Sony PSVR value versus competing VR solutions *spawn

[Deleted member 11852]

PS4 is limited by HDMI 1.4 bandwidth which they're already bumping up against now to output 1080p 120Hz, and they also have to contend with the console marketplace where their customers expect extended product cycles to extract more value from their purchases.

This has been discussed previously. HDMI is an interoperability standard. For PSVR which requires a Sony PS4 to connect to a Sony PSVR breakout box they can ditch HDMI and use the full potential of the hardware bus. It's only important for the breakout box to support HDMI for connection to the HDMI TV.

Do I think Sony will do this day 1? No, there is no need. Can they do it down the line? Yes. There is a fair amount of overhead in HDMI.

 

[MrFox]

"There's a new GPU coming out, I'm ditching my console for a $1500 PC" said no one ever.

History continues to prove that the availability of more and more powerful PCs have no impact on console sales. Why would it be any different with VR headsets?

PS3 sales didn't drop whenever there was a new PC GPU available, the sales remained steady for 7 years. Midrange PCs were 10 times more powerful when TLoU was released on PS3. Nobody cared, sales only shifted when the PS4 came out.

 

[bunge]

They'll be obsoleted so long as people get a chance to see what they're missing. They may still be able to play with their old hardware, but so did Atari 2600 owners even after their neighbors got an NES.

You're so wrong. The Atari 2600 had Double Dragon in 1989!

 

[willardjuice]

Have you guys tried PSVR? The resolution is quite mediocre. It was a fun experience (the integration of the move controllers was good), but I was pretty underwhelmed by the graphics quality. I know I slant toward PC gaming, but in general I'm not usually underwhelmed about console graphics (at least not to this degree ).

I think we're at the point where it's difficult (or at least not immediately apparent) for "normal people" to notice the graphics jump from PS4 to PC. Console graphics are often "good enough" for many people. However I could see in a couple years where the jump from PSVR to [some other VR] is very apparent for even casual users. I think in this early stage there's a lot of room for improvement. Not saying this will be the case, but I'm not convinced you can apply the normal "PC vs console" logic to this situation.

 

[Arwin]

Well what game did you try?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Console graphics are often "good enough" for many people. However I could see in a couple years where the jump from PSVR to [some other VR] is very apparent for even casual users.

I agree PSVR visuals will likely age quickly. However, the price to upgrade is so significant that it's still immaterial. You'll be looking at a $200 PS4 and $200 maybe headset saying, "those graphics don't look as good as this OVR Steambox," and then you'll see the pricetag of that Steambox + headset is $1200+. Then you'll leave the store and walk past a car dealer and see a $15,000 Ford isn't anything like as desirable as the Ferrari, and then see the price tag...

Only the VR elite will be swayed by improving PC VR. For everyone else, for whom sub HD, no AF, no AA, barely 30 fps games on a $200 PS3 was preferable over a much better quality, more expensive PC option, PSVR will be fine. Where would they even get to see the alternatives to compare them?

 

[hughJ]

How many people will be experiencing the latest VR experience? And how much better will that be considering it'll also cost more? I point again to PC versus current gen consoles.

I suspect most people probably will as I expect Google Cardboard, GearVR, and the various other mobile phone holders will become common enough that anyone willing to plop down $400 for a PSVR will inevitably see what the newest mobile displays year after year have to offer. You already hear about that experience now where some folks who have tried the latest phones before having gotten a chance to try DK2 or CV1 are surprised by their lower resolution and that's just from the phones having a mere 6-12months newer display than the HMDs. Within the first year of PSVR's life we're going to see Cardboard VR with quadruple the resolution that will provide a better video/cinema playback experience than any of these $400 tethered HMDs are capable of.

