The HTC Vive offers the best consumer VR experience for now — but it needs better games

The HTC Vive begins shipping today to people who preordered the virtual reality headset based on Valve’s Steam VR technology.

HTC and Valve hope that it will be the beginning of a VR renaissance that immerses us all with a feeling of “presence,” or the feeling that you are transported to another virtual place. This sense of presence is VR’s unique advantage, and if everybody is enthralled by it, VR could become a $30 billion industry by 2020, according to tech adviser Digi-Capital. But the market will be perilous. If VR developers create apps that make half the population sick from vertigo, this version of the technology will appeal only to a small niche of enthusiasts.