Virtual Reality

[Lebowski]

https://www.techzine.eu/news/applications/114630/windows-mixed-reality-dies-a-quiet-death/

All WMR headsets are now essentially E-waste, Microsoft officially kills off the platform and will be removing support for them from an as yet unannounced future update of windows. I can understand them not wanting to update the software any more but turning all wmr into useless bricks feels a bit harsh. 5% of headsets on steam are wmr, its a super cheap way to get into PCVR and their are some nice headsets with decent fov and refresh rates out there.

We are seeing more and more tech that's reliant on external software become redundant in a way a lot of retro technology isn't, Come next year windows vr cliff top house and all the software I purchased from Microsoft will be scrubbed off the face of the planet. The only hope of salvation being bedroom programmers creating some sort of middleware to keep this thing running, It really does make you aware how temporary digital purchases are.

It got me thinking are Quest headset sever based? Does it require you to be connected to their servers to play or can you download and just play offline? it may not be a worry for most though the non-replaceable internal battery will more than likely be long dead before the servers are.

[Neon Ignition]

Not sure but there are many workarounds with the Quest so if Meta pulled the plug it would still be useable

[Brad]

I have an HP Reverb. This is bad news (WMR being end of lifed) but I think my headset will continue to work for many years. I don't think they'll brick them; Just nothing new coming out.
I ONLY use my gaming PC for games so I'll just stop updating. Still on Win10. I'll just take the security patches.

[Neon Ignition]

Right.


So.


That just happened.



So, despite owning a Quest 3 I've had some hankerings for stuff like Blood and Truth which now seem to be hardlocked to the original PSVR. But despite the headset being easily found cheaply you need the camera, a stand, move controllers and so on so the cost quickly mounts up and it's not a priority at all. I ended up perusing ebay one night looking at the lower end Buy it Now's to see how cheaply they would go for even if they just missed the Move's as plenty of things are playable and I still have a working DS4 knock off in a drawer. Most are non-working or solo headsets but there's a couple of basic sets for reasonable prices so I kept doing my digging.



I didn't need perfection, just enough to build up at a later time as it's never going to get loads of use merely now and then on those exclusives. Easy to let the kids have at it on Astrobot rather than panicking over the Quest 3. So, there were a couple on there all missing something and likely to be benched till I can get the essentials completed. Nestled in there were a couple and one of the cheapest totalled £50, didn't show it but the seller was shifting a PS5 in another listing..The description was just a single line saying it was no longer needed.



The assumption was that despite being sold off at a low price and not being descriptive of condition there might be a chance it would have the PS5 adaptor included having been used with the console being sold in the other listing. Possibly the camera too which would cheaply put me most of the way to what I need. Though the user had a relatively low feedback count from a while back it seemed low risk. If it was missing bits I wouldn't have spent much, if it was in poor state I wouldn't have lost much and might even get a good chunk of it back from selling to CEX, if it never came I could eventually get a refund. So after some mulling I ordered and have since been looking through my PSN accounts at what I still have access to for download.




Queue a week of frantic watching because it shipped but the DPD have really dragged this thing out. I've been mindful of missing it with the Xmas deliveries and it being sent back and dealing with that over Xmas. But, still, £50 so no huge loss in any case.




Today the courier finally moved just before I wouldn't be around to collect it




Package has been delivered and the question finally is, is there enough here to play Astrobot with the kids over Christmas or is it getting sold or benched till I can get whatever is missing?
It arrived wrapped in a bin bag but boxed at least so the contents were protected. I opened up the end of the bag.



So. £50.


And it turns out we won't be playing Astrobot. I won't be playing any of the headsets games because inside was a familiar box, I opened it and inside there was no sign of a PSVR.

£50

I moved the bin bag out of the way, cut any remaining selotape and emptied out the contents. Cardboard holding pieces, pamphlets, plastic bags for items etc all laid out beside the packaging and box whilst looking at the item incredulously. There are a handful of occasions where I've unwittingly pulled off something like this. Very rarely over many decades but certainly something I didn't think would happen again. I once bought Panzer Dragoon Saga for £20, I happened to stumble onto the PSN store at midnight unintentionally the day that Uncharted: Golden Abyss launched and Sony accidentally listed it for 29 pence, they never cancelled the order either. I bought a console of a mate for a tenner which went for more later on, a Neo Geo CD. So, here I am having spent my fifty quid and staring at the contents of my order. If this thing works later when I plug it in... a PlayStation VR 2

[huxley]

Not sure but there are many workarounds with the Quest so if Meta pulled the plug it would still be useable

doesn't it need a Faceache (meta) to set up?

