Post Xbox One Two Scorpio, what should Sony do next? *spawn* (oh, and Nintendo?)

[iroboto]

PSVR will release October 2016.

You're suggesting Sony would sell a VR headset that is not compatible with their current >40 million (by then probably >50 million) user base?

By the time PS5 releases with enough power to drive 4K. 1080p VR is going to seem extremely limited. I imagine there would be PSVR2, not implying they would drop support but I think the expectation that if VR is successful they would build a better unit.


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[MrFox]

My expectation is that Neo has backwards compatibility with PS4. It would be untenable for Sony to expects devs to patch every existing PS4 game. Some of the dev houses don't even exist anymore.

I think so too, specially because in the first interview with Andrew House, he said they expect all, or almost all PS4 games to work, so obviously it wouldn't involve devs to create patches for each game. This is a statement very similar to the 60GB PS3 BC which was 99% compatible with PS1/PS2 games. It literally had a complete PS2 on the motherboard.

If there are any titles that cause issues, we can expect a period of firmware updates where "System software stability during use of some features has been improved".

Anyway, it's up to some journalist to ask if current PS4 games will need a patch to work on Neo. Would be nice to know for sure. The question is in the mind of the public mostly because the XB1 needs patches for each 360 BC, but that's a completely different situation. It's already crazy that it's possible at all.

 

[Rodéric]

PSVR will release October 2016.

You're suggesting Sony would sell a VR headset that is not compatible with their current >40 million (by then probably >50 million) user base?

I mean that a PS4 powering a VR helmet 1080@90Hz will mean a massive downgrade in graphics quality compared to what you get on your 1080@30Hz screen, which implies that if you want a good VR experience you should probably not mix PSVR with PS4.
I don't know whether Sony will support it, but IMO not supporting it would be better than offering a low quality VR that might as well hurt/kill VR.
(I don't think VR will take off anyway, but that wouldn't help.)

 

[turkey]

I mean that a PS4 powering a VR helmet 1080@90Hz will mean a massive downgrade in graphics quality compared to what you get on your 1080@30Hz screen, which implies that if you want a good VR experience you should probably not mix PSVR with PS4.
I don't know whether Sony will support it, but IMO not supporting it would be better than offering a low quality VR that might as well hurt/kill VR.
(I don't think VR will take off anyway, but that wouldn't help.)

the minimum is 1080/60 so it's not quite such a drastic downgrade although ideally they will be rendering at higher than 1080 I believe, 1.4 times target res I think is desirable and used in PC space. They can probably render lower than 1080 total using tricks such as valve spoke about at gdc

Most of this only affects graphics and not the vr experience so for a new gaming direction I assumed as long as they can maintain presence and folks don't get sick it's probably good enough for most.

Also it looks like even on pc aiming at pretty beast machines the vr engines are all cramming in novel solutions for bad performance and these will likely help PSVR even if it's always in a lower state most of the time.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

What a load of toss to suggest that less than cutting edge graphics will impede VR. Do you remember when you first experienced a new medium?

People are legitimately happy to be able to play X360 games on their XboxOne. VR games looking part way between generations isn't going to matter a bit. Unless you're trying to justify the higher cost of entry for the PC and Scorpio.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I mean that a PS4 powering a VR helmet 1080@90Hz will mean a massive downgrade in graphics quality compared to what you get on your 1080@30Hz screen, which implies that if you want a good VR experience you should probably not mix PSVR with PS4.

This is what I expected but then I played Robinson: The Journey on PSVR and was blown away. You take the headset off and you're looking for a beefy PC but it's just a PS4.

 

[Rodéric]

33ms/frame to 11ms/frame, a third the time to generate a frame (not counting the overhead of 2 frusta)...
AFAIR 90Hz is the minimum, it can go up to 120Hz, wich means 11 to 8ms.
I don't think compromising to 60Hz is a good idea.

 

[davygee]

Some people would lead you to believe that we will be seeing PS2-like graphics on the PS4 run PSVR, this will not be the case. Yes graphical fidelity will be reduced to allow for 60hz reprojected to 120hz or 90hz/120hz native, but I seriously doubt it will be by that much.

For the record, I fully expect most titles to be the 60hz >> 120hz first and foremost, but we may see native rendered resolutions of 900p upscaled to 1080p for display on the PSVR to allow for better quality frame rates.

