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[CamHostage]

graphicz, graphicz graphicz

let me keep playing remasters, remakes and sequels of rehashed old 90s ideas while sitting pushing buttons in front of a tv with ever more pixels!

More like, namez, namez, namez...

Big brands get customers interested. You can be as good as Boneworks, but a Half-Life of the same quality (or in this case better) will move the needle more easily.

This idea that VR will be the future of entertainment by carving out a totally untraveled path of entertainment and thus every big franchise that publishers are generating their fortunes on, all of that needs to be thrown away to start from scratch with brand new franchises made exclusively for the VR space, that seems... a hard sell, no?

(It's one even you won't commit to; your own list of "Sony partnerships" games were all major franchises, and of the 20 titles you rattled off, only 4 of those games were actually built for VR, all the rest were mainstream games with VR modes grafted on so you can play them with either a TV or VR glasses.)

Don't rush Insomniac, they need some vacations. Their VR titles will still grace psvr2.

Weird that you just threw out that of course Insomniac has a PRVR2 game in the works, because... you believe it. They've had their hands full with two PS5 launch titles, and the studio is already rumored to have Spider-Man 2 in active production (and Brian Allgeier and Mike Daly, the guys who brought Insomniac into the VR space with their games Edge of Nowhere and Stormland, are now very much busy,) and also Insomniac has made zero PS4 VR games (and frustratingly has never ported over any of its own VR titles,) but surely they must also have a next-gen PSVR wonder in the works. Those Insomniac people behind Seedling and Strangelets and Feral Rites must be working on something, right?

But maybe you truly believe that Sony will be assigning Insomniac to PSVR for PS5. They're versatile, maybe they will make a game or two. Maybe they'll even be assigned to develop the first PS5 VR killer app!

...Who else do you think Sony will get to make PS5 VR games? Probably not Guerrilla Games or Sucker Punch Productions or San Diego Studio or Bend Studio or Naughty Dog, they never touched PSVR and they hire almost exclusively for mainline projects. Perhaps Polyphony Digital or Media Molecule or Pixelopus might throw a VR option into their game, like they did on the previous platform (maybe Pixelopus might even get reassigned as a VR studio, since their novel indie-style concepts might find a good home with VR gamers looking for something new.) Asobi Team may have another Astrobot, but the rest of Japan Studio is in question since the main office is dissolved so that's a few fewer producers in VR for Sony out of that office. Sony closed its own dedicated VR studio in Manchester before it even got a game out. Right now, it seems like we're down to mostly London Studio doing a lot of the PSVR2 work, which makes sense, if you know Sony's management structure, since the London office tends to be the "Peripheral Team" responsible for creating titles and contracting 3rd Party developers for EyeToy, PlayStation Camera, and PlayStation VR.

I'm assuming you don't seem to have a difference of opinion, since you say that PSVR 2 doesn't need Sony (despite you regularly including Sony titles when you list all the companies that are PSVR publishers) because it already has massive support from external partners. (BTW, that is plus points for those who are on your side of the discussion, because like I pointed out before, Sony already stopped producing titles for PSVR 1 a long time ago...)

My point is, almost all the major studios at Sony are not in the VR game, and outside the London team, the few that have done VR have approached it as extra modes in their mainstream game. Blood & Truth is great, Rigs is also a noble effort (RIP Cambridge,) but nothing Sony Interactive Entertainment has put out on its own VR headset has show more than a test of investment in the VR market.

Do you honestly believe Sony will commit any of its major studios to put forth AAA effort with a core brand title on the scale of Half-Life Alyx?

And do you honestly believe that PlayStation VR can be a success without Sony itself backing its own product?

Btw, TVs didn't start selling in the 60s, but in the 30s. Yes, it took a long while until it took off, and that was with something people could just gather around in the street and immediately see what it was about...

You must be referring to this post where I said that evidence clearly shows that VR (which is claimed to be the future of all entertainment) is so far way behind the adoption rate of color TV, cellular phones, personal computers, and other devices that truly were the future...

I know that TV didn't start in the '60s, I just don't have a pretty, interactive chart for TV before color. But OK, we can talk Television history. TV was experimental mechanical technology until commercial units were first brought out 1928/29. (The first commercial TV broadcast launched July 2, 1928.) The technology was indeed not a hit with its enormous price and limited city-broadcast usage, and then was fully derailed by the war (banned from production in America, actually.) After 1945, TV makers tried again. By 1949, 5 million TVs were moving a year in American alone (with nearly 1/3 the population) and every consumer knew what it was even if they couldn't afford it yet. By the 1950s, television was essentially ubiquitous in every home. Non-existent in 1929, omnipresent 20 years later.

Rural America Turns On to TV in the 1940s

So, which timeline would you like to hold TV to against VR?

We could say it started with 1990s-to now, including the SEGA VR-1 and Virtual IO and all that Lawnmower Man-inspired silliness (30 years and counting.) We could put the start of "real VR" at 2010, when Oculus was founded and some of the mobile technologies were coming out (10 years.) Maybe the timeline should call the release of Rift and PSVR in 2015 as the "big bang of VR"? (5 years, VR is just a baby...)

