Rift, Vive, and Virtual Reality

I'm really curious what will sony bring with PSVR2. As they will no longer be "weighted down" by "legacy" tech like PSVR 1 with PS Moves and PS Camera. They have tons of expertise in optics and can custom order high quality screen.

Hopefully there will be no problem for each manufacturers to copy each others and improve on that. Like how tons of PC VR headset copied/improved on PSVR's "halo" design that was copied/inspired from a head massage device (according to Yoshida-san).
 
orangpelupa said:
I'm really curious what will sony bring with PSVR2. As they will no longer be "weighted down" by "legacy" tech like PSVR 1 with PS Moves and PS Camera. They have tons of expertise in optics and can custom order high quality screen.

Hopefully there will be no problem for each manufacturers to copy each others and improve on that. Like how tons of PC VR headset copied/improved on PSVR's "halo" design that was copied/inspired from a head massage device (according to Yoshida-san).
Click to expand...

This is assuming that Sony does a PSVR 2. I'm not saying whether they will or won't but the closure of their (only?) VR development studio casts some doubt on how committed Sony are to VR. It's possible that'll just stick with supporting the current PSVR on PS5 for 3rd party developers and don't do anything 1st party with VR. Hard to say right now.

Considering PSVR hardware sales basically remained flat (very slight decreases in sales year after year), that doesn't give Sony much incentive to continue with it.

They may also wait until there's significant advances in VR before doing a PSVR 2. That means it could potentially be years after PS5 launch that they come out with PSVR 2.

If there is a PSVR 2 at PS5 launch, IMO, it'll be because it's a pet project for someone high up in Sony.

While VR is relatively popular in Japan (compared to the US or Europe), it's mostly dominated by VR "arcade" experiences which usually use either Oculus or HTC hardware.

Regards,
SB
 
I really hope sony copies quest and psvr2 is mobile standalone console that also works with ps5. If sony can sell hw at profit make it also steam compatible pc headset.
 
Silent_Buddha said:
This is assuming that Sony does a PSVR 2. I'm not saying whether they will or won't but the closure of their (only?) VR development studio casts some doubt on how committed Sony are to VR. It's possible that'll just stick with supporting the current PSVR on PS5 for 3rd party developers and don't do anything 1st party with VR. Hard to say right now.

Considering PSVR hardware sales basically remained flat (very slight decreases in sales year after year), that doesn't give Sony much incentive to continue with it.

They may also wait until there's significant advances in VR before doing a PSVR 2. That means it could potentially be years after PS5 launch that they come out with PSVR 2.

If there is a PSVR 2 at PS5 launch, IMO, it'll be because it's a pet project for someone high up in Sony.

While VR is relatively popular in Japan (compared to the US or Europe), it's mostly dominated by VR "arcade" experiences which usually use either Oculus or HTC hardware.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

It's not their only VR studio, Japan Studio and London Studio also work with VR and delivered games, unlike the Manchester one that in 5 years didn't launch anything.
 
Picao84 said:
It's not their only VR studio, Japan Studio and London Studio also work with VR and delivered games, unlike the Manchester one that in 5 years didn't launch anything.
Click to expand...

Sure but those studios aren't just VR studios, they are traditional established game studios that Sony tasked with creating some VR experiences. As well, the titles that they released are more akin to demos or experiences and not full featured and full length AAA games. Basically, they can easily just go back to making games for a 2D display.

The only reason I can see for the closed studio not releasing anything in 5 years is that they were tasked with making a full feature, full length AAA VR game. Something that still doesn't exist in the VR space although we've gotten some more ambitious projects in the last year like Asgard's Wrath. But that's still relatively unpolished and rough, but does show some promise. Likewise the recently released Walking Dead game is being well received, but at some people have played it have noted, the only reason it's worth 40 USD is because it is in VR. If it weren't for the VR novelty, the game would only have enough content to justify a 20 USD price tag at most.

