Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR

Display $50
Optics $20
Processor $25
Memory $5
Misc IC, tranceivers, pcb $15
LEDs $10
Assembly, plastic, cabling, connectors $40
Power supply $5

Total $170 ???

^ sounds about right. We don't know the price of lenses, and most probably some money/time would be needed to be spent on calibration.
 
2) How does PSVR deal with different IPDs? Both Rift and Vive have a slider to adjust distance between lenses. What about PSVR? I know you can digitally adjust the distance between left and right images but what about the lenses? Shouldn't they slide as well?
I don't know what will actually end up in PSVR headset, Sony did patent procedure for automatic IPD calculation [via camera sensor inside of headset that looks at users eyes]
http://www.roadtovr.com/samsung-patent-shows-method-for-automatic-ipd-measurement-vr-headset/

3) I'm not sure I properly understood what the breakout box does with regards to barrel distortion. More specifically, I'd like to know whether the PS4 outputs a predistorted image which the breakout box then undistorts before sending it to the social screen (the HMD screen getting fed with the original, pre-distorted image)
Richard Marks' talk with Toms Hardware points that this is indeed the case. PS4 gets everything ready, and then that video is sent as fast as possible to the PSVR headset. PU works only on #1 separating additional video stream for social coop screen, #2 un-distorting video for "flat emulation" of VR viewpoint if the game is "singleplayer", #3 managing 3D audio.
 
I don't know what will actually end up in PSVR headset, Sony did patent procedure for automatic IPD calculation [via camera sensor inside of headset that looks at users eyes]
http://www.roadtovr.com/samsung-patent-shows-method-for-automatic-ipd-measurement-vr-headset/
http://www.roadtovr.com/samsung-patent-shows-method-for-automatic-ipd-measurement-vr-headset/
http://www.roadtovr.com/samsung-patent-shows-method-for-automatic-ipd-measurement-vr-headset/

I see. That's still a mistery then. Perhaps you'll be able to change distance between left/right images manually via setup option while the lenses focal point is wide enough to accomodate different IPDs without having to adjust them as well. Hmm...

Richard Marks' talk with Toms Hardware points that this is indeed the case. PS4 gets everything ready, and then that video is sent as fast as possible to the PSVR headset. PU works only on #1 separating additional video stream for social coop screen, #2 un-distorting video for "flat emulation" of VR viewpoint if the game is "singleplayer", #3 managing 3D audio.

That makes sense. BTW, I've seen videos of The PlayRoom VR "Monster Escape" minigame being showcased on two screens, a mirror one (the VR one) and a social one (the coop one). Wonder how that did that since the breakout box only has one HDMI output. Perhaps it was a special set up with two PS4 linked together...

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help!
 
BTW, I've seen videos of The PlayRoom VR "Monster Escape" minigame being showcased on two screens, a mirror one (the VR one) and a social one (the coop one). Wonder how that did that since the breakout box only has one HDMI output. Perhaps it was a special set up with two PS4 linked together...

Everything was rendered on one PS4. VR game into one video stream, social screen gameplay on a different stream, and then both video streams were sent via HDMI to Processing Unit. PU then splits videos, one toward PSVR and other toward HDTV.

Here is the recent video of Cat & Mouse playroom VR game that shows both gameplay viewpoints



edit - I don't think we have posted here videos from Playroom VR game "Ghost House". In it players use "VR version" od Dualshock 4 to capture ghosts in a haunted room. Looks quite nice, especially during the ghost capture scenes when dozens of house objects are jumping up and down. That must feel awesome in VR.

BTW, this is proof that "social screen" shows zoomed version of the gameworld that user sees. That makes sense.
 
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Yes, there are more games that work like that. I think I should spend some more time on entering VR features to track on techingames.net. You're always welcome to embed or just grab data from there using odata (you can even just get the data into excel etc. )
 
Everything was rendered on one PS4. VR game into one video stream, social screen gameplay on a different stream, and then both video streams were sent via HDMI to Processing Unit. PU then splits videos, one toward PSVR and other toward HDTV.

Yeah I know that. I wasn't clear enough maybe. I'm talking about this setup:
z8hUjof.jpg


As you can see, there are *two* TVs there. I was just wondering how they did that since the breakout box has only one HDMI output socket.
 

There are some pretty major flaws in that analysis. It assumes users don't already have a PC that either meets the Oculus requirements or can be cheaply upgraded to do so when it states that the $599 price point that 40% of people are willing to stretch to would price Oculus out. However at the same time it completely ignores the fact that you also need a PS4 to run PSVR meaning that anyone who doesn't already own a PS4 is also very likely priced out of that $599 segment.

So quite bizarrely the poll seems to assume everyone already owns a PS4 and no-one already owns a PC with a 970/290 or above. The reality is that by the time these headsets actually launch there are likely to be around 30 million PS4's in the wild and around 10 million PC's meeting or exceeding the Oculus minimum spec (rough calc based on there currently being about 6.9m users of the 970 & 980 alone in the latest Steam survey). However the number of PC's that could be upgraded to Oculus minimum spec for the cost of a PS4 is likely much higher still.