On even the most generous timeline, I think we can both agree that VR makers have their work cut out for them if they expect to be in every consumer's home by the year 2030-35...

 

[99Luffy]

Without going over the entirety of your post, I'll just focus on your first paragraph.

This is nothing more than a group of predictions. You end it by attempting to give your predictions authority over others, but stop short of providing any of those "answers", or any credentials that give you access to R&D that the general public doesn't.

Furthermore, at this point there is absolutely nothing that supports your predictions. Why will it become bigger than consoles? Where is the mass appeal? The focus here is being placed on the wrong factors in my opinion. You're assuming that the masses have lined up to use VR, but simply can't overcome the barriers, but that they are now fixed. That's not the case though. The masses haven't lined up to buy VR. They haven't shown mass appeal. Removing or fixing barriers won't matter if the masses don't want to go there in the first place.

Look at the mediums you referenced as amusement parks. Consoles are wildly popular. There'd have to be pretty big barriers to keep people out. Otherwise the crowds would simply storm over/around them. As they are, there are relatively few barriers. PC's are also widely popular. However, there are some barriers in place, such as price and complexity. But due to having more and higher performing rides, people lined up at the entrance have found ways to get past them regardless.

At amusement park VR however... There's people out front yelling to everyone that passes about how it's better, and that barriers will be removed. But what good does that do when the parking lot is completely empty ala National lampoon's Family Vacation?

Anything that involves being in a simulation immediately becomes an industry that VR will one day take over. Job training is the big one. Training medical students, pilots, drivers. etc It doesn't have to be for a job either, for example Peletons whole thing is trying to make you feel like your there in a group, but it really falls short.

The big barrier imo aside from display quality is form factor. I dont think VR will have mass appeal if VR goggles feel like lab goggles. With Microsofts AR devices though it looks like we could be close to the much superior visor form factor.

 

[CamHostage]

"wear a headset and you'll quickly discover, fellow boomer"
I don't think boomer means what you think it does.
As to your point. I've played VR several times. It can be fun, but not in the same way as consoles or PC. That's not a knock on VR, so don't take it that way. I'm just saying the experiences vary to such an extent that they're not as comparable as many think they are. I believe VR can certainly be successful to a more niche market. And maybe over time it would expand from that.

Yeah, me either. It feels more like namekuseijin is pitching a cult instead of a technology...

Do people really believe VR is a magic pill that, once you try it, you are forevermore enlightened and addicted? I have two VR devices. They are both collecting dust. At Christmas a while back, I had four generations of my family, ages 13-85, all playing VR, and everybody had a good time then but none of them are converts.

Personally, I've got nothing against VR. I like it just fine, and want it to be good. It's interesting and cool tech. I am doubtful that VR will take over all aspects of my life as the future of interactivity, but probably it'll be good for something some day. If the next PSVR is good, I'll think about it. But if there is no new PSVR, I think I could be perfectly happy without it. And if Sony only puts cursory support into it again and software dries up in 3-4 years with just indies and some bonus VR modes to tide me over, I won't be real happy with having spent all that money.

Anything that involves being in a simulation immediately becomes an industry that VR will one day take over ... The big barrier imo aside from display quality is form factor. I dont think VR will have mass appeal if VR goggles feel like lab goggles. With Microsofts AR devices though it looks like we could be close to the much superior visor form factor.

Maybe. Sony isn't bringing AR to PlayStation 5, so that only kind of touches on the question of why Sony is investing in VR again, but as the tech gets lighter and easier to use, the lines between AR and VR could blur. (I'm with you in seeing a bigger future in AR than VR overall, but then it's hard to see as much value in AR gaming over VR as a AAA interactive experience outside virtual pets and hide-and-seek or dodge-and-shoot-em-ups... even though Pokemon Go and other AR experiences dwarf the player count of probably all of VR gaming combined.)

I think you're right that a beyond-reality entertainment device will need to be all-encompassing in a user's life to be successful. Smartphones were neat for business, but once you could do everything in your life with a device you had to have in your pocket anyway, they just took over. What it would take for a VR/AR/?R device to get there, we will see.

 

[namekuseijin]

More like, namez, namez, namez...

Big brands get customers interested. You can be as good as Boneworks, but a Half-Life of the same quality (or in this case better) will move the needle more easily.

there we agree with.

VR needs big name games.

This idea that VR will be the future of entertainment by carving out a totally untraveled path of entertainment and thus every big franchise that publishers are generating their fortunes on, all of that needs to be thrown away to start from scratch with brand new franchises made exclusively for the VR space, that seems... a hard sell, no?

I don't want that at all.

Most regular flat games could have VR mode just fine - countless mods made by users to classic games show that. Physics simulation is everywhere in relatively modern games, you can shoot every little prop and watch the reaction - you just put physical tracked hands interacting with them, a stereo camera and, bingo, a VR-ready game with finesse of interactions is born. There of course should have replacements for animations like loading guns, but a that's minor amount of work relative to the whole game.

The issue is of course performance, but with such scalable engines of today I can't believe it's not relatively easy to step down on LOD, texture detail and dynamic resolution to get it ready everywhere, phones, switch, PS5, VR, whatever.

that's a far better approach to have games people want to play everywhere, instead of short VR experiences as has been usually the case so far.

