We’re all doomed.
Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Not doomed, but Sony definitely has more realistic expectations of VR and its role in the market. It's certainly not as rosy as even Sony's conservative estimates.
Now it will be interesting to see how they proceed with it.
But the 3 regular hosts hadn't touched VR in over a month. None of them has regularly used VR in quite a while. The guest on the show got them kind of interested in using VR again with, of all things, Beat Saber. A relatively simple but cool rhythm game. But they all know that even that wouldn't provide more than a few hours of entertainment and then it'd be back to collecting dust for their headsets for possible months.
That's pretty similar to what virtually everyone I know with a headset (some with multiple headsets) have been saying when asked about it. Where before some of them would invite people over to try sharing the experience with people and get more people to buy into VR, pretty every single one of them now tells people not to get into VR and to wait until the tech has matured and better games are released.
They all also agreed that the tech while showing tantalizing glimpses of what the future may hold for VR gaming, it's just not quite there yet. After experimenting with it for over 2 years now, I tend to agree. There's a lot of areas that need improvement before it becomes something that can succeed in the marketplace.
My gut feeling is that yet again the push for VR as a consumer device was too soon. OTOH, it's the chicken and egg problem, if it hadn't been pushed into the market, R&D into VR wouldn't be at nearly the level it is at now with component makers (that new LG panel, for example) and device makers. Software developers wouldn't be experimenting as much with what works and doesn't work, if a product hadn't been released into the market. Etc.
Growing pains. The big question is whether this potentially set back VR in the marketplace with consumers or will all of these early growing pains be easily forgotten once a competent VR solution finally hits the market with content compelling enough to keep consumers engaged.
It's pretty amazing that 2 years after VR was first pushed out to consumers, interest in VR now appears to be lower than it was 2 years ago. Or to think of it another way, general consumer interest in VR doesn't appear to have grown in any significant way outside of a curiosity on mobile devices. IE - lots of interest in trying it on mobile devices, but not much retention (continued use) on mobile devices outside of porn.
Regards,
SB
Now it will be interesting to see how they proceed with it.
- Do what they should have done in the first place. Invest heavily into 1st party halo products for VR by tasking one of their premiere first party studios with making a compelling game for it.
- Not just short demo experiences.
- Not just tacked on VR side additions.
- Scale back investment and expectations until the technology matures more and see where things go on PC. Retry VR potentially with PS5 launch.
- Continue doing the same as they've been doing and hope for the best that eventually a 3rd party developer will make something compelling enough to make VR take off.
- Quietly drop it as they've done with previous accessories that haven't done well in the market.
But the 3 regular hosts hadn't touched VR in over a month. None of them has regularly used VR in quite a while. The guest on the show got them kind of interested in using VR again with, of all things, Beat Saber. A relatively simple but cool rhythm game. But they all know that even that wouldn't provide more than a few hours of entertainment and then it'd be back to collecting dust for their headsets for possible months.
That's pretty similar to what virtually everyone I know with a headset (some with multiple headsets) have been saying when asked about it. Where before some of them would invite people over to try sharing the experience with people and get more people to buy into VR, pretty every single one of them now tells people not to get into VR and to wait until the tech has matured and better games are released.
They all also agreed that the tech while showing tantalizing glimpses of what the future may hold for VR gaming, it's just not quite there yet. After experimenting with it for over 2 years now, I tend to agree. There's a lot of areas that need improvement before it becomes something that can succeed in the marketplace.
My gut feeling is that yet again the push for VR as a consumer device was too soon. OTOH, it's the chicken and egg problem, if it hadn't been pushed into the market, R&D into VR wouldn't be at nearly the level it is at now with component makers (that new LG panel, for example) and device makers. Software developers wouldn't be experimenting as much with what works and doesn't work, if a product hadn't been released into the market. Etc.
Growing pains. The big question is whether this potentially set back VR in the marketplace with consumers or will all of these early growing pains be easily forgotten once a competent VR solution finally hits the market with content compelling enough to keep consumers engaged.
It's pretty amazing that 2 years after VR was first pushed out to consumers, interest in VR now appears to be lower than it was 2 years ago. Or to think of it another way, general consumer interest in VR doesn't appear to have grown in any significant way outside of a curiosity on mobile devices. IE - lots of interest in trying it on mobile devices, but not much retention (continued use) on mobile devices outside of porn.
Regards,
SB
As I see it, we don't have to see VR as something that has to be mainstream, necessarily. It's like we're putting that pressure on it: if it's not a total success that attracts all people, then it's a failure.
Why not just comparing it to a genre (not everybody likes fighting games, for instance, and not all fighting games lovers play them all the time, month after month) or accepting the idea that it's current success is more than enough (even though there's room for a bigger acceptance, of course)?
Regarding titles, if Skyrim or RE VII are not compelling enough, well then... I agree that we need more full-fledged games, though, but I also think that we're on the right path. I mean, I'm not as pessimistic as some of you are. PSVR has a nice user base, already, and the technology is doomed to improve in aspects that will make it even more accessible and comfortable. I'm sure that the current PSVR user base will easily move into PSVR2 with PS5, and that the better technology and titles will attract even more people.
This makes no business sense. Why spend the sorts of investment that makes a GOW or HZD only to sell it to a tiny market versus the standard console one? Best you could hope for is for the big-ticket games to get VR, but then if the controls and gameplay won't work, they can't be done. The best they could do would be to make something like a Skyrim clone as that's been shown to work, works as a console game outside of VR, and has shown an appreciative audience in big selling Skyrim and Witcher titles.
It needs to be large enough that software gets made for it. If software doesn't get made, it'll die.
