Sony PSVR value versus competing VR solutions *spawn

[dobwal]

I imagine if PSVR/mobile VR doesn't take off then PC VR is going to be endeavor of slow growth in terms of offering AAA like titles or a large library of VR games. I doubt many pubs are interested in pouring millions of dollars meant for only a sub-segment of the PC crowd. And I imagine that for most indies, where money is an issue, they would rather invest their time in projects that widely targets gamers across different platforms.

Valve supporting Vive with HL3 along with its other titles (TF, L4D and portal) would go a long way to convince gamers to pony up for VR and devs to support it, but they seem more interested in developing just about anything game related other than the games themselves.

 

[hughJ]

Much has been made about Valve's organizational structure where employees are encouraged through bonuses to devote their time on smaller Steam-related projects that can have a high return on their time investment. Until we get some official confirmation from Valve that they're throwing serious man-hours into large scale VR content that leverages their IP, I'm not going to get my hopes up for anything like HL3-VR, Portal3-VR or other. All signs up until now seem to imply that SteamVR is more of a platform hedge (akin to SteamOS/Steambox) on Valve's part where they're leaning heavily, if not entirely, on third parties to take the brunt of the financial risk for manufacturing, marketing and content production, which is what makes me particularly cautious about buying into their ecosystem of hardware and APIs. If I had to guess I would say that for the next several years of VR on PC we should get used to the idea of seeing mostly smaller, short "experiences" from the larger dev houses as VR will probably be more attractive to them for marketing purposes (trailers, demos, trade show kiosks, etc) rather than a platform they can monetize directly from the consumer.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Much has been made about Valve's organizational structure where employees are encouraged through bonuses to devote their time on smaller Steam-related projects that can have a high return on their time investment. Until we get some official confirmation from Valve that they're throwing serious man-hours into large scale VR content that leverages their IP, I'm not going to get my hopes up for anything like HL3-VR, Portal3-VR or other. All signs up until now seem to imply that SteamVR is more of a platform hedge (akin to SteamOS/Steambox) on Valve's part where they're leaning heavily, if not entirely, on third parties to take the brunt of the financial risk for manufacturing, marketing and content production, which is what makes me particularly cautious about buying into their ecosystem of hardware and APIs. If I had to guess I would say that for the next several years of VR on PC we should get used to the idea of seeing mostly smaller, short "experiences" from the larger dev houses as VR will probably be more attractive to them for marketing purposes (trailers, demos, trade show kiosks, etc) rather than a platform they can monetize directly from the consumer.

If this happens then I don't see a great future for VR unless the situation is different on console, and Sony starts throwing real AAA dev muscle at their device.

Noone in the industry should be expecting gamers to pony up such a high premium for a VR device and platform to drive it, only to be left with a paltry selection of content that is comprised mostly of what are effectively glorified tech demos. That's the thing that worries me so far about VR...

Both Sony, OR and Valve need to be planning to push out some major AAA titles for VR in order for it to take off. The tech is there, the potential is there. They merely need only the will to take the risk on it and I see them reaping incredible rewards. If they take too much of a "wait and see" approach to serious VR game development then the whole inchoate VR industry could end up stillborn before its even had a chance at life.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Noone in the industry should be expecting gamers to pony up such a high premium for a VR device and platform to drive it, only to be left with a paltry selection of content that is comprised mostly of what are effectively glorified tech demos. That's the thing that worries me so far about VR...

Yup. VR needs to be able to sell itself so it needs one of those "killer application" things. Even then, to appreciate good VR you have to experience it yourself and this is a tricky barrier because you have to make the experience accessible.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I expect the vast majority of VR gaming content to come from standard games that have a VR control profile. That's exactly what we're seeing already with the likes of ARK, EVE Valkyrie and Project Cars. I expect very few, if any VR dedicated AA/A experiences this generation.

In this sense I expect OR and Vive should be able to significantly spread their wings vs PSVR since those games on PS4 will either have to have the core graphics significantly scaled back to run well (remember that with distortion and timewarp overdraw we're potentially talking about a higher than 1080p internal resolution as well as a rock solid 60fps being required), or simply won't offer a VR mode at all.

 

[Clukos]

GT7 will most probably offer a VR "mode" i am very curious to see how that shapes out to be considering Polyphony is usually on the cutting edge when it comes to tech.