We could say it started with 1990s-to now, including the SEGA VR-1

You're citing a vaporware that would never really work well. Technology at the time was extremely limited, until the early 2000s polygons were few, textures were scant, framerate was awful - and that was flat and that Sega headset was to come out for a machine that even had no vector math processor at all. Virtual reality was big hype back then, but there no tech for it - even a few arcades at Disney or at expensive NASA simulators, it was awfully primitive and rough an experience. And there was no consumer VR back then, save a few obscure offerings for pc enthusiasts - to play Doom or Hexen...

consumer market VR started 5 years ago when psvr, Oculus and Vive entered the market.

I can hope it grows and games I want to actually play get VR mode, I can't care enough for VR-only games...

 

[namekuseijin]

At Christmas a while back, I had four generations of my family, ages 13-85, all playing VR, and everybody had a good time then but none of them are converts.

why would anyone be a convert playing crap like BS on a Xmas relatives party?

but if the games you want to play were in VR, wouldn't you play it more often?

playing on TV is limiting in every way, I just can't go back...

 

[Romulus]

At Christmas a while back, I had four generations of my family, ages 13-85, all playing VR, and everybody had a good time then but none of them are converts..

What VR device though?

 

[DarthBuzzer]

Without going over the entirety of your post, I'll just focus on your first paragraph.

This is nothing more than a group of predictions. You end it by attempting to give your predictions authority over others, but stop short of providing any of those "answers", or any credentials that give you access to R&D that the general public doesn't.

These are educated predictions. There are lots of data points to suggest why VR is wanted or rather going to be wanted, based on current trends, and how the barriers will be fixed. I won't talk about obvious things like resolution, but see the fixes for the barriers below:

• Physical comfort - Headsets today are bulky and hard to be worn for more than 30-60 minutes at a time. We can get to all-day wearable headsets, with Oculus Half Dome 3 being the near-term step at half the size of current headsets, and by the same company, a prototype sunglasses display system using a holographic lens to massively reduce size: https://research.fb.com/blog/2020/06/holographic-optics-for-thin-and-lightweight-virtual-reality/

• Optical comfort - The vergence accommodation conflict causes VR and technically all screens we use to potentially cause eye strain and headaches. While you can glance away from a monitor, you can't with VR, so this needs to be fixed. Luckily, Oculus Half Dome 1, 2, and 3 have fixed this with varifocal displays: https://uploadvr.com/half-dome-3-prime-time/

• Motion sickness - There are 5 ways in which sickness happens. 1) Latency. Current headsets are at <20ms and rarely cause sickness through latency but refresh rates in the multi-hundreds will ensure everyone's threshold is hit. 2) Incorrect IPD that can be caused by a user error or because a headset doesn't support all IPDs. The solution is to support them all and use eye-tracking for auto-calibration. 3) Vergence Accommodation conflict. This is a visual conflict, which can cause discomfort and nausea, but I outlined a fix in the optical comfort bullet point. 4) Pupil swim and optical misalignment that can be fixed with eye-tracking to direct a clear optical path onto the retina at all times. 5) Smooth locomotion which is the most common way to get sick, but can be avoided outright be using teleportation or reduced significantly using comfort options, higher refresh rates, and unique locomotion systems that combat sickness. More importantly, is that research is starting to agree on a solution that at least mostly solves it: https://www.roadtovr.com/researchers-head-mounted-haptics-combat-vr-discomfort-walkingvibe/

• Input problems - A lack of haptics can be seen as an issue, and there are various solutions in the works from accessible wrist-bands that trick sensations on fingertips for simple interaction, or force feedback haptic gloves like HaptX that are truly convincing: https://uploadvr.com/facebook-vr-glove-patents/ Additionally, we have two ways in which bare hand-tracking is improving greatly. 1) Improvements in computer vision leading to realistic hands:
  Spoiler

  2)
  A new interface using BCI tech to allow people to control virtual hands with just the intent of moving and can also be used to create very relaxed, convenient gestures for UI navigation:
  Spoiler
• Computing power - VR is currently a lot harder to render than non-VR due to the higher pixel bandwidth required among other rendering challenges. Dynamic Foveated Rendering using eye-tracking will massively reduce the rendering load:
  Spoiler
• Isolation - Some people feel like the level of isolation makes VR unappealing as they don't want to be too detatched, but near-term solutions with VR/AR merging will solve this, enabling someone to not only toggle between the two, but be in a perpetual blend of the two. Solutions like this without green screens in the near future will let people be in Skyrim, but see their family, pets, food, drinks, furniture and how ever little or much as they want to be seen on a per object basis:
  Spoiler
• Field of View - The Half Dome prototypes have a higher field of view than current headsets while being at the same or smaller size, and custom waveguide optics can enable a FoV up to 200 degrees with smaller form factors than today:
  Spoiler
• Floating Hands - Amazing work is being done to provide photorealistic full-body avatars that are close to being as expressive as a real human with no uncanny valley:
  Spoiler

Altogether, VR will become a very accessible and versatile device. Imagine slipping something like sunglasses on within a couple of seconds, being able to freely move around the house with them and pop in and out of VR, and have a blend inbetween at any time.