The Neo will more than likely be able to use the 90hz native, but I doubt any will get anywhere near 120hz native with neither the PS4/Neo and for that fact. I do wonder what missing graphic details there will be on PC versions of VR seeing as they don't necessarily have the reprojection feature so they will natively need to render at 90hz and at a larger resolution than 1080p as well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

33ms/frame to 11ms/frame, a third the time to generate a frame (not counting the overhead of 2 frusta)...
AFAIR 90Hz is the minimum...I don't think compromising to 60Hz is a good idea.

I think you haven't been following PSVR at all! 60 fps with 120 fps reprojection.

 

[milk]

Some people would lead you to believe that we will be seeing PS2-like graphics on the PS4 run PSVR, this will not be the case.

And also, what I think is more important, even if that was the case, VR would still be a hell of an experience, even at ps2 level gfx. The apeal is not in graphical fidelity, its in entering a diferent universe.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

And also, what I think is more important, even if that was the case, VR would still be a hell of an experience, even at ps2 level gfx. The apeal is not in graphical fidelity, its in entering a diferent universe.

This. I've still only played Elite Dangerous (Oculus) and Robinson (PSVR) but the experience is difficult to convey and I know lots of fancy words! My take is that VR cannot adequately be described it has to be experienced first hand and my two experiences have been fantastic.

There surely will be flawed (or outright bad) VR experiences but where I was concerned about PS4s performance I now am not. Can more power produce better visuals? Sure, but this isn't unique to VR.

 

[Rodéric]

Maybe I should have said it like that :
"Don't expect your game to look identical in VR, given the much shorter time it will have to produce two images."
better ?

(Not saying a game will look bad in VR, just that it necessarily won't look as good.)

 

[Deleted member 11852]

(Not saying a game will look bad in VR, just that it necessarily won't look as good.)

Agreed. In Robinson, it looked great. After a few moments I simply didn't notice and you're so absorbed in the new world, objective comparisons with other games don't happen. At least not with me. It's difficult to explain.

 

[MrFox]

I think this is what will happen with multi-platform VR games tuning between PS4, Neo, Scorpio:

PS4: 60->120 at 1.2x resolution (to 1080p RGB)
Neo: 90->90 at 1.5x resolution (to 1080p RGB)
Scorpio: 90 at 1.6x resolution (to 1200p pentile)

This is balanced based on current rumors:
Neo: 4.2TF, or 2.3x PS4
Scorpio: 6TF, or 42% more than Neo

 

[iroboto]

I think this is what will happen with multi-platform VR games tuning between PS4, Neo, Scorpio:

PS4: 60->120 at 1.2x resolution (to 1080p RGB)
Neo: 90->90 at 1.5x resolution (to 1080p RGB)
Scorpio: 90 at 1.6x resolution (to 1200p pentile)

This is balanced based on current rumors:
Neo: 4.2TF, or 2.3x PS4
Scorpio: 6TF, or 42% more than Neo

May need to expand a little more on this post, some of it I understand, other aspects like the 1.2, 1.5, 1.6 resolution I was a bit confused on.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's the 'overscan' resolution modifier that VR requries. So 1.2x 1080p for PS4/Neo, and 1.6x 1200p for Scorpio, sort of thing.

 

[MrFox]

Yeah I meant the render frame buffer would be:
PS4: 1300p (1.2x)
Neo: 1620p (1.5x)
Scorpio: 1930p (1.6x)

Almost everyone is using 1.4x as a default starting point, because optically it's ideal.
(Vive panel is 1200p, the default resolution to render is 1680p).

 

[Globalisateur]

I think this is what will happen with multi-platform VR games tuning between PS4, Neo, Scorpio:

PS4: 60->120 at 1.2x resolution (to 1080p RGB)
Neo: 90->90 at 1.5x resolution (to 1080p RGB)
Scorpio: 90 at 1.6x resolution (to 1200p pentile)

This is balanced based on current rumors:
Neo: 4.2TF, or 2.3x PS4
Scorpio: 6TF, or 42% more than Neo

I am not sure wasting 50% of resources to display a true 90hz instead of reprojected 120hz would be a good trade-off. Also Neo at 4.2tflops would still have a very slow CPU allegedly only 30% faster than PS4 CPU, not 50%.

 

[AlNom]

The games will just have to be tailored to hit low CPU usage...

 

[BRiT]

The games will just have to be tailored to hit low CPU usage...

They could stream from the cloud...