 

[hughJ]

We already kinda know that Sony and Oculus are at least making an honest effort to make this first VR generation as good of a product as can be expected for the subset of gamers that will be willing to buy in, but I also don't think anyone is under the illusion that this generation is anything more than an early first step in a largely unbroken chain of iterations that has no clear finish line in sight. There's been enough ground covered and dollars invested in the last few years that I think VR/AR as an emerging platform can't be stopped or shelved, the only question is whether this generation is akin to PDAs/Palm Pilots or the Blackberry (in the evolutionary path of what brought us to the Iphone and eventual smartphone ubiquity.) With the former you have a niche platform that exists mostly as a technological curiosity and with the latter you have a product that has fostered a large enough and passionate enough user base for it to penetrate mainstream popular culture in a way that makes it ever present even to those who don't own one. A couple years ago I thought VR would probably have to fight through that awkward PDA phase in its first consumer release, but now it's pretty clear it'll be more the latter. It's really no longer a question of 'if' but rather 'when' or in what form that VR will succeed.

The huge missing piece to this generation's puzzle is a killer app, and the more we've seen VR evolve in the past few years the more I'm starting to think that there simply may not be one for this generation and we'll have to accept an eclectic assortment of games and applications that are sort of groping in the dark to justify themselves. If you look to the current group of VR users the most compelling content is by far those that involve a wheel or HOTAS, and those sorts of specialty setups will never reach a broad user base. I actually have a G25 sitting 10ft away in a closet that I've yet to even bother trying in VR simply because it's a hassle to set up and put away afterward.

 

[DieH@rd]

Great PS4 puzzle game Volume will get free expansion for PSVR.

 

[AlNom]

Yup. VR needs to be able to sell itself so it needs one of those "killer application" things. Even then, to appreciate good VR you have to experience it yourself and this is a tricky barrier because you have to make the experience accessible.

DOAX3

 

[Prophecy2k]

I expect the vast majority of VR gaming content to come from standard games that have a VR control profile. That's exactly what we're seeing already with the likes of ARK, EVE Valkyrie and Project Cars. I expect very few, if any VR dedicated AA/A experiences this generation.

In this sense I expect OR and Vive should be able to significantly spread their wings vs PSVR since those games on PS4 will either have to have the core graphics significantly scaled back to run well (remember that with distortion and timewarp overdraw we're potentially talking about a higher than 1080p internal resolution as well as a rock solid 60fps being required), or simply won't offer a VR mode at all.

This doesn't make sense to me, because on the development side (and this is really the limiting factor here) if you are going to make a "VR-mode" of a traditional mainstream game, then you still need to plan it in and budget for the additional development time plus testing, even for a game on the PC. So it won't make a difference whether you are targeting PSVR, Vive or OR or any combintation of the three. The same added dev costs will still apply.

Plus with VR, given that most of the fancy rendering tricks you do with traditional games wont work in VR, on both PSVR and OR/Vive, you shold at least get some performance back by not using those effects in your "VR Mode". Or alternatively, you could not use those effects in your non-VR mode, stylise the visuals of your game leaving performance on the table in non-VR so that the hit with VR is not as significant. There are many options avalable, and I'd be more inclined to believe that a game that really pushes the graphical envelope in terms of immersive realism will be next to impossible to do in VR without the VR mode looking like crap even on a top end PC.

Edit: I think it's far more likely that games that will offer a VR mode will be desinged with VR in mind for the outset, scaling back on rendering tech to push more stylised artistic aesthetics, so that they can offer a consistent experience in a non-VR mode. So effectively these won't be traditional games with a VR mode, they'll be VR games with a traditional "controller on a TV" mode.

 

[orangpelupa]

anime/cartoon 3D game in VR will be awesome.

1. it is very light to render
2. lots of simple objects (probably reduce headache?)
3. wont be as jarring as "realistic" VR when something did not act the same as reality.

 

[pjbliverpool]

This doesn't make sense to me, because on the development side (and this is really the limiting factor here) if you are going to make a "VR-mode" of a traditional mainstream game, then you still need to plan it in and budget for the additional development time plus testing, even for a game on the PC. So it won't make a difference whether you are targeting PSVR, Vive or OR or any combintation of the three. The same added dev costs will still apply.

There would be an additional development cost for PSVR to customise the game/graphics to such an extent that 60fps/1080p+ is possible. That may be a considerable challenge if for example the game logic is already maxing the CPU out at 30fps. On the PC you can simply rely on the users having more powerful hardware as well as the scaling options that all PC games feature as standard.

