Virtual Reality

[MartyG]

If they work with existing base stations that would be a bonus - but for those that don't want that, then there's less appeal.

Hopefully this will come to market at a reasonable price, another one to keep an eye on.

[Brad]

Size and general form factor? YES PLEASE!
90 degree FOV? Oh...

[huxley]

I`m seriously tempted to get this to replace my Index, its just so clunky.

https://store.bigscreenvr.com/en-gb?sca_ref=3287178.wj9YLpgnJy

UK price = £1149.
I expect there will be an open source printable to use the Index speakers at some point.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.eurogamer.net/tencent-scales-back-vr-hardware-plans

Tencent takes a step back in it's VR plans

[Asura]

https://www.eurogamer.net/tencent-sc...hardware-plans
Tencent takes a step back in it's VR plans

Expect to see this a lot, soon.

My biggest worry about PSVR2 was never that it was going to be bad; I always felt it would be good in isolation. My worry was that it's good, very, very good... But still doesn't do very well - because the much of the excitement over VR which rose quickly around Oculus a few years back is very much spent.

Technologies tend to follow an oscillating pattern of expansion and contraction. Short of some major shot in the arm, I think VR is going to contract. I don't think it's ever going to contract back to the level it was at in, say, 2010 - when VR headsets existed but were hyper-niche and only used by researchers. I also don't think it's going to go the way of, say, 3D TVs. But I do think it's going to wane.

[Neon Ignition]

Tencent sound like they were muppets who immediately bought into the metaverse nonsense and threw money into a pit, realising now that it's a non-starter. Like any platform, the headsets require the software to drive demand and at this point it's becoming inescapable that not only does the required scale of notable titles not exist but that it's not coming either. This is why hopes are pinned on PSVR2, that Sony might deliver on that front, and why so much money is lost by the hardware dependent headset makers. It's impressive that multiple companies are still pushing headsets so hard, even when something kicks off like motion controls, kinect etc you often see restraint from other companies in case it's a fad. With headsets there's a continuous push even though it's clearly a declining market in sales and very hard to successfully monetise. I wouldn't like to be a company looking to jump into that pool now.

Like you say, I don't think headsets will disappear but I feel a crunch point is coming where they stop focusing on high end VR so much and focus on bringing costs down hard. When that happens I think a couple of players will back out and reasonably budgeted VR titles will become rare. Essentially, the current wave leaning on how long Meta remains invested. Very long ball... but I don't think there will be a PSVR3

[Asura]

Like any platform, the headsets require the software to drive demand and at this point it's becoming inescapable that not only does the required scale of notable titles not exist but that it's not coming either.

Yep. People may decry the sheer number of games on VR that are, for all intents and purposes, "wave shooters" but there's a very good reason for that - those games are cheaper to make. Similar for games like Vader Immortal or the new Horizon game on PSVR2; they might be very linear, but that's a way to economise.

Content is king; that's as true in VR as anywhere else, but you can't make enormous Skyrim-style games when there just isn't the market for them. The recent one people have taken jabs at is Zenith: The Last City for being really quite basic (really only a few steps above a "proof of concept" for how an MMORPG in VR can work), but that's just how these things work.

And one of VR's biggest problems is that developers have really tried to find VR's big thing. Right now, the only Big Thing(tm) is Beat Saber, but even that, to me, feels like how people were saying Star Wars Galaxies was The Big Thing of MMORPGs, only for World of Warcraft to come along and utterly crush that notion.

There are several compelling eSports experiences (one of them is about to close), like Echo Arena, VAIL and Pavlov. Several big budget linear games, like Half-Life Alyx, Hubris and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. Larcenauts is a Hero Shooter. RAW/DATA is a tower defense shooter. RuinsMagus tried to do something akin to a Soulslike. There are racing games, shooting games, sports games, social games... One thing you can't fault VR for is variety. Developers really have tried to find that big thing.

If you go to a publisher right now, and ask for the budget to make something new on the Skyrim level, they'll laugh you out of the room, simply because there (1) aren't enough people actively buying new games regularly to buy your £40 title meaning you can't "go wide" and (2) because no-one has managed to create a successful service-game VR title yet* meaning you can't "go deep" and try to make more from individual users.

*the one exception are music games, again like Beat Saber.

