PSVR2: Next-Gen Boogaloo

[Asura]

I've already seen a couple of pretty disingenuous vids about GT7's visuals and cutbacks made. It's bit like when you see Quest 2 getting slagged off in comparison to the visuals PSVR2 generates which is really a complete misrepresentation of the products because PSVR2 isn't generated sod all, the whopping great big PS5 is doing all the work compared to the poor Quest 2 having to do its processing within the same physical dimensions as the headset.

Likewise any vids negatively comparing cutback visual elements in games such as GT7 compared to the game running on TV often seem to completely ignore that the game is being run specifically tailored for the VR output. Peripheral elements can be scaled back in detail because that's not where your visual focus is unless you look there and it needs to prioritise consistent performance on a higher refresh rate screen that runs in lower resolution so of course the game scales accordingly. Comparing it to it running normally is redundant as the differences at face value are close enough that when you factor in seeing the game via the headset it's obvious its visually running amazingly and comparatively.

It's all clickbait, though. General "it's good!" videos don't get clicks after the initial surge of positivity.

As a Quest 2 owner it's something I'm accustomed to, people slagging it off saying that the games look sub-GameCube, as if that's the only part of the experience that matters.

[Neon Ignition]

It also raises the question of what they expect of the games also. Graphics power doesn't equate to better visuals unless the budget is there to back it up. Even with a £1000+ VR headset connected to a monster powered earth shattering PC, 99% of VR games visually still look rudimentary to an extent because it's very small studio/indie dependent. Given we've only recently stopped being impressed at finally getting GC visuals and better from a handheld consistently, getting it from a standalone wireless VR headset at a reasonable is amazing even at this point when it's erring on its own replacement.

[Lebowski]

It's all clickbait, though. General "it's good!" videos don't get clicks after the initial surge of positivity.

As a Quest 2 owner it's something I'm accustomed to, people slagging it off saying that the games look sub-GameCube, as if that's the only part of the experience that matters.

Graphics are massively important the downgrade is to far a step in the wrong direction for me, i started with a gaming PC for Vr playing things like Robo Recall, the below really shows how much of a downgrade you end up with. the quest is after all just an android phone inside a headset.

[Neon Ignition]

Weirdly I kind of think the Quest version looks fine in that vid. Don't get me wrong, it's blatantly better on PC but the Quest version looks decent. Feels a bit like jumping between playing a PS3 and a Wii
Plus, Quest can just be connected to a PC to run that version anyway, win

If Quest 3 can add enough internal graphics improvement to reach the medium level that the majority of games run at then power wise they'll cracked it and it'll become very much a price point/consumer interest battle from that point onward.

[Lebowski]

I think it looks sub PS3, Lighting particle effects, shadows, textures and enemy models are all massively downgraded or non-existent. If your not bothered about this sort of thing then yeah its perfectly fine. Maybe we should of just stopped at the PS3 and xbox360 as most games still look "fine" on those platforms.

[Asura]

the quest is after all just an android phone inside a headset.

Sorry, but totally disagree with your point.

Not that idea that PCVR games are usually visually reworked in order to be functional on Quest; that's just fact.

But I see focusing on that as reductionist. Saying the Quest is "just an Android phone inside a headset" is like asking someone who has a gaming PC why they have a smartphone - or asking someone who has a BluRay player why they go to the cinema. The Quest (and stand-alone VR in general) serve a different market and use-case.

I guess what I'm saying is you see as a "downgrade" and a step "in the wrong direction", I see as an upgrade because it makes that experience enormously more usable. I can play the same thing, but without a VR setup with base-stations bolted to the walls and at a fraction of the cost and time investment.

Yes, it looks worse when you compare them side-by-side in a video. But that's just not a like-for-like comparison for me. It's like if you stack up a Switch game and PS5 game; sure, the Switch game will look worse; but if the prospective buyer is commuter who primarily uses their Switch in portable mode, the PS5 version looks great but is useless to them.

And yes, PS360 games do look good. But then I'm not a graphics person, never really have been.

[Lebowski]

You may not like it but the simple fact is that the quest uses the same tech that's in a smart phone to achieve what it dose, and in doing so its processing power and graphical output is on par with a mobile device, ergo its a mobile in a headset. its using a slightly modified Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chipset which was used in 2020s Samsung’s Galaxy S20.

If portability is a massive dealbreaker for you then i can see the appeal of a stand alone headset, for me its not a massive deal to me i like things to be shinny and make me go wow like i did when the Tallneck walked in front of me in Horizon.

Id be lying if i said i was a fan of the Quest Model, Meta have wasted billions trying to build a metaverse on it and all we have to show is a headset that's taken old pcvr games and downgraded and re sold them. It feels like a sidestep that wouldn't of happened if meta haden't had a vast libary to pick form and a massive pot of money to get them on their platform.

To me It feels like Meta have done a really good job of making this a Wii style device that captured the mass market for a Christmas, but like the Wii it will be gathering dust in a lots of middle class peoples cupboards who don't normally play video games. For someone like myself who has a pc headset and had a psvr1 their was very little incentive to get one to play Beat Sabre and Job simulator again but with worse graphics.

