Virtual Reality

[VR46]

Controller looks decent enough (wireless and one for each hand)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-11-oculus-touch-is-the-oculus-rifts-future-controller

[Asura]

Nice but in the conference it's painful the lack of enthusiasm this is getting in the room

I think the Facebook buyout casts a very long shadow.

[VR46]

Yes, and the what four years before hitting the market properly - can't believe it's still about another eight months until release.
Final screen specs etc are also still not confirmed also, people have lost patience in them, and the Valve version will guarantee a lot of sales purely by the association with Steam.
Rumoured $499 price tag for Oculus won't help either.

[noobish hat]

What's with all the bloody 3rd person games for it? This is what killed the Virtual Boy!

[importaku]

Nope what killed the virtual boy was the games library was total crap even the best game for it were pretty much average at best there were never any real high quality games for it. Owned that thing twice and regretted it both times.

Wonder if minecraft will be ported to work with the rift, would be fun to be inside that world in person. Will be tempted to get one at some point in the future but my pc will need a drastic overhall to bring it upto spec to use that thing. I remember whar VR was like back in the 90's with it's 5fps janky ass games, finally we now have vr which is acceptable. Just need people to utilize it in as many games as possible to make sure it has max use.

[Golgo]

What's with all the bloody 3rd person games for it? This is what killed the Virtual Boy!

Maybe because 3rd person allows you to get away with lower resolutions/textures as you've not got anything right up in your face. Just speculating, here.

BTW, VR noob question incoming: why do I keep reading people saying Morpheus/PS4 will be too underpowered to compete with the 'big two'? If a computer can do split screen (and my C64 could do that) it can run VR, surely?

[VR46]

In a real brief sentence, in an ideal world with VR you want two screens rendered separately, one for each eye, ideally around 1440p each and with 60fps and 90mhz+ refresh rate - so it doesn't look pixellated, and is smooth moving/scrolling.

Sony will have to blag it all some how as the PS4 just doesn't have the GPU grunt to produce that.

Lower FPS and refresh rates will make you feel pretty rough motion sickness wise and won't look great either.

Even Oculus have said recently, from scratch it's roughly a $1500 investment for a PC to run it well and the VR unit.

[Asura]

BTW, VR noob question incoming: why do I keep reading people saying Morpheus/PS4 will be too underpowered to compete with the 'big two'? If a computer can do split screen (and my C64 could do that) it can run VR, surely?

Firstly, VR puts the screens very close to your eyes, meaning that even 1080p resolution isn't high enough.

Plus, frame jerks and skips in VR give people serious motion sickness. Rock solid framerates are a must and ideally 60fps or more is required, because anything else reminds you you're looking at a screen (the ideal VR experience just feels like looking out at a world via your own eyes).

The PS4 will certainly be able to do games at high-res and 60fps, but not necessarily high-detail ones.

[Golgo]

Thanks chaps, that makes sense. I hadn't reckoned on needing consistently high res and refresh rates to compensate for the motion sickness problem.

[Brad]

Yeah, most of us that are running PCs and getting 40-50fps on the latest games aren't going to be running oculus with these setups. The investment might be too high for me. Also I don't think I'll want to be VRing in my office, I'll want to be in the living room which I guess is going to mean moving the PC downstairs. Argh! Looks like I'll have to hope that Morpheus does the job.

[Supergoal]

Ive owned the rift dk2 for about 6 months and to be honest it's not going to work. Mine has been gathering dust for about half that time. I was excited when I first got it, I even upgraded my PC to run it well. Initially you be amazed and spellbound by it but I bet you my house it's not going to catch on. Since when has clunky hardware you stick On your body taken off mainstream?

I ran the rift at 75fps Rock solid at medium settings but the new kit runs at 90htz. Who has the hardware to run new stuff at those rates? But the thing is you need at least 90 and a really high resolution screen to get anywhere near useable.

Another point is motion sickness. It's horrific for anyone who even suffers slightly in normal circumstance. All these issues are big hurdles. I still think we're at least another 10 years before the tech is ready. Now it's a niche thing that only the hardcore can try.

[VR46]

Agree with the above two posts, even with the DK2 you really need a GTX970 minimum which is still around a ?240 graphics card - and that's before we start talking about higher resolutions/detail etc.

Hopefully there will be more opportunities for people to try it at shows and events, but really can't see many dropping the coin on actually buying one and the spec to go with it.

Consumer version 2 or 3 is where most will probably join, and that's at least a couple more years down the line yet.

[Supergoal]

All us gamers want it to succeed but I can't see it. Yes you're right about maybe consumer version 2 and later as a maybe.

I must have tried most of my steam collection with the rift, plus dozens and dozens of tech demos. Some work well while others are clearly never meant for VR, obviously. Which means for VR to work it'll need a whole new genre of games to open up for it to work that can't be played traditionally. Otherwise what's the point? If you can play via your high definition monitor or TV why strap on a head mount display.

Another problem is space. I have kids and often if I wore e rift I couldn't spend any length of time without my kids yanking on it or wife shouting at me. It's a very solitary experience. I can't see how you could involve the family. There's the key for mainstream.

[noobish hat]

Minecraft has worked with Rift for ages. The Virtual Boy was top quality, man, I'll not hear a bad word against it. Galactic Pinball is one of my favourite pinball games ever (it even has Samus Aran in it!). Space Squash is also a lot of fun, and Innsmouth no Yakata is actually quite scary and panic-inducing. There is nothing you can really compare it with, but if you stand its games next to what was available on the Game Boy, they don't disappoint, as far as I'm concerned. I'm totally convinced if it had been given more time, some truly amazing games would have been made for it (even the Game Boy didn't have too many classics less than 1 year after it was released). It's launch was poorly timed though, exactly the same as Sega's cock up with the 32X. But it's just like AVGN said in his review, it didn't really have any virtual reality games except Innsmouth and Telero Boxer. If it had launched with Doom, it might have been a different story.

[Neon Ignition]

The problem is they would need to hit it out the gate. The companies can talk all they want about refining it with further consumer versions each year but unless it takes off from the off, by the time the tech is cheap and consistent enough, public interest will be dead.

VR is still far too early on for mass market and without that we'll never see software support. They couldn't even generate buzz at their own presentation. It's Android Consoles all over again.