Heck, even if the team was fairly incompetent and they were tasked with creating the standard VR experiences that Sony's studios have released up to this point, they would have released something.

I had noted months ago in one of the threads that if Sony were really serious about pushing VR, they needed to have a AAA VR showcase to really drive interest, and this studio may have been tasked with exactly that. But creating a AAA title is already expensive and a VR one is likely to be even more expensive. The closure might signal that Sony no longer believes that VR can reach a point where it can sustain development of AAA VR content.

Heck, even Valve's recent Half-Life: Alix announcement shows that Valve may not be convinced that VR can support a full feature, full length AAA VR title. While it's the largest development team that Valve has put together for a title, and it's just a relatively small team of 80 people. So that's not saying much as their last AAA title was about a decade ago when AAA development was significantly cheaper and required significantly less people. Basically it feels like while Valve are trying to push VR, they are doing so conservatively using a relatively popular IP with a conservative focus.

I wonder how many people were on the development team at the closed studio?

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Sure but those studios aren't just VR studios, they are traditional established game studios that Sony tasked with creating some VR experiences. As well, the titles that they released are more akin to demos or experiences and not full featured and full length AAA games. Basically, they can easily just go back to making games for a 2D display.

The only reason I can see for the closed studio not releasing anything in 5 years is that they were tasked with making a full feature, full length AAA VR game. Something that still doesn't exist in the VR space although we've gotten some more ambitious projects in the last year like Asgard's Wrath. But that's still relatively unpolished and rough, but does show some promise. Likewise the recently released Walking Dead game is being well received, but at some people have played it have noted, the only reason it's worth 40 USD is because it is in VR. If it weren't for the VR novelty, the game would only have enough content to justify a 20 USD price tag at most.

Heck, even if the team was fairly incompetent and they were tasked with creating the standard VR experiences that Sony's studios have released up to this point, they would have released something.

I had noted months ago in one of the threads that if Sony were really serious about pushing VR, they needed to have a AAA VR showcase to really drive interest, and this studio may have been tasked with exactly that. But creating a AAA title is already expensive and a VR one is likely to be even more expensive. The closure might signal that Sony no longer believes that VR can reach a point where it can sustain development of AAA VR content.

Heck, even Valve's recent Half-Life: Alix announcement shows that Valve may not be convinced that VR can support a full feature, full length AAA VR title. While it's the largest development team that Valve has put together for a title, and it's just a relatively small team of 80 people. So that's not saying much as their last AAA title was about a decade ago when AAA development was significantly cheaper and required significantly less people. Basically it feels like while Valve are trying to push VR, they are doing so conservatively using a relatively popular IP with a conservative focus.

I wonder how many people were on the development team at the closed studio?

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

That's not true at all. Astro Bot and Blood and Truth are fully featured games. The first is well over 10 hours length and the second employed many of the same techniques used in games like Uncharted (e.g. motion capture)


Plus London Studio is already working on another VR title and Japan Studio also released Everybody's Golf VR. Both studios are definitely really involved in VR games, not just tech demos. To repeat myself Manchester Studio didn't release anything in 5 years. It's a bit of a stretch to conclude they are closing because Sony doesn't believe in VR when other studios are just doing VR fine. They were just not productive enough.
 
Last edited:
Picao84 said:
That's not true at all. Astro Bot and Blood and Truth are fully featured games. The first is well over 10 hours length and the second employed many of the same techniques used in games like Uncharted (e.g. motion capture)


Plus London Studio is already working on another VR title and Japan Studio also released Everybody's Golf VR. Both studios are definitely really involved in VR games, not just tech demos. To repeat myself Manchester Studio didn't release anything in 5 years. It's a bit of a stretch to conclude they are closing because Sony doesn't believe in VR when other studios are just doing VR fine. They were just not productive enough.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm glad some people view those as full feature and full length AAA games, because almost noone that I've talked to that has played them think of them that way. Good games, yes. Good VR show cases, yes. But not full feature and full length AAA games.

Always good to get another point of view though.