[Asura]

Id be lying if i said i was a fan of the Quest Model, Meta have wasted billions-

I personally think that for VR, the existence of both stand-alone and PCVR is the future. But that's because I think both have different purposes.

If I seem spiky over this, it's because of the whole divide in the VR fanbase, where there's a resolute group of PCVR fans for whom the only thing they want from the stand-alone headsets is for them to stop being made. As a result, whenever the Quest situation comes up, there's usually an army of commenters to shout down literally anything positive about the Quest or Pico4. When those issues are about Meta as a company, that's fine, but the hardware itself is fantastic and the idea that we might, in future, have stand-alone and PCVR in the way we had home & arcade, DVD & cinema, restaurants & takeout, seems to make sense to me.

[Lebowski]

The pcvr marketplace doesn't help itself at times too, a massive player like Valve launched a headset, made one game and seem to have called it a day. Why spend all this time making devices and then just abandon them. No price cuts for the index and no software from valve for it.

[Neon Ignition]

I feel like standalone headsets are the only real way forward, the need to make it a self sufficient platform and get it up to a suitable level of power etc. If standalone VR doesn't take off then PC bound never will, well, not beyond the same way flight sticks etc persist largely because the software support will dry up. I wonder how well PSVR3 would do if it didn't require owning a PS6 to succeed? If Quest could hit good numbers the PS brand name attached would be interesting to see used and to see if it could come in at higher figures or not than being tethered to a console

[Brad]

Room for both types of headset of course. Untethered, more basic graphics for the casuals, pcvr for the enthusiasts for who are willing to jump through the hoops, and spend the money required for that experience. I used a quest 2 for work for a couple of months and the standalone nature was lost on me because I was using it in my office/game room but I did get to see other new users try it out and they loved it! For experiences that run on quest and pcvr the quality difference was easily detectable to me, with the tethered headset running at more than double the framerate and noticeably higher fidelity. However, I didn't really notice this when I initially started using those experiences on the quest; it was only when I tried the pc versions out that I realised how much of a gap there was, which makes sense.

[QualityChimp]

Couple of opinion pieces:
Playing No Man's Sky In VR Made Me Like No Man's Sky

I played Gran Turismo 7 in PSVR 2, and now I can't go back

[Lebowski]

Picked up a couple more PSVR indies last night, Kayak VR: Mirage was the first game to make me feel a bit wobbly as paddling left and right moves your head in a funny way that really disconnects turning this off makes the game feel a lot more natural and relaxing. I found a few secret bits in the Artic so far including a research station and loads of penguins

I also picked up What the bat, this is room scale only so make sure you have the space before buying it, but its really right up my street, you are a person growing up with bats for hands and have to do various tasks, lots of hitting stuff mainly but a few dexterity things too. it's a puzzle game at its heart where it puts you in a room with no instruction and Ask's you to work out what you need to do. This could be working out how to brush your teeth with bats for hands or how to iron your pants. It's all very silly and it works pretty well so far as all the puzzles are really quick fire (like wario ware in vr), I've done the first three levels so far and its managed to stay fresh as thankfully hitting things with a bat is quite a fun thing to do in vr.

I picked up Pistolwhip and it looks amazingly crisp on the PSVR2 (had it on PC VR previously) still a really enjoyable shooter and a good work out too. If you've not played it id say its up their with some of the best experiences on VR, feeling like a bad ass John Wick style assassin and dual wielding to the beat is super addictive. if i had one criticism the games menus could do with a bit of work though it jumps in quite a jarring way every-time you go back to main menu from selecting a song. it would also be nice if it just let you play the next song in the list without having to go back to the main menu every time too.

[QualityChimp]

Resident Evil Village Review (PSVR 2) - Survival Horror's Colossus Gets Right In Your Face - PSU

"VR doesn’t always make Resident Evil Village a better experience. Yet it is quite remarkable how much fresh life it breathes into it. I don’t think it’ll be the easiest VR game to get into. But once you begin to understand its mechanics, it becomes an extremely lavish experience. Especially within this medium. There’s still room for improvement I feel, but Capcom has set a pretty high bar for itself with Resident Evil Village on PSVR2."

[QualityChimp]

Mini Review: Demeo (PSVR2) - Dungeons and Dragons Experience Is One Roll Away from Perfection

"Demeo is a one-to-four player tabletop turn-based dungeon crawler that can be played on both the PS5 and in PSVR2, the latter being significantly better. You choose your role from a possible seven classes (Guardian, Warlock, Sorcerer, Assassin, Hunter, Barbarian and Bard) and must traverse three floors, using card abilities and rolling dice to slay monsters that stand in your path on the way to the dungeon boss on the final floor.

There’s plenty of content on offer within Demeo, with a total of five campaigns that have differing locations, enemies, and bosses, each one taking anywhere between 90 minutes and three hours to complete. The boards in which Demeo’s campaigns take place are highly detailed environments branching from forestry dungeons to castle catacombs; you’ll see just how detailed the various figures and surroundings are when playing in VR. For instance, fire spews ash particles that drift upwards, poison bubbles like it’s brewing in a cauldron, and leaves float gracefully from trees — it really is a marvellous scene in PSVR2."