Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney reckons that augmented reality is the “next big development in the history of civilisation”, but that virtual reality only has niche appeal.

"VR is a 150 million user audience but it's not for the whole world,” he told GamesIndustry.

“Whereas AR, if you look out a number of years I bet the majority of mankind will have an AR device – it will redefine interaction with computers and replace computer monitors, tablets, televisions and every kind of play technology.

“I think it's the next big development in the history of civilisation, if you put it in perspective."

Even so, gamers won’t reap the benefits of AR for a few years yet, said Sweeney.

"It's a ways out. It's not going to provide the experience for hard core gamers in the next couple of years whereas VR is doing that right now," he said.

Non-VR games won’t play nice with VR systems without extensive tweaks, Sweeney added.

"You cannot take a game designed without VR and just easily [remake] it for VR. It'll be an experience that doesn't look right, doesn't feel right, and makes you sick pretty quickly," he said.

“Experiences that are built for VR at the foundational level are quite different – you can draw an analogy with smartphone and tablet gaming. The major genres on there are not your console genres because it requires a different style of gameplay. We're still very much in the early stages of the learning process."

Yesterday Warren Spector called VR a “fad”, but – like Sweeney – sung the praises of AR.