I'm not understanding where this thinking that VR headsets need to be on an annualized upgrade cycle in order to become successful with the mainstream consumer. It's nonesense as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not saying that the PSVR will be a commercial flop, I'm just saying that its longer term shelf life will be poor and that the earlier talk about PSVR becoming some sort of focus of the overall VR industry (where FB shifts their focus to the PSVR platform) just won't happen. PSVR will remain frozen in time as a 2015-level "VR" experience and Facebook and the rest of the industry will simply move on with newer and newer hardware that tackles more generalized use cases for VR. Console users will probably get some good fun out of their headsets at least for the first couple years (much the same as CV1/Vive users will) but we're probably not going to see it evolve and expand much beyond the sort of content that they're seeing right now. FB will be interested in things like lightfield capture, video and telepresence communication and those sorts of uses are really only going to become a thing after the HMD tech has a chance to mature.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But as has been mentioned, a better screen can be included in PSVR2 whenever appropriate. You'd still render at 1080p because no mobile can render PS4 level graphics at that, let alone even higher resolutions for native rendering.

 

[hughJ]

The cinema app for GearVR can selectively run video at the native 1440p panel resolution even if the 3D environment around it is rendered at 1080p. To be clear - I'm not arguing that mobile phones are going to provide a superior in-all-aspects gaming experience to PSVR, but there will absolutely be some common use cases for VR that will be nearly useless on PSVR but viable on a $20 piece of cardboard attached to a new phone.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

1) How much 1440p VR video content is there? 2) Why can't a PSVR2 do that?

 

[hughJ]

I didn't mean that its playing back 1440p content, but rather that the compositor layer that the video stream is being played back on is being sampled at the full native resolution of the panel while the environment is a lower resolution. My point is that as mobile resolution scales up they'll continue to be able to leverage the benefits of resolution in very meaningful ways.

Do you actually think that a PSVR2 on PS4 is likely? At what sort of resolution and time frame were you expecting this update?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

HMZ-T1 was followed by HMZ-T2 about a year later. PSVita Slim followed PSV a couple of years later. There's nothing stopping Sony releasing a headset with subtle improvements a year or two later. It may even be cheaper to if the desired panel quality is being mass produced at higher resolutions than 1080p. Because it's a display device and not an input device (the MEMS can be kept the same), they don't have to worry about affecting the game experience. It'll be just another display device getting annual upgrades, if Sony want to go that route.

 

[hughJ]

I don't think any of those device refreshes changed their basic specifications (like resolution)? But in any case I don't think it's all that interesting speculating on future product refreshes that Sony is unlikely to actually implement. If you genuinely believe that Sony is going to break the HDMI spec to squeeze out whatever remaining percentage of bandwidth the socket and cable can handle so they can release a second HMD platform for the PS4, then we need to make that conversation a bit more concrete in terms of actual numbers. What I think is more likely though is that none of us think that is very likely and it's little more than hand-waving.

 

[MrFox]

It's launching in 2016, so the PS5 will probably be 3 or 4 years away. I would guess PSVR2 launching alongside would get a significant specs upgrade to match the available power of the PS5, which would match the screen technology improvement (oled rgb 4k, 120p).

Maybe a planned mid-cycle upgrade could work. But in 1 or 2 years there isn't enough changes in mass-produced screen tech.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

If you genuinely believe that Sony is going to break the HDMI spec to squeeze out whatever remaining percentage of bandwidth the socket and cable can handle so they can release a second HMD platform for the PS4, then we need to make that conversation a bit more concrete in terms of actual numbers.

You don't need to "break" HDMI at all. It's an interoperability specification that can be repurposed when connecting two devices that don't care about interoperability. HDMI 1.4 can carry two or more raw 1080p60 video streams - more with a clever 3D MUX. It's not about to top out. Sony are an A/V company, who knows what a smart resolution interpolation technology could put into a better headset. Sony have been working and refining their X-Reality system for years.

 

[hughJ]

Break/"repurposed", same difference. Without something a bit more concrete than "who knows" to suggest that the PS4 is actually capable of spitting out a 4K+ 60Hz+ stream that will be expected of VR soon, this still seems like handwaving to me. If 4K VR were a legitimate option on the table for Sony then I would say they made an error by pushing this launch now when they could have waited another year or two for more suitable components. I would be very surprised if there's a single person who has seen the difference between 720p, 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p under the lenses that wouldn't think it's worth the wait for more resolution.