Regards,
SB
 
Do anyone know any VR games that brings huge amounts of freedom and interaction?

Job Simulator is close but I can't really interact with the NPC/Bots (other than trowing shit to them). Parts of Accounting+ also awesome with the way the NPCs comments will change to what I do or didn't do (to some extend). It really have a nice amounts of limited freedom and interaction on each limited level. ALYX looks to have huge amounts of freedom, including using hands to move clutters away but its still months away.

Silent_Buddha said:
Well, I'm glad some people view those as full feature and full length AAA games, because almost noone that I've talked to that has played them think of them that way. Good games, yes. Good VR show cases, yes. But not full feature and full length AAA games.

Always good to get another point of view though.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

Truth and Blood is the truest full length "paint by numbers" AAA game, complete with these tropes:
  • filler content
  • formulaic encounter being repeated ad nauseum
  • annoying talking/spoon feeding player with story
I even say the first half of Farpoint is way better.

It seems they simply "expand" london heist to be a full game and too afraid to incorporate new things. Although understandably, it could be the best choice they can do, by doing the "safest" choice, expanding London Heist to a full game. As there's usually some kind of "certainty" in making big games with things you already absolutely know it works.

But then... the reason why the first wave of PSVR games were awesome to me are the "short" experiments. If Blood and truth incorporate those various "shorts" instead of expanding london heist, i think I will like it better. But then it will give many development headache in various aspect. IIRC Rush of Blood cleverly use various gameplay experience to sprinkle each of its on-rails shooter levels: ducking, sideswipe, in-your-face jump scares, head tracking and 3d audio to deliver attention and jump scares, "collectibles/loot" sprinkled thru the map, "destroy glowing things 3 times" boss battle, "you cant beat this boss" boss battle, etc.

While in blood and truth is more like: Area A use formula 1. Area B use formula 2. and so on.
Or maybe Blood and truth do have those various gameplay but i simply didnt progress far enough to encounter them?
 
Astrobot: Rescue Mission definitely is a full AAA game. I only played the Blood and Truth Demo but it didn’t really click with me. It felt like a bad Time Crisis ...
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Well, I'm glad some people view those as full feature and full length AAA games, because almost noone that I've talked to that has played them think of them that way. Good games, yes. Good VR show cases, yes. But not full feature and full length AAA games.

Always good to get another point of view though.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

Nevertheless they are not tech demos, they are games in their own right. Would you say that The Order 1886 is a tech demo? Blood and Truth is longer than that game and involved as much if not more effort and investment, which is the point of our discussion: other Sony studios are deeply involved in VR, it was not only Manchester.
 
orangpelupa said:
Do anyone know any VR games that brings huge amounts of freedom and interaction?

Job Simulator is close but I can't really interact with the NPC/Bots (other than trowing shit to them). Parts of Accounting+ also awesome with the way the NPCs comments will change to what I do or didn't do (to some extend). It really have a nice amounts of limited freedom and interaction on each limited level. ALYX looks to have huge amounts of freedom, including using hands to move clutters away but its still months away.



Truth and Blood is the truest full length "paint by numbers" AAA game, complete with these tropes:
  • filler content
  • formulaic encounter being repeated ad nauseum
  • annoying talking/spoon feeding player with story
I even say the first half of Farpoint is way better.

It seems they simply "expand" london heist to be a full game and too afraid to incorporate new things. Although understandably, it could be the best choice they can do, by doing the "safest" choice, expanding London Heist to a full game. As there's usually some kind of "certainty" in making big games with things you already absolutely know it works.

But then... the reason why the first wave of PSVR games were awesome to me are the "short" experiments. If Blood and truth incorporate those various "shorts" instead of expanding london heist, i think I will like it better. But then it will give many development headache in various aspect. IIRC Rush of Blood cleverly use various gameplay experience to sprinkle each of its on-rails shooter levels: ducking, sideswipe, in-your-face jump scares, head tracking and 3d audio to deliver attention and jump scares, "collectibles/loot" sprinkled thru the map, "destroy glowing things 3 times" boss battle, "you cant beat this boss" boss battle, etc.

