Virtual Reality will change world, says Epic boss

Virtual reality will end up completely changing the world, according to Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney.

The technology has been hitting the headlines regularly since Sony announced its plans to enter the VR business and Facebook spent $2billion USD to acquire Oculus.

Epic Games is a studio that is very interested in virtual reality, having produced several tech demos using the Oculus Rift.

"It's technology that I think will completely change the world," Sweeney told Polygon. "I think it's going to be a bigger phenomenon than smartphones.

"You have to put it in perspective and realise we're in maybe the [first-generation] iPhone stage right now where you have this really cool device, but it has some real flaws that prevents it from being a pervasive device for everyone."

Sweeney added that although there might only be a small audience for virtual reality right now, it will only keep growing from here on in.

"There might be an audience for 10 million users of the current tech, but as it improves with each generation, the audience is going to keep growing until eventually you're going to reach a critical point where you can put on one of these devices and have an experience that is effectively indistinguishable from reality."

Sweeney also said that Epic had to create unique games for virtual reality instead of porting over old ones, as a high-speed game of Unreal Tournament just "makes you barf".

Click here to read our feature on virtual reality and its potential.