Any other problem you perceive is not a barrier to mass adoption. For example, being unable to move just like we do in the real world would be amazing, but it's not what stops people from buying a headset. If you have a way to get value out of a headset without causing sickness, then you have your buy-in. The act of wearing something no matter how small can be seen as a barrier, but once it's small enough, you will barely notice it as the brain is good at filtering things out, the way you can't notice the fabric of your shirt touching your skin until you think about it. Additional comfort benefits in the future over physical displays like no eye strain and headaches as well as mental comfort benefits, also help provide extra reason to wear one.

Also, here's a few barriers that aren't exactly true:

• Space requirements - You don't actually need space to use VR as many uses can be had sitting down in a chair with your arms on your lap or with a gamepad. Many active VR games are built to accommodate small spaces, so you can play most games standing in one single spot instead of relying on room-scale movement.

• Price - Oculus Quest 2 is $300 and has all the compute built in, making it quite literally a VR console, while being as cheap as the cheapest next gen console, Xbox Series S. Mostly importantly though, value is what sells the masses on something. I can easily see VR taking off at $400 and beyond for reasons I will outline later in the post.

• Difficulty Multitasking - You sometimes see people complain they can't see their phone in VR, or that they like to watch TV in the background while playing a game. VR lets you do this - you can virtualize screens and inject them into any VR app, and in the case of phones, that functionality will be built into VR headsets as time goes on, but VR/AR hybrids will also allow you to see your phone quickly and easily.

• Problematic for disabilities - This depends on the disability, but in many cases, it is fine. Many eye diseases and neurological diseases actually work with VR, and in a bunch of cases be treated or outright cured by VR, and even one eye works fine with VR. Physical disabilities like being wheelchair bound actually makes VR a boon, because they can go places, see people, and have experiences even with their limited mobility. Extreme cases like being paralyzed on your upper half will likely mean they can't use VR motion controls, but if they could play regular games, they could still use a gamepad/accessible gamepad device.

There's a bunch of other drastic changes/improvements coming down the line as well that aren't necessarily to solve barriers, but to improve the experience and provide new usecases. IE: Personal HRTF audio with propagation and volumetric 360 video.

A useful talk to showcase an overview of the kind of things coming would be Michael Abrash's Oculus Connect 6 talk:

Spoiler

Furthermore, at this point there is absolutely nothing that supports your predictions. Why will it become bigger than consoles? Where is the mass appeal? The focus here is being placed on the wrong factors in my opinion. You're assuming that the masses have lined up to use VR, but simply can't overcome the barriers, but that they are now fixed. That's not the case though. The masses haven't lined up to buy VR. They haven't shown mass appeal. Removing or fixing barriers won't matter if the masses don't want to go there in the first place.

Did you read the rest of my post? I talked about how society is shifting into a permanent reliance on remote, as a hybrid model. I've done plenty of research on what companies are doing going forward, and this is a very common stance. It makes sense - further reach, less physical uptake, less travel expenses and complications.

So why is VR relevant here? Because it is the natural step forward for remote services. There are serious problems with tools such as Zoom, Netflix Party, Microsoft Teams. It's often a lot harder to collaborate because there's a gap in communication and tools. The immediacy of glancing at a colleagues screen or turning your chair to talk to them at a moment's notice is gone. Body language is much more limiting than real life, causing the brain to work overtime which can lead to 'Zoom Fatigue', and there is no sense of being co-located to provide the level of spark you'd get in real life between people collaborating and socializing as a group in the same room; this hits especially hard for non-work related communication with family/friends.

Communication on a screen is limiting for those reasons, and disconnected from what we expect. VR can over time provide a level of communication that equals reality in sight/sound, and allows even more social expressivity than the real world such as sign language translation, drawing in the air, avatars of any type and gender, etc. Without a pandemic, we are still often separated from friends and loved ones, and VR is by far the best way to intimately connect in the long-term.

There are problems with streaming services too, like how many real world events such as concerts, conventions, and conferences are currently being streamed. This radically or completely cuts out networking and socialization; it goes from an interactive in-person event to a passive or mostly-passive event online. If you create a full virtual space housing the event, then you can get a similar feel to the real thing, while improving upon the flaws such as long queues and room limits.

People have unknowingly lined up for VR when they started becoming reliant on remote. They use the current tools because they are accessible, but people often see the inherent flaws in them and wish for that real life connection - something that VR can provide in many ways. VR is still thought of as a gaming device, the way a PC in the early 1980s was a nerd's hobbyist device and often seen as a fad. It took time to educate the public, and it will take time for VR too. What VR is going to be used for is social telepresence and spatial computing, which means connecting people across distances with other people, places, and experiences. Spatial computing is a spatialized form of computing where physical displays no longer have to be used; instead you can summon as many virtual displays of any shape and size in any location, giving you access to the best setup that even reality can't provide, or even a private IMAX theater that will over time match the real thing.