While in blood and truth is more like: Area A use formula 1. Area B use formula 2. and so on.
Or maybe Blood and truth do have those various gameplay but i simply didnt progress far enough to encounter them?
Click to expand...

I've met a Blood and Truth dev around 2 years ago, shortly after they announced it. According to him Sony was being a bit careful, perhaps too much, around the issue of nausea. That's why Blood and Truth doesn't have full locomotion. They didn't want to use teleportation either because it distracts from the immersion, so that's how the slow moving between nodes was born. This is a game that was conceived with a very early understanding and feedback on VR so they decided to keep it safe. It also doesn't help that AAA games take some time to make and VR is a fertile area with lots of Indies trying different things, so it's not surprising that when they come out they look outdated already. What it does not mean is that Sony didn't make a real investment in it, as all the behind the scenes and promotion tell otherwise.

Regarding freedom and interaction, you are asking for something that even non VR games do not have, bar a few like Skyrim for example. But what's the point of having freedom to interact if it's largely pointless? How much time can you throw a book around or at an NPC before it gets old? What you call freedom is really a bunch of scripted stuff created solely to keep the illusion of immersion. Between stuff that's actually relevant to the gameplay and just some added Easter egg that loads of players will not notice, which do you think makes the cut? VR is not a simulation of reality, you cannot expect it to behave as such. To be honest, I played Job Simulator and hated it! That, to me, is the real definition of a VR show base, which is trying too hard to sell VR as this huge Interactive / can do anything gimmick. For me VR is about exploration, "being" in different worlds, not just some lame excuse to fool around just because. That gets old very fast for me.
 
Last edited:
Picao84 said:
Regarding freedom and interaction, you are asking for something that even non VR games do not have, bar a few like Skyrim for example. But what's the point of having freedom to interact if it's largely pointless? How much time can you throw a book around or at an NPC before it gets old? What you call freedom is really a bunch of scripted stuff created solely to keep the illusion of immersion. Between stuff that's actually relevant to the gameplay and just some added Easter egg that loads of players will not notice, which do you think makes the cut? VR is not a simulation of reality, you cannot expect it to behave as such. To be honest, I played Job Simulator and hated it! That, to me, is the real definition of a VR show base, which is trying too hard to sell VR as this huge Interactive / can do anything gimmick. For me VR is about exploration, "being" in different worlds, not just some lame excuse to fool around just because. That gets old very fast for me.
Click to expand...

thats was my issue. Its immersion breaking when I saw X on top of table and I cant grab it. Accounting+ evade this issue altogether because you are playing a game, and you no longer know which ones is a reality (i argue, all in Accounting+ are games). Not transported into a virtual reality.
 
Silent_Buddha said:
This is assuming that Sony does a PSVR 2. I'm not saying whether they will or won't but the closure of their (only?) VR development studio casts some doubt on how committed Sony are to VR. It's possible that'll just stick with supporting the current PSVR on PS5 for 3rd party developers and don't do anything 1st party with VR. Hard to say right now.

Considering PSVR hardware sales basically remained flat (very slight decreases in sales year after year), that doesn't give Sony much incentive to continue with it.

They may also wait until there's significant advances in VR before doing a PSVR 2. That means it could potentially be years after PS5 launch that they come out with PSVR 2.

If there is a PSVR 2 at PS5 launch, IMO, it'll be because it's a pet project for someone high up in Sony.

While VR is relatively popular in Japan (compared to the US or Europe), it's mostly dominated by VR "arcade" experiences which usually use either Oculus or HTC hardware.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/23/...-gaze-tracking-foveated-rendering-and-ar/amp/

They talked about PSVR 2...

They just close a studio unable to release a game in 5 years.
 
