The difference between the gear and the Oculus (that may not be clear) is that the triangular section on the back of the Rift is actually electronics. There are Infared LED’s that surround your head allowing the camera (which sits in front of the user) to track the position of your head. This way you can track not only the rotation, but also the subtle positional changes. It makes for a big difference in the way you interact with it. When the DK2 came out I jumped into a racing game (Assetto Corsa) and I wasn’t just racing around the track, I was sitting at the starting line leaning over to admire the stitching that was on the shift knob of my Fiat 500, I was looking through the corner of the window the way I would in a real car following the apex of the corner, by the time I got to the top of the hill I was a little dizzy, not because of the VR but because I had just shredded up an endless amount of switchbacks in the Italian alps (for the record - I also get motion sick on the race track - so I don’t chalk that up to simulator sickness - I’ve played space simulators for hours with no problems)
Is it revolutionary? - It suppose it depends on your perspective. From a purely technology perspective the iPhone was not revolutionary. It took a combination of existing smart phone technology, threw a new touch screen on it and eventually added the ability for people to make “applications” easy.
But did it revolutionize the way we use everything from the internet to our daily lives? Absolutely.
Again, it’s not just about the technology, it’s about a cultural shift and willingness to embrace it as a platform - and that has never happened before, even though people have been playing with stereo displays and 3D graphics in labs for decades (anybody remember the CAVE?).
The Oculus and Gear VR are just part of the solution. Notice how Gopro and other camera manufacturers are now focusing their effort on cameras that can capture 3D? Leap Motion has restructured their entire business to focus on being an application for hand capture in VR.
And this isn’t just going to be about games. As designers we should be excited for the fact that we spend half our days drawing and sculpting 3D objects on a tiny 2D window. The future in which we create things can be fundamentally different, and that transition is going to open some pretty amazing opportunities.
The Leap Motion home screen video does a nice job of synthesizing a lot of those thoughts - VR + natural hand interaction + endless possibilities.