This made virtual reality more immersive. People were using virtual reality to connect. With virtual reality combined with downloading video games from the Internet, people could play video games with someone they did not know at first. Tenth generation consoles went even farther by incorporating virtual retinal displays which took the video game out of the television and into the lens. Implantable brain-computer interfaces would lead to full immersion virtual reality and render consoles obsolete. It was then that virtual reality video games became the dominant form of entertainment.
Full Immersion via Nanobots[]
Tech Level: 11
Thanks to Moore's Law, computers were now small enough to be implanted into the brain. At the same time, advances in neuroscience allowed for people to become fully immersed in virtual reality. By 2039, this was successfully tested in a human. This technology subsequently was released to the public. This was a revolution in entertainment. Instead of using console and a screen to play video games, a person could now experience a video game from within his or her own nervous system. When a person wanted to play a video game in his or her brain, the nanobots would suppress the inputs from real senses replace them with signals that would correspond to the virtual world. When a person wanted to move his or her limbs in the virtual world, the nanobots would keep their real limbs from moving and make their virtual limbs move instead. This also revolutionized other areas. The most notable were business and tourism. The majority of people still preferred to see the real thing, but if they could not make to a conference or if they could not afford a vacation, they would just go into a virtual world. When a person was finished in virtual reality, the nanobots detached, and the person was back in the real world. A virtual world could look like an anime cartoon or something live-action. The person did not have to have the same appearance or even voice in a virtual world as he or she did in the real world. In a virtual world, a person could even have supernatural abilities. Or he or she could meet someone who was long dead like Marilyn Monroe or live in a fairy tale. However, the nanobots were not just being used for full immersion virtual reality. They were also being used in general-purpose computing.
Full Immersion via Headset[]
Tech Level: 11
With the advancements made in EEG technology combined with the advances in neuroscience and the mapping of the human brain and its neural pathways, we were able to create a headset that could read and alter neural signals to and from the human brain.
Some pioneers in the area were the Emotiv Insight which allowed for broad general emotional readings and improved from there. Also, the research done by those creating prosthetic attachments and controlled via the nervous system helped advance the knowledge of how the human mind could interface with technology.
Once the headset (similar to the fictional NerveGear or AmuSphere), which had undergone extreme safety testing due to human fear and concerns, was finally ready for the general consumer, there was no stopping it's momentum and domination of the worlds source of entertainment and even social interactions.
The capability to be safe and comfortable at home and simply put on a headset to go to work, the movies, school, another country or even another universe changed how humans interacted with the world on an amazing scale.
The video game industry would be the first to adopt this technology; creating new worlds to explore and allowing people to become something they weren't in real life. It allowed people to explore themselves outside of their bodies. People could gender-switch and even alter their race/species without having to undergo any real-world cost or danger of surgery. People could chose the world they inhabited whether it was Ancient Japan, High Fantasy Magical Kingdoms, or Space Exploring Colonies people could choose where they explored or relaxed without limits and their only boundary being their imaginations.
Private schools began to appear that were attended completely remotely by young students. Parents could easily choose the best school and curriculum for their children without being limited to their region's public offerings. After the success and relative downsizing of public school populations, the governments turned towards a similar structure for their public school systems.
Those adults who worked outside of the labor and retail services also experienced a change in the "office" setting. Working from home became the norm since you no longer had a commute time nor were limited by what city you lived in compared to what city your company was headquartered at. Conferences from people around the world were no longer just a voice on the phone but an avatar meeting face to face to demonstrate and discuss business.
The movie theater industry was also hit hard by this new technology and the cinemas soon went out of business since there would no longer be a need for the high maintenance cost of a physical building when people could have a private theater experience from the comfort of their home. This did not kill the movie-making industry however. With more people able to afford a movie theater "trip" the demand for high quality and even immersive movie experiences had a huge surge. People were now able to be a part of the movie as a bystander, able to see everything around themselves and the characters which led to a revolution in the film industry and the technology in image capturing.
So while the video game industry would be the ones leading the charge and demanding the immersive (Full Dive) experience it would be the entire world that would be impacted by its creation and adoption.