I'm certainly not saying any of that means Oculus will have higher sales than PSVR. I'm just pointing out that the survey has missed some pretty critical factors.
 
There are some pretty major flaws in that analysis. It assumes users don't already have a PC that either meets the Oculus requirements or can be cheaply upgraded to do so when it states that the $599 price point that 40% of people are willing to stretch to would price Oculus out. However at the same time it completely ignores the fact that you also need a PS4 to run PSVR meaning that anyone who doesn't already own a PS4 is also very likely priced out of that $599 segment.
My reading on that was that that was conjecture on the part of the reporter.
So quite bizarrely the poll seems to assume everyone already owns a PS4 and no-one already owns a PC with a 970/290 or above. The reality is that by the time these headsets actually launch there are likely to be around 30 million PS4's in the wild and around 10 million PC's meeting or exceeding the Oculus minimum spec (rough calc based on there currently being about 6.9m users of the 970 & 980 alone in the latest Steam survey). However the number of PC's that could be upgraded to Oculus minimum spec for the cost of a PS4 is likely much higher still.
And that's conjecture on your part.
 
"The fact that very few of those surveyed are willing to pay more than $1,000 is notable because it effectively rules out the purchase of a new PC to power a VR headset, making the Oculus Rift an unlikely purchase for folks who want to play VR games and don't own computers that meet Oculus' (relatively beefy) recommended specs. What platform might they buy into instead?"

Seems to correctly take into consideration some users have a powerful PC.
 
Year from now 970 level of performance is very close to low end as far as new discrete GPUs sold are concerned. I am not stating that against PSVR as it is very well positioned, But PC and Rift will be coming along just fine I think.
 
My reading on that was that that was conjecture on the part of the reporter.

Not really, the article quoted directly from the report: "Price point thresholds indicate that 20% of consumers will be willing to spend between $400 to $500, boding well for Playstation VR and possibly the HTC Vive," the report concluded. "Only 11% of consumers are willing to spend $1,000-plus. With the need to purchase a specialized PC alongside a new console, Oculus falls into this expensive category"

How does it bode well for the PS4 unless they are specifically assuming that "consumers" already have one? Since we know for sure a new PS4+PSVR is going to cost more $500 at launch. They then go on to specifically state that that a "specialised" PC is required to operate Oculus. They even conjecture that the Vive may fall into the cheaper category along with PSVR despite us knowing it runs at the same resolution and frame rate as the Oculus and thus would require exactly the same PC as Oculus to run the exact same games at an equivalent performance. The whole quote above smacks of a lack of understanding of the hardware required to run a HMD or the reasons behind those requirements.

And that's conjecture on your part.

It's a perfectly reasonable sales prediction based on currently available information. Do you have some specific reason to doubt it?

"The fact that very few of those surveyed are willing to pay more than $1,000 is notable because it effectively rules out the purchase of a new PC to power a VR headset, making the Oculus Rift an unlikely purchase for folks who want to play VR games and don't own computers that meet Oculus' (relatively beefy) recommended specs. What platform might they buy into instead?"

Seems to correctly take into consideration some users have a powerful PC.

Ironically, that part does seem to be conjecture on Gamasutra's part rather than a direct quote from the report. Gamasutra are further guily of their own apples to oranges analysis where they state in the next section "What platform might they buy into instead? The majority of those surveyed (roughly 60 percent) said they wouldn't pay more than $400 for a VR headset next year, a price range which encompasses both the Samsung Gear VR and (probably) the PlayStation VR headsets"

No mention of the 60% of people who are unwilling to pay more than $400 also being priced out of the market unless they already own a PS4.

So the actual conclusion here is that unless they already own a PS4 or PC that meets the OR minimum specs, then 60% of people would be unwilling to spend the greater than $400 that it would cost to get setup with either Oculus Rift or PSVR.

That's not to say PSVR doesn't have other advantages. Brand awareness is higher, existing install base of a system capable of powering it will be a lot higher and the cost to purchase such a system from scratch is much lower). But the conclusion that Oculus Rift is priced out of the $400-$600 bracket while PSVR isn't is at best misleading.
 
It all depends on price of PSVR and Oculus, at this point arguing cost relative to PC and Oculus is pure speculation bc we don't know the cost of either peripheral even if we do know the cost of a high end PC and PS4. That said the recently announced price of Samsung Gear is encouraging for both platforms in the sense that if if that tech is so cheap perhaps PSVR and Oculus might be more affordable than some are forecasting.


Engadget just wrote on this subject - still no info on price:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/10/talking-it-out-do-i-buy-a-console-or-oculus-rift/#continued
 
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Rift is outside of the 400-600 bracket, while PSVR probably isn't.

Between, the slides and the article, price points of $400, $500 and $600 are all mentioned in relation to the percentage of users unwilling to spend more than that so it's difficult to judge exactly what they are trying to say. However I see the situation as follows:

OR headset < $500
PSVR headset <$500

OR + New PC > $500
PS4 + PSVR > $500 (if you take $600 as the figure then there is a slim possibility the PS4 + PSVR will just sneak under that price point).
 
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