As for gaming, my previous post talks about how the most popular games in the world are played for the same reasons as for why a gamer would want VR. Immersion and relaxation, two core properties (not necessarily both at the same time) of the most popular singleplayer games. Two properties that VR captures very well. Immersion is a no-brainer of course. Animal Crossing became so big because it was a relaxing way to spend time in the pandemic, and because a friend told a friend about it. If we imagine that VR hardware is more advanced, solving it's physical and optical comfort issues, then VR would only make it more relaxing by instilling a level of mental stimulation unique to VR; you'd feel relaxed being among the charming and peaceful environments in Animal Crossing, and multiplayer would be heightened with player-driven avatars - a more social way to connect.

The most popular multiplayer games (Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, Among Us) are often played to connect friends together, so why would VR not be the next step here? It doesn't necessarily mean multiplayer gaming is largely about VR games, but VR could be the middleman - services like discord are already used by more than 100 million people a month, and all those friends connecting through voice chat would in many cases love to connect through VR chatrooms as VR matures, because they made the choice to use voice as a form of connection beyond just text - they wanted or at least allowed themselves to be involved in a more intimate form of communication. This is natural for humans - we are social creatures afterall.

 

[Rudius]

Oh, the partnerships, the partnerships! Yes, Sony, doesn't need to produce software for its own platform, because they have huge partnerships. Huge, HUGE names like Squanch Games, Beat Games, and First Contact Entertainment! Also, fruitful partnerships that bring hot titles like Borderlands 2 and Doom 3 to PSVR, as well as mainstream blockbusters like Hitman 3 and Star Wars Squadrons as bonus VR features for PS4 (...sorry PS5, VR features not included, but you can downgrade your copy, PS4 graphics are good enough, right?) Amazing partnerships that bring hit games like Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series to PSVR (one year after launching on other VR platforms.)

Who needs God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Ratchet & Clank, Spider-Man, Bloodborne, Horizon, LittleBigPlanet, MLB The Show, or any of Sony's mainline franchises, when you've got the riches of the VR universe being delivered by partners banging down Sony's door to deliver their best products?

(*BTW, I like a lot of these VR studios, and we can also thrown in NDreams and 17BIT and Camouflaj and Vertigo Games and a lot of these other teams exploring VR. But even if Sony were to champion itself as having partnered with the best in the VR biz, those are far from household names.)



The best and most popular VR titles, that's testable. We can look at the sales charts for VR devices, and we should be able to see the best and most popular (well, some of) matching up with PSVR's release list, because Sony has these great partnerships that are bringing the best and most popular games to its platform. Let's stop arguing semantics, we can actually look at what the Top Sellers are on Steam and Oculus:

Steam Search

store.steampowered.com

Browse Top selling VR Games on Meta Quest

Your live update of top sellers on Meta Quest.

www.oculus.com

Five of the top 20 Steam games (Subnautica and Elite Dangerous are on PS4 but I believe don't have the VR mode). Nine of the most popular Oculus titles (including the top 2!) Lots and lots missing as you drill down (none of the CryEngine games, no Medal of Honor ir SW Galaxy's Edge, no Onward or Phasmophobia, obviously no Population One or Half-Life Alyx) but also a fair number that I recognize from the PSVR store. Somebody else can do the math on the batting average Sony has for contracting the best and most popular games being brought over to the PSVR platform, it looks to be less than half of the biggest sellers in VR in either market but that still qualifies as "some of".

Compare that to non-VR titles on the Steam chart, though, and PlayStation's partnerships are nearly 1:1 all the way down the Top Sellers. So, at the very least, we can agree that Sony's partners team has got some work cut out for them.

Steam Search

store.steampowered.com

To be fair that has a lot to do with the power of the PS4 for VR games, preventing ports like Alyx and many racers, and the limitations of PSVR for room scale games. PS5 VR should eliminate these issues.

 

[Nothing Unusual]

VR reminds me of the Nintendo Wii days. Families gather for a quick few rounds and then it collects dust. While the Pimax 8k X at native 4k would be the ideal minimum experience that people really want, few can afford the performance hardware necessary not to mention the cost of the unit but more importantly there is not a consistent release of games that aren't cartoonish indie games. VR fans keep touting the same old games...like who's still playing Alyx everday? Most just aren't my kind of games anyway and I'm going to assume based on VR usage stats in general that the majority must feel the same way. Otherwise all the new triple A games would have a VR option. At least Sony seems to have some better quality VR games and less of the indie demo crap that plagues weekly releases on Steam.

As an early adopter of Vr preordering the Vive and being #1223 on Pimax kickstarter, both being superior to PSVR tech wise, It still kind of sucks. It's so much better to just turn on the ol 4k TV and play a game kicked back on the couch after a hard day of work as apposed to wafting my arms around with a funky box on my head.

 

[Moochi]

I play VR every day I'm able to. My PSVR was neat for a week or two, and I saw the possibility of a great experience in games like Beat Saber and Super Hot, but the headset and controller tracking was always such a hastle. Now with the Quest 2, I just put it on and go. It remembers my play space. In Death: Unchained is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Becoming the arrow and flying from rooftop to rooftop, hiding behind pillars as arrows fly past, and the natural way you use the bow and actually develop a physical skill for aiming is something you cannot do except in rooms case vr. I've been playing for months.

 

[namekuseijin]

They didn't go all in from their devs investment, is there anything AAA from Sony in VR that I'm not aware of?