[Lebowski]

if it works treat yourself to Horizon, I've replayed that first bit so many times just to see the Tallneck striding by and the Stormbird swooping past. The thing that Vr dose better than any other medium is the scale, seeing massive Horizons robo dinos close up still is one of my fave Vr experiences on the psvr2.

​

[Neon Ignition]

doesn't it need a Faceache (meta) to set up?

Effectively yep, mine is empty of details. You sync with the phone app too which was the more annoying part

[Neon Ignition]

if it works treat yourself to Horizon, I've replayed that first bit so many times just to see the Tallneck striding by and the Stormbird swooping past. The thing that Vr dose better than any other medium is the scale, seeing massive Horizons robo dinos close up still is one of my fave Vr experiences on the psvr2.

​

It's definitely no.1 on the list, but doesn't seem to be on sale atm in the store so Switchback might be first. The only compatible game I have is Resi 4 so it seems likely to be first to bat in testing.

[Neon Ignition]

So, the headset works perfectly The two main down the line titles are likely Horizon: Call of the Mountain and Gran Turismo 7 as both are full price at the moment. I've redownloaded Resident Evil 4 Remake and picked up Dark Pictures: Switchback, Synapse and Resident Evil VIIIage in the sale. As for the PSVR2 itself - I always felt I wouldn't be too keen on the controllers, that the spherical design would be awkward, but in hand they're actually very nice and lightweight. The headset though is less impressive. I picked up a £30 non-brand elite style headstrap replacement for my Quest 3 and it's been great. A cheap tweak and the result is the Quest 3 feels way more solid and premium than PSVR2. Adding to that sense is the image quality, when full VR is in play it looks broadly fine and is definitely a good step up from the original headset but the sweet spot for clarity is very small leading to a lot of noticeable blurring. It's generally fine but out of the gate it is a step back from the Quest 3 where the lenses add far more than the OLED's do for the PSVR2. The build of the headset feels fairly tinny and cheap too, something I'd expect if it weren't for how much Sony charge for the thing. It definitely reminds me heavily of the original PSVR, very much an evolution of that headset rather than feeling like a competitor to the Quest. Next up will be to see how things like the eye tracking feel given they aren't in the other headset.

[Ouenben]

Right.


So.


That just happened.



So, despite owning a Quest 3 I've had some hankerings for stuff like Blood and Truth which now seem to be hardlocked to the original PSVR. But despite the headset being easily found cheaply you need the camera, a stand, move controllers and so on so the cost quickly mounts up and it's not a priority at all. I ended up perusing ebay one night looking at the lower end Buy it Now's to see how cheaply they would go for even if they just missed the Move's as plenty of things are playable and I still have a working DS4 knock off in a drawer. Most are non-working or solo headsets but there's a couple of basic sets for reasonable prices so I kept doing my digging.



I didn't need perfection, just enough to build up at a later time as it's never going to get loads of use merely now and then on those exclusives. Easy to let the kids have at it on Astrobot rather than panicking over the Quest 3. So, there were a couple on there all missing something and likely to be benched till I can get the essentials completed. Nestled in there were a couple and one of the cheapest totalled £50, didn't show it but the seller was shifting a PS5 in another listing..The description was just a single line saying it was no longer needed.



The assumption was that despite being sold off at a low price and not being descriptive of condition there might be a chance it would have the PS5 adaptor included having been used with the console being sold in the other listing. Possibly the camera too which would cheaply put me most of the way to what I need. Though the user had a relatively low feedback count from a while back it seemed low risk. If it was missing bits I wouldn't have spent much, if it was in poor state I wouldn't have lost much and might even get a good chunk of it back from selling to CEX, if it never came I could eventually get a refund. So after some mulling I ordered and have since been looking through my PSN accounts at what I still have access to for download.




Queue a week of frantic watching because it shipped but the DPD have really dragged this thing out. I've been mindful of missing it with the Xmas deliveries and it being sent back and dealing with that over Xmas. But, still, £50 so no huge loss in any case.




Today the courier finally moved just before I wouldn't be around to collect it




Package has been delivered and the question finally is, is there enough here to play Astrobot with the kids over Christmas or is it getting sold or benched till I can get whatever is missing?
It arrived wrapped in a bin bag but boxed at least so the contents were protected. I opened up the end of the bag.



So. £50.


And it turns out we won't be playing Astrobot. I won't be playing any of the headsets games because inside was a familiar box, I opened it and inside there was no sign of a PSVR.