Plus with VR, given that most of the fancy rendering tricks you do with traditional games wont work in VR, on both PSVR and OR/Vive, you shold at least get some performance back by not using those effects in your "VR Mode".

If it's a 30fps game in 2D, it's likely to take a hell of a lot more than dropping a few post process effects to get it up to 60fps at a higher resolution. What does ARK run at on the PS4 for example?

and I'd be more inclined to believe that a game that really pushes the graphical envelope in terms of immersive realism will be next to impossible to do in VR without the VR mode looking like crap even on a top end PC.

Why? If you're talking about state of the art PS4 level graphics for example then high end PC's in 2016 will have no problem with that at the VR res/fps requirements even in the target is something like 900p @ 60fps on the PS4.

Edit: I think it's far more likely that games that will offer a VR mode will be desinged with VR in mind for the outset, scaling back on rendering tech to push more stylised artistic aesthetics, so that they can offer a consistent experience in a non-VR mode. So effectively these won't be traditional games with a VR mode, they'll be VR games with a traditional "controller on a TV" mode.

I don't think Project Cars or to a lesser extent, ARK support that theory. And I don't see devs holding back on the 2D content which 100% of their audience will be able to enjoy in favour of a VR mode that only 5% will be able to enjoy.

 

[London Geezer]

Am I the only one that feels slightly uncomfortable calling current games "2D", as opposed to 3D or VR? Games have been 3D for a while, technically. To me 2D games have always been the good old sprite based SNES/Genesis games, and always will be.

Is this a thing now?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On the PC you can simply rely on the users having more powerful hardware as well as the scaling options that all PC games feature as standard.

Why not apply the lower scale settings to the PS4 version?

Am I the only one that feels slightly uncomfortable calling current games "2D", as opposed to 3D or VR? Games have been 3D for a while, technically. To me 2D games have always been the good old sprite based SNES/Genesis games, and always will be.

Is this a thing now?

I guess there's an additional context. 2D versus 3D is still the same talking about game genres, but we need a way a term to distinguish between stereoscopically rendered games and single flat-screen rendered, and 2D vs 3D fits the bill.

 

[dobwal]

DOAX3

"Jimmy sure does love his VR thing-a-ma-jig"

"Sure does, but all he does is look down and shimmies all day"

 

[pjbliverpool]

Why not apply the lower scale settings to the PS4 version?

Yep that's certainly a possibility but it comes back to what I was saying earlier. Either devs would have to cut back the graphics on the console version (possibly beyond the lowest settings allowed in the PC version) so there is potentially additional dev effort there, or they just won't bother at all for PSVR in some cases. Specifically I think those cases would be were the level of effort required to achieve 1080p+ at a solid 60fps isn't worth it. And CPU limitations are likely to play a bigger part there than graphics I expect. In some cases it simply won't be possible to get a game running at 60fps on the console CPU's without virtually re-designing the game, whereas on PC they can simply have a very strong CPU requirement for VR play.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yep. Just like PC exclusives now can really push the boat out beyond what consoles are capable of. How often does that happen again?

 

[MrFox]

Designing a AAA production game that requires a very strong PC CPU, requires a recent mid-range GPU, requires a VR headset, and will only be available on PC.

Can you smell the spectacular commercial failure?

 

[pjbliverpool]

Yep. Just like PC exclusives now can really push the boat out beyond what consoles are capable of. How often does that happen again?

Designing a AAA production game that requires a very strong PC CPU, requires a recent mid-range GPU, requires a VR headset, and will only be available on PC.

Can you smell the spectacular commercial failure?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about big budget multiplatform games, which (for example) may be designed to run at 30fps / 1080p on the PS4. Example: Need for Speed 2015, which could offer a VR mode on PC for sufficiently capable systems but would require a major re-design to achieve 60fps "VR readiness" on the PS4.

I see no reason why we won't see plenty of games like that post VR launch.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Reasonable suggestion, but the techniques used to render 2D games break in VR. There'll still need to be a degree of reworking for a VR version of a lot of a games, at least according to what devs have been saying the past couple of years. I don't know if some techniques will be replaced with VR friendly versions without compromising the core 2D audience.

But more than that, most games won't work with a VR refit anyway. The whole experience needs to eb tailored. You'd need to start with a VR game and then work a 2D title from it.