No? Then don't be surprised if the peripherals doesn't attract much attention from the mainstream. So far we only have Half Life: Alyx as the headlines for VR originals

you're too fixated in AAA. Mind, I come from AAA tradition too and arcade gaming previously. But that model is gone, it's stale, it only attracts old guys like you or me. Seriously check what kids are playing, those are the new audiences for gaming. Games that look like 80s blocky pixels games (minicrap, celeste) or like early PS2 games (Valheim looks like a PS2 port of Skyrim) or cartoon FPS like Overwatch and Fortnite. Did you know kids prefer the clear looks of mostly untextured cellshaded games over the realistic, gritty textured looks of yesterday's? Yeah, PS1 looks of Botw won them over Skyrim's PS3 textures... they're a bunch of retro fans salivating over yesterday's looks and feels (but none of the hardcore gameplay) and old tech in general. Really weird generation, but I don't blame them because Hollywood makes sure that games are about huge pixels.

To the point, these new gaming audiences are not really that attracted to AAA and you'd be surprised that instead of raving for Skyrim or Hitman in VR, they were raving for FNAF, The Room or Minecraft instead. Heck, VR-born Rec Room is going after Roblox after a huge surge in popularity with new kids thanks to Oculus Quest.

anyway, more AAA ports to VR is not something I dislike at all, but something I actively expect. But they need to wait for better hardware, including the headset. And we'll only see more - including from Insomniac - once psvr2 for PS5 is here. Because, honestly, Sony is the only one investing in bringing them.

 

[Rudius]

People talk a lot about the future of VR, about “what it needs to do before I jump in”, but all of this don't deny the fact that there are already millions of gamers that play VR frequently, for much more then a few minutes, that spend more on VR games then on flat games, many that basically only play in VR, and it also don't change the fact that are a lot of great VR games getting released and announced frequently.

VR is not something for the future. It exists now, it is already good. It is growing in popularity and improving technologically, but even if it were to forever remain as it is now, it would still exist, since it already has it's niche of dedicated players, an audience sufficient to enable the software we are getting at the present. These are hardcore gamers, not casuals that will get tired of the "innovation" and move on.

 

[namekuseijin]

VR reminds me of the Nintendo Wii days. Families gather for a quick few rounds and then it collects dust

it collects dust because the trendy games you want to play are not in VR and because you seemingly only have shitty VR party games

in my house it doesn't collect dust, nor in the house of other fans of VR that see the value of it for true games. My PS4 would be collecting dust instead if it wasn't needed for psvr...

 

[Romulus]

VR reminds me of the Nintendo Wii days. Families gather for a quick few rounds and then it collects dust. While the Pimax 8k X at native 4k would be the ideal minimum experience that people really want, few can afford the performance hardware necessary not to mention the cost of the unit but more importantly there is not a consistent release of games that aren't cartoonish indie games. VR fans keep touting the same old games...like who's still playing Alyx everday? Most just aren't my kind of games anyway and I'm going to assume based on VR usage stats in general that the majority must feel the same way. Otherwise all the new triple A games would have a VR option. At least Sony seems to have some better quality VR games and less of the indie demo crap that plagues weekly releases on Steam.

As an early adopter of Vr preordering the Vive and being #1223 on Pimax kickstarter, both being superior to PSVR tech wise, It still kind of sucks. It's so much better to just turn on the ol 4k TV and play a game kicked back on the couch after a hard day of work as apposed to wafting my arms around with a funky box on my head.

VR sucks, yet you bought a Vive AND a Primax. And you don't sound that versed in how the industry works. "VR isn't getting ports of all AAA games." That's just absolutely ridiculous anyway. How can you even begin to justify "all" or hell even "most" porting their games to an install base under 6 million on the PC and Quest side? Just no. Even half seems borderline nuts.

And VR reminds you of the Wii? When did the Wii get games like The Walking Dead, Asgard's Wrath, or yeah Alyx? Or flight sims like Flight simulator or dozens of other hardcore racing games? Nothing in your post makes much sense.

 

[Roufianos]

Well, if you're worried about it distracting them, you can take comfort in the fact that their 1st parties won't support it (same as Vita and the original PS VR).

 

[Romulus]

Well, if you're worried about it distracting them, you can take comfort in the fact that their 1st parties won't support it (same as Vita and the original PS VR).

I wouldn't say that yet. The tech hasn't the chance to hit the threshold yet. The Vita was actually a good piece of tech but no one wanted it. PSVR was an expensive shitty piece of tech running on shitty hardware and still sold 5 million and precisely why PSVR2 is a thing. It could easily hit 12 million this gen and that would absolutely entice more first party.

 

[THE DUCK]

I was enjoying my quest 2 last night both hooked up to PC and stand alone, but you guys are so defensive about vr and it's future its ridiculous. 10 page long tirades about how to rationalize how vr will overtake normal gaming and TV watching in the near future is ridiculous, akin to everyone owning a flying car in the next 10 years. It may happen eventually, but its a ways off. And even when it does happen, there will still be people driving normal cars.

 

[Romulus]

I was enjoying my quest 2 last night both hooked up to PC and stand alone, but you guys are so defensive about vr and it's future its ridiculous. 10 page long tirades about how to rationalize how vr will overtake normal gaming and TV watching in the near future is ridiculous, akin to everyone owning a flying car in the next 10 years. It may happen eventually, but its a ways off. And even when it does happen, there will still be people driving normal cars.