£50

I moved the bin bag out of the way, cut any remaining selotape and emptied out the contents. Cardboard holding pieces, pamphlets, plastic bags for items etc all laid out beside the packaging and box whilst looking at the item incredulously. There are a handful of occasions where I've unwittingly pulled off something like this. Very rarely over many decades but certainly something I didn't think would happen again. I once bought Panzer Dragoon Saga for £20, I happened to stumble onto the PSN store at midnight unintentionally the day that Uncharted: Golden Abyss launched and Sony accidentally listed it for 29 pence, they never cancelled the order either. I bought a console of a mate for a tenner which went for more later on, a Neo Geo CD. So, here I am having spent my fifty quid and staring at the contents of my order. If this thing works later when I plug it in... a PlayStation VR 2

Bloody hell, I'm very jealous of that bargain find! I'd love the PSVR2 but can't justify £500 on something I'll only play sporadically. Congrats!

[Neon Ignition]

I'm only just getting past the anxiety of expecting a demand for its return any minute. To play it safe I might complete all the exclusives by Boxing Day

[huxley]

Hellblade VR is £3.74 in the current steam sale
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice VR Edition on Steam (steampowered.com)​

[Neon Ignition]

https://praydog.github.io/uevr-docs/

The Unreal Engine VR Injector has been released!

[wakka]

Right.


So.


That just happened.



So, despite owning a Quest 3 I've had some hankerings for stuff like Blood and Truth which now seem to be hardlocked to the original PSVR. But despite the headset being easily found cheaply you need the camera, a stand, move controllers and so on so the cost quickly mounts up and it's not a priority at all. I ended up perusing ebay one night looking at the lower end Buy it Now's to see how cheaply they would go for even if they just missed the Move's as plenty of things are playable and I still have a working DS4 knock off in a drawer. Most are non-working or solo headsets but there's a couple of basic sets for reasonable prices so I kept doing my digging.



I didn't need perfection, just enough to build up at a later time as it's never going to get loads of use merely now and then on those exclusives. Easy to let the kids have at it on Astrobot rather than panicking over the Quest 3. So, there were a couple on there all missing something and likely to be benched till I can get the essentials completed. Nestled in there were a couple and one of the cheapest totalled £50, didn't show it but the seller was shifting a PS5 in another listing..The description was just a single line saying it was no longer needed.



The assumption was that despite being sold off at a low price and not being descriptive of condition there might be a chance it would have the PS5 adaptor included having been used with the console being sold in the other listing. Possibly the camera too which would cheaply put me most of the way to what I need. Though the user had a relatively low feedback count from a while back it seemed low risk. If it was missing bits I wouldn't have spent much, if it was in poor state I wouldn't have lost much and might even get a good chunk of it back from selling to CEX, if it never came I could eventually get a refund. So after some mulling I ordered and have since been looking through my PSN accounts at what I still have access to for download.




Queue a week of frantic watching because it shipped but the DPD have really dragged this thing out. I've been mindful of missing it with the Xmas deliveries and it being sent back and dealing with that over Xmas. But, still, £50 so no huge loss in any case.




Today the courier finally moved just before I wouldn't be around to collect it




Package has been delivered and the question finally is, is there enough here to play Astrobot with the kids over Christmas or is it getting sold or benched till I can get whatever is missing?
It arrived wrapped in a bin bag but boxed at least so the contents were protected. I opened up the end of the bag.



So. £50.


And it turns out we won't be playing Astrobot. I won't be playing any of the headsets games because inside was a familiar box, I opened it and inside there was no sign of a PSVR.

£50

I moved the bin bag out of the way, cut any remaining selotape and emptied out the contents. Cardboard holding pieces, pamphlets, plastic bags for items etc all laid out beside the packaging and box whilst looking at the item incredulously. There are a handful of occasions where I've unwittingly pulled off something like this. Very rarely over many decades but certainly something I didn't think would happen again. I once bought Panzer Dragoon Saga for £20, I happened to stumble onto the PSN store at midnight unintentionally the day that Uncharted: Golden Abyss launched and Sony accidentally listed it for 29 pence, they never cancelled the order either. I bought a console of a mate for a tenner which went for more later on, a Neo Geo CD. So, here I am having spent my fifty quid and staring at the contents of my order. If this thing works later when I plug it in... a PlayStation VR 2

Mate this is so awesome, congrats!

[Neon Ignition]

It's in rough condition so some cleaning etc is going to be going on but I've completed the set and ordered a PSVR1 as well. £60 to revisit Astrobot and Blood & Truth for the most part so it pretty much just needs to be functional. Plus, it comes with the camera and two Move Controllers so will do the job before the PS5 rounds out its final years and these games become fully lost to the ether.