[Neon Ignition]

The thing with Alyx as well is, as time has gone on, I'm not even entirely sure that that game is one that is huge budgeted either. It looks nice but for the vast majority of its runtime there's very heavy enemy and asset reuse. I'm curious whether even Valve deployed an element of conscious restraint despite being able to throw a lot at it if they wanted to for little risk. Instead the game delivers on content, much like Saints and Sinners. Polished and plenty bang for your buck so by comparison of all the short releases they're easy to love.

Perhaps one of the biggest culprits are the potential GT7 style games. Those that could implement VR perspectives as an option with little effort but don't because the devs feel it isn't even worth that amount of effort even now.

[Lebowski]

Jesus Neon we get it you dont like vr, your like a dog with a bone can you give it a break now as its getting tiring reading the endless stream of negativity

[Neon Ignition]

It's not disliking VR - Vive, Quest, PSVR - owned and enjoyed them all
If anything it's discussing the reasons there's a sense of frustration that an excellent gaming experience is very clearly being hampered by a lack of investment in the areas it actually needs to succeed. I could easily write swathes of text about the amazing VR experiences and milestones there's been and that I've had the fortune of experiencing, but that would also feed into the current discussion on VR - that I'd be talking almost exclusively about historical things compared to the outlook of the road ahead. It's why PSVR2 reminds me of Vita, that little bugger of a handheld was pure awesomeness but it was soul crushing watching and experiencing Sony's approach to it and mismanagement of it.

But, it's out tomorrow so I'm happy to free the floor for a while whilst people share their impressions on it.

[Lebowski]

I caved this week and preordered the PSVR2, i got a decent slug of money back from my PSVR1 and sold the firewall gun separate so ended up netting about £200 from the sale of just the old hardware. I had a few of the rarer psvr games so clearing them out meant i ebayed my way into being able to justify the price of the new headset

I'm excited for the PSVR as from an upgrade point of view room scale, better screens, fov, controllers that where built this century ect are all good reasons to upgrade. it's nice that they have added a lot of the older games to the new headset too, Job simulator, No Man’s Sky, Pistol Whip and saints and sinners are all games i own that are all getting free upgrades. Rez Infinite and Tetris Effect will be charging a small fee to upgrade, i'm happy enough with that but id prefer free

I'm really looking forward to Horizon call of the mountain, i know its not gonna set the world on fire but climbing a mountain and shooting robot dinosaurs in whats has been described as one of the nicest looking locations we have ever seen in vr is enough for me, then theirs things like Fantavision, Moss book 2, Saints and sinners 2, and that Canoe game all on my too buy list. Its coming in hot with a massive library and loads more coming this year so their is no lack of stuff to play on it.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23619730/meta-vr-oculus-ar-glasses-smartwatch-plans

Meta lays out it's future plans

[Brad]

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/2...artwatch-plans
Meta lays out it's future plans

Well you gotta have plans! Their plan in Feb last year was to get Horizon Worlds from 300,000 users to 500,000. They actually dropped to 200,000 so...
Still MS have dropped out the VR/AR/MR race so I should be grateful someone is still trying!

[MartyG]

There's a permanent price drop for the Quest Pro to $1000 from March 5th (so from today), haven't seen if that's also going to also apply to the UK pricing yet: https://www.roadtovr.com/meta-quest-...ice-and-drops/ - still not sure it makes sense as a consumer unit at that price, but certainly more realistic. They can't have been selling well at $1499. Probably makes more sense to wait for Quest 3, which given what I've been playing with today I think is going to be worthwhile (edit: it does say in the article that price is coming to UK March 15th).

I picked up a Pico 4 to use with PCVR and I've been very impressed with the lenses, clarity, and how light it is, via virtual desktop on PC and wireless it's definitely superior to Quest 2 in terms of comfort and resolution. There are two things that are slight negatives, and that is the FoV (it looks just a little wider than Rift S), and the screen brightness/colours could be a little better. These aren't major niggles though, and given the price of the headset, (£379), I'm impressed by the build quality - it feels far better built than PSVR2. Tracking I'd say is on par with Quest 2, so I did get a couple of misses in Beat Saber that I wouldn't using Index.

If you're wanting a cheap wireless PCVR headset (and I'd recommend having a Wifi 6 network), Pico 4 might be worth a look.

[Asura]

[QUOTE=MartyG;2468386If you're wanting a cheap wireless PCVR headset (and I'd recommend having a Wifi 6 network), Pico 4 might be worth a look.[/QUOTE]

Bear in mind, though, the Quest 3 is, if the leaks are to be believed, a mashup of what's best about the Quest 2 and the Pico 4.