Has anyone actually said VR will overtake normal gaming anytime soon though? Who?

I think it will be a weird in-between thing soon, not really a niche or mainstream. But eventually mainstream.

 

[namekuseijin]

VR sucks, yet you bought a Vive AND a Primax. And you don't sound that versed in how the industry works

he probably bought the Vive way back then, played Superhot then sold.

he then bought a Pimax for Alyx but was hurt when his pc couldn't handle the resolution...

VR suxomuch

 

[namekuseijin]

I was enjoying my quest 2 last night both hooked up to PC and stand alone, but you guys are so defensive about vr and it's future its ridiculous. 10 page long tirades about how to rationalize how vr will overtake normal gaming and TV watching in the near future is ridiculous, akin to everyone owning a flying car in the next 10 years. It may happen eventually, but its a ways off. And even when it does happen, there will still be people driving normal cars.

yeah, it's truly pointless and ridiculous when it has overtaken flat gaming in my home 3 years ago. Driving way above the clouds in Wipeout is not the future to me...

anyway, I'm out of this hater thread. Hate on, I'm nearing 100 hours in my NMS VR save and there's nothing on TV gaming like being in those infinite landscapes, in my base, in the cockpit of my ship or freighter.

Btw, CamHostage take a look at these steam trends:



no AAA either, some downright retro indie stuff there. AAA is not missing just in VR...

 

[Nothing Unusual]

VR sucks, yet you bought a Vive AND a Primax. And you don't sound that versed in how the industry works. "VR isn't getting ports of all AAA games." That's just absolutely ridiculous anyway. How can you even begin to justify "all" or hell even "most" porting their games to an install base under 6 million on the PC and Quest side? Just no. Even half seems borderline nuts.

And VR reminds you of the Wii? When did the Wii get games like The Walking Dead, Asgard's Wrath, or yeah Alyx? Or flight sims like Flight simulator or dozens of other hardcore racing games? Nothing in your post makes much sense.

Calm down guy. It's okay that you disagree with me and you'll be okay.

 

[Romulus]

Calm down guy. It's okay that you disagree with me and you'll be okay.

It's not that I disagree or I'm not calm. You just seem completely ignorant on the subject. No offense either.

 

[Shadowstar39]

I think that it'll fill a slowly growing niche, but it'll remain niche. It's not the future of gaming anymore than 3D was the future of cinema.

I think that will change. In fact it already has a bit with Quest 2 being the switch of VR headsets. $300 VR that can play all current SteamVr games wirelessly.
PSVR brought a wave of people in a few years ago, and Quest 2 is doing it now. VR is growing bigtime.

PSVR needs to loose the cord though. Why they can't do remote play to the headset when I can do it from my pc to the quest and its flawless.
I hate the one or two games that doesn't work with virtual and have to use that crapy link cable (looking at you warthunder, get your shit together ).

VR will be super mainstream when they can have it in a lightweight portable form factor that also supports glasses wearers (I had to get a 3rd party leather face mask for the quest and lens cap extenders to make glasses wearing safe and comfortable).

 

[namekuseijin]

Lol, someone seems to be reading and perhaps even commenting here

 

[THE DUCK]

yeah, it's truly pointless and ridiculous when it has overtaken flat gaming in my home 3 years ago. Driving way above the clouds in Wipeout is not the future to me...

anyway, I'm out of this hater thread. Hate on, I'm nearing 100 hours in my NMS VR save and there's nothing on TV gaming like being in those infinite landscapes, in my base, in the cockpit of my ship or freighter.

Btw, CamHostage take a look at these steam trends:



no AAA either, some downright retro indie stuff there. AAA is not missing just in VR...

So your not going to play any if the amazing aaa games that will.come out for regular systems over the next 10 years? (If so you aren't a real gamer)
And have sworn off all tv and movies?
Even the "hardcore" vr players will continue to consume regular content for many years to come.

 

[THE DUCK]

Has anyone actually said VR will overtake normal gaming anytime soon though? Who?

I think it will be a weird in-between thing soon, not really a niche or mainstream. But eventually mainstream.

There was a bunch of people in this thread......they went so far as to say vr in the next while would basically replace regular mainstream gaming/entertiaimnent. It will never replace it all.

 

[Romulus]

There was a bunch of people in this thread......they went so far as to say vr in the next while would basically replace regular mainstream gaming/entertiaimnent. It will never replace it all.

I have trouble believing a bunch of people feel that it will replace regular gaming soon. Never saw anyone mention that in the thread and I've read the entire thing. Or so I thought. Maybe I just skipped over them.

 

[THE DUCK]

I have trouble believing a bunch of people feel that it will replace regular gaming soon. Never saw anyone mention that in the thread and I've read the entire thing. Or so I thought. Maybe I just skipped over them.

I'd go back but I'm too lazy to double check, lol.

 

[Wonko_C]

Even the "hardcore" vr players will continue to consume regular content for many years to come.

It's not so rare. I've seen a few people over reddit who only play VR games, some of them because they previously grew out of regular gaming and came back due to VR, others who never played videogames before, and even some who after trying VR felt like flat gaming lost any meaning to them.