 

[willardjuice]

I agree PSVR visuals will likely age quickly. However, the price to upgrade is so significant that it's still immaterial. You'll be looking at a $200 PS4 and $200 maybe headset saying, "those graphics don't look as good as this OVR Steambox," and then you'll see the pricetag of that Steambox + headset is $1200+. Then you'll leave the store and walk past a car dealer and see a $15,000 Ford isn't anything like as desirable as the Ferrari, and then see the price tag...

Only the VR elite will be swayed by improving PC VR. For everyone else, for whom sub HD, no AF, no AA, barely 30 fps games on a $200 PS3 was preferable over a much better quality, more expensive PC option, PSVR will be fine. Where would they even get to see the alternatives to compare them?

I don't agree with your inflated price metrics, but that really wasn't the point I was talking about. How about this (assuming no other console exist): do you think if Nintendo brought out the Gamecube today for $50 it would do well? I don't think it would. There's a fine line of what's "good enough". And while I agree the PS3/PS4 were "good enough" during their lifetime, I'm not sure I feel that's the case for PSVR. I fully admit that with graphics I shoot for the moon (so perhaps I'm too biased), but after using PSVR my initial thought was "wow I can't wait for the PS5 when this actually looks good!". It felt like a solid prototype. I know that sounds like backhanded compliment, but I really did enjoy the experience (especially the move controllers; I thought they were going to be nothing more than a gimmick). It's just difficult to go back to a low resolution. It was something I just couldn't ignore throughout my experience. I'm convinced though that once we target a higher resolution VR will be AMAZING. And I think people interested in VR will not wait for the next console cycle for that experience.

FWIW, I feel the same way about GearVR too. We've played around with one in the office and for simple scenes it's pretty good (better resolution), but you can't do much obviously without the framerate dropping to an unacceptable level (it actually makes my head hurt when this happens lol). I really don't see that dynamic changing in the near future.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

4K VR is not an option now. 4K VR may be an option in a couple of years. If companies didn't release products because something better could be done in two years, nobody would release anything at all.

There are options for Sony to release a PSVR soon then release a better PSVR in a few years, improving over the existing model and potentially be forwards compatible with whatever hardware nay come next.

They've had have pretty damn decent 1080p to 4K scaling (X-Reality Pro) in their 4K sets for a few years already.

Let's see if Sony keep PSVR exclusive to PS4. They may not.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

...but I really did enjoy the experience.

And that's the crux when talking about the mainstream. I imagine your opinion of Wii was like my own - dang, that looks bad! Why didn't they put a decent GPU in there?! But the mainstream loved the experience and could overlook the visual shortcomings. No-one interested in Wii waggle said to themselves, "But XB360 looks a lot better, so I'll give up on waggle and buy that instead."

The VR experience doesn't need incredible graphics to be immersive. For graphics whores it'll suffer, but then we're talking about the VR elite, a subset of the intended audience. The mainstream consumer is content with pretty low quality. Even more so when they haven't experienced the high end to compare.

 

[willardjuice]

And that's the crux when talking about the mainstream. I imagine your opinion of Wii was like my own - dang, that looks bad! Why didn't they put a decent GPU in there?! But the mainstream loved the experience and could overlook the visual shortcomings. No-one interested in Wii waggle said to themselves, "But XB360 looks a lot better, so I'll give up on waggle and buy that instead."

The VR experience doesn't need incredible graphics to be immersive. For graphics whores it'll suffer, but then we're talking about the VR elite, a subset of the intended audience. The mainstream consumer is content with pretty low quality. Even more so when they haven't experienced the high end to compare.

I don't think those experiences are quite comparable. When I played Wii bowling for the first time (first Wii experience) my reaction wasn't "oh man this would be amazing if it was 1080p", it was "oh this isn't as gimmicky as I thought". Playing Wii bowling did not make me wish Wii bowling 2 existed; playing PSVR made me wish PSVR 2 existed.