The Witcher game in VR

The Witcher fans, here is something for you today. Patryk Loan has released a brand new project that allows you to experience the first The Witcher game in VR. This “mod” currently supports Oculus, HTC, and Windows Mixed Reality. Before continuing, let’s clarify something really important here. This project does not bring mod support to the vanilla game. Instead, the modder is remaking some of the game’s maps in Unreal Engine 4 with VR support.
 
Picao84 said:
Regarding freedom and interaction, you are asking for something that even non VR games do not have, bar a few like Skyrim for example. But what's the point of having freedom to interact if it's largely pointless? How much time can you throw a book around or at an NPC before it gets old? What you call freedom is really a bunch of scripted stuff created solely to keep the illusion of immersion. Between stuff that's actually relevant to the gameplay and just some added Easter egg that loads of players will not notice, which do you think makes the cut? VR is not a simulation of reality, you cannot expect it to behave as such. To be honest, I played Job Simulator and hated it! That, to me, is the real definition of a VR show base, which is trying too hard to sell VR as this huge Interactive / can do anything gimmick. For me VR is about exploration, "being" in different worlds, not just some lame excuse to fool around just because. That gets old very fast for me.
Click to expand...

From a gameplay perspective it may be mostly pointless.

However, the main attraction of VR is that it attempts to immerses you in the game world and visually gives you the illusion of actually being there.

That means that anything that breaks that immersion is generally far more noticeable than it is in a game played on a 2D display.
  • Something flies towards your head, you duck because you think it may hit you (well, I don't but a lot of people do :p).
    • If you don't duck, it hits you.
      • Immersion maintained.
    • If you duck behind a wall and it hits the wall.
      • Immersion maintained.
    • If you duck behidn a wall and it still hits you.
      • Immersion broken.
  • You go to grab something that you expect to be able to grab.
    • You can interact with it.
      • Immersion maintained.
    • You can't interact with it.
      • Immersion broken.
When immersion is maintained the illusion of "being there" is very strong. Whenever immersion is broken, it's pretty distrubing as it immediately pulls you out of the game. You wonder, "Why can't I grab this can? Why can't I move this chair?"

For the same reasons I find combat very hit or miss in VR games.

  • Melee combat with fists feels "right" because, well, they are your fists.
  • Melee combat with melee weapons is all kinds of wrong as you waggle them around and they don't act in any way realistically.
  • Ranged combat with Pistols generally feels "OK".
  • Ranged combat with Rifles feels very VERY wrong.
    • You don't shoot a rifle by holding it out perpendicular to your chest (basically treating it as a long pistol) as some games have you do.
    • The few games, like The Walking Dead, that attempt to accurately implement rifle shooting mechanics show why it's so difficult.
      • You pull the rifle stock into your shoulder to brace and aim by leaning your head to the side over the rifle and then either looking down the sights or through a scope.
      • The problem is that without a physical model in your hands you can't tell where the stock of the rifle is to pull it into your shoulder.
      • The end result is that using a rifle becomes very awkward.
      • More hilarity (wrongness) when you try to reload a bolt action rifle.
There are so many problems with VR due to its immersive nature that you just don't have with games on a 2D screen. With a game on a 2D screen it's annoying to interact with things because it's so relatively awkward. With a VR game it's annoying not being able to interact with things because you're supposed to be "in" the game.

And don't even get me started about how annoying it is in VR when NPCs don't react to what you are doing. Stick your finger up someone's nose...and...nothing.

For some people, they can ignore that to a lesser or greater degree. For some people it completely turns them off to VR.

Hence, I built a faux Pinball cabinet to use when playing Pinball in VR. Got the idea from the Tested YouTube channel. :)

Regards,
SB
 
I would find it fascinating if someone redid something like the way old populous game in vr in roomscale. Optimize the experience for something like 4mx4m playing area. Standing would be like being invisible giant god seeing everything from clouds. Go on your knees and you can peak inside houses and micro manage subjects. Make it so that single game lasts fairly short time so the physical nature of mechanics would not be overbearing.

 
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