Even some youtubers have said on occasion they play VR games exclusively.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCkiYEz5x14idit_PzBYhJ6A

 

[namekuseijin]

So your not going to play any if the amazing aaa games that will.come out for regular systems over the next 10 years? (If so you aren't a real gamer)

I was in the middle of Horizon ZD and TW3 when I bought psvr Skyrim bundle. If there's something I immediately realized about VR is that: 1) it's mind-blowing and I want all my gaming like that; 2) old games like Skyrim or Borderlands with more modest graphical requirements run more easily in VR.

so, yes, I've since been refraining from playing AAA games, expecting most major PS4 games that make sense get a good VR port on psvr2: like Farcry titles, RDR2, The Crew 2 etc

hey, it's not just Nintendo fans who can be a generation behind...

 

[Romulus]

VR literally does casual AND hardcore games better than normal gaming.



The gif above could never display what we see, because only headsets can display its depth perception.

But sitting in a McLaren, F22, Subaru WRX race car and feeling like you're actually flying/racing? Fucking badass. Normal gaming feels like going back to the stone age, even though I still enjoy it.

 

[mxbison]

For me it's not really comparable.

VR you are 100% in the game, it's intense and can even be a bit exhausting. I'm usually done after an hour, maybe 2 hours if it's a chill game like Astro Bot.

Classic gaming is relaxing.

Both are great and I love them, but in VR it's so much more exciting to see what the future holds.

 

[namekuseijin]

Classic gaming is relaxing.

are you playing the right games? Classic flat games are all but relaxing: try Ghouls'n'Ghosts just remade for switch - even though with "niceties" for today's puny gamers, it's as hardcore as classic gaming used to be.

NMS can be very chill in VR... but yes, pushing buttons in flat Skyrim is much more comparatively relaxing than actually swinging a sword in VR...

 

[namekuseijin]

VR literally does casual AND hardcore games better than normal gaming.



The gif above could never display what we see, because only headsets can display its depth perception.

But sitting in a McLaren, F22, Subaru WRX race car and feeling like you're actually flying/racing? Fucking badass. Normal gaming feels like going back to the stone age, even though I still enjoy it.

glad to see you've become this much of a fan of VR. happens to all who actually try, I guess...

 

[v_iHuGi]

VR is here to stay, i know many people got salty BUT Sony is literally investing billions in the new VR now.

Same for Facebook & Valve so yeah, VR is going to stay for another decade long or even more.

Drop the salt, accept the facts.

 

[Romulus]

VR is here to stay, i know many people got salty BUT Sony is literally investing billions in the new VR now.

Same for Facebook & Valve so yeah, VR is going to stay for another decade long or even more.

Drop the salt, accept the facts.

Yup, maybe the "VR is dead/dying" worked a year or two ago, but sorry, not anymore. All those posters that used to say have literally disappeared too, even though I see them in other threads to this day. The argument just falls apart now.

 

[Azelover]

They invested in it because they play according to the rules, and VR was considered a trend at some point.

 

[Romulus]

They invested in it because they play according to the rules, and VR was considered a trend at some point.

Quest 2 is the biggest trend VR has ever seen by miles, and it just came out.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Jesus what a flame war !

I never imagined people were so invested in this issue to go this far.

 

[SentientStone]

I feel I am becoming paddlin’ grandpa now, don’t think I will ever get into VR. I’m going to stick to large screens and consoles until we my consciousness can directly connect into the virtual world. I feel more excited about everyday AR experiences if they can get them to fit into a stylish pair of eyeglasses.

 

[Griffon]

I wish Sony made the PSVR2 a portable standalone device like the quest 2.

I do like my og CV1 Rift, but the cable tether is a serious obstacle to regular use.

 

[Tygeezy]

I wish Sony made the PSVR2 a portable standalone device like the quest 2.

I do like my og CV1 Rift, but the cable tether is a serious obstacle to regular use.

There is no reason it couldn't be both. The games made for quest 2 could be ported to an openxr platform.

 

[Zeroing]

Why wouldn’t they not!? They have the technology and the now how! If it becomes mainstream in a few years they will have the experience and gamers mindshare of VR

At least Sony is not afraid of betting on things that aren’t unclear how is going to pan out on the future.

 

[WildBoy]

Same as Oculus - long term strategy. Thinking about where it will be, not where it is today.

Sony will be subject matter experts and devs will have the experience. If and when VR grows to mass market proportions, these companies will be well placed within the industry. The world needs visionaries and pioneers for progress to happen.

MS will need to spend 7.5 billion buying something.

Visionaries to bring 70 dollar games to life? I liked PSVR but its controls are biggest issue. That seems fixed now. Half life Alyx launch title then?

 

[ShinraMiddleMananger]

Technology always improves as time goes on. In some cases making products better / more popular. If not we all would still be playing PS1 games that look like this:

Why not invest in something that has potential.

Gimli, Son of Gloin, was in a psone game?

 

[turtlepowa]

I think they are still investing into VR, because they know they lost the handheld market completely and want something that MS does not have (yet).

 

[Romulus]

Confirmed for psvr2 ps5