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
If you get a chance, try Bound. It's interesting to see how 3rd person in VR works quite wonderfully. The default camera is various fixed points around any given "scene," which you can switch between by flicking the right analogue stick, but they patched in a traditional, tracking option.
I'm curious to know if the likes of God of War or Uncharted would also work. Based on Bound, I think there's a good chance they would. If so, the best way for Sony to support PSVR might be to support a VR mode in all 1st party content, as well as the current sort of investment in exclusively VR content.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
It's that chicken and egg thing, no?
To get more people to buy into it, you have to provide a compelling reason for them to not only buy it but to continue using it.
The current model has gotten a fair bit of early adopters, but many of them have lost interest in the current state of VR because there's nothing to keep them engaged long term once the novelty of VR wears off. Obviously there are still passionate supporters of VR that enjoy their experiences, but rather than growing, that community appears to be shrinking.
Some of the most often stated reasons I've seen are.
- Short demo experiences.
- Tacked on side projects on games.
- Clunky attempts to make conventional games VR capable
- Short games with price tags associated with fuller game experiences
My list was just thinking of ways that Sony could approach this. #2, for example, was an alternative to #1. Instead of investing heavily in 1st party, perhaps just wait until the VR market is more mature and perhaps indie developers have discovered more ways to make VR compelling to more than a relatively small handful of people (in comparison to the larger gaming market). And if the state of VR has progressed significantly perhaps try again with PS5.
#3 vs. #1 is basically just Sony accepting that the market for VR is tiny and just letting it go as it is going. #4 is basically Sony deciding the that market for VR is too small for it to be profitable.
What we can see is that while VR has progressed in the 2 years (Oculus Rift released to consumers in Mar. 2016) since it was introduced to the market, it has progressed at a relative snails pace. Especially WRT to gaming experiences. It was hoped that PSVR would have a wider appeal and accelerate the process of advancement WRT to gaming experiences, but that hasn't really materialized either. Even without PSVR things like Skyrim VR would have happened anyway as Bethesda (according to them) started R&D into VR long before PSVR was announced and even before Oculus Rift started its Kickstarter campaign (2012). Sure we wouldn't have some of the Sony exclusive titles, but have they really pushed the state of VR gaming significantly?
Basically, yes, option 1 is certainly the riskier option, but with higher risk comes potentially higher rewards. Each of the following 3 points I made are economically more conservative and less risky than the first option. However, they also come with lower potential rewards for Sony.
For example, despite being a "worse gaming product" than VR, Kinect succeeded massively in comparison. Part of that is that Microsoft invested heavily into Kinect tasking one of the premier studios (Rare) with making Kinect games, investing heavily into marketing, etc. As we see it wasn't enough to sustain it or overcome some of the technical issues it had WRT to more "core" gaming experiences to sustain it. But the large investment up front by MS gave it a much better chance to succeed. Imagine how Kinect would have done if instead, MS decided to invest minimally and instead just hoped that 3rd parties would get consumers engaged in the product? Of course, that risk also came with some long term costs as it took Rare a fair bit of time to retool and return to making conventional games (previous management pushing them into making F2P games didn't help either).
Regards,
SB
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This seems to be a situation of a glass half empty or half full according to the observers perspective. One thing to keep in mind is that the wording of Sony's CEO discourse. He did not say that PSVR sales were disappointing. He said that VR market, as a whole, was growing below expectations. I still don't believe PSVR will end up like Vita.
Look, PSVR is now well on its way to be two years old and you still have Sony London Studio and Japan Studio working on VR titles (Blood & Truth and Astrobot). Where was Vita 1st party support two years from launch?? Pretty much dead.
Let's see what E3 is bringing, but the fact that Sony organised a pre E3 press event exclusively for PSVR should tell you all you need to know about their commitment to it really. If they were planning to let it die, that would make no sense, just as they didn't push PS Vita to the press after launch.
Look, PSVR is now well on its way to be two years old and you still have Sony London Studio and Japan Studio working on VR titles (Blood & Truth and Astrobot). Where was Vita 1st party support two years from launch?? Pretty much dead.
Let's see what E3 is bringing, but the fact that Sony organised a pre E3 press event exclusively for PSVR should tell you all you need to know about their commitment to it really. If they were planning to let it die, that would make no sense, just as they didn't push PS Vita to the press after launch.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Of course. Only option 4 that I presented represents Sony being so disappointed that they decide to cancel investment into PSVR. The other 3 options all represent some level of engagement with PSVR with #3 being the closest to what they've been doing since launch. Help fund 3rd parties, have 1st parties tack on VR occasionally, etc.
Regards,
SB
But with a clear business reason not to, unless you (the company) genuinely thinks VR is going to be a Big Deal. Ploughing hundreds of millions into a new platform that will never get major traction is just burning money. It made sense to invest somewhat cautiously this far because no-one really knows how well VR games will play and whether people will take to them or not, because the market had never been tested. The results thus far are, I think, mixed enough that there's no clear reason to invest heavily and try to grow the market.
Sigfried1977
Legend
Sony's finally decided to make that VR jump and run with them cute little playroom robots. Looks fantastic.
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Still waiting for ace combat trailer and release date...
Still waiting for summer lesson episode 2-3 English release
Still waiting for firewall release
Still waiting for blood and truth release date
Still waiting for tetris effects
Can't wait for DREAMS!
And more ..
Yikes. PSVR gonna got so many serious games and calming games and more.
Hopefully many of it will have engaging story and gameplay from start of finish, instead of start with a bang,, then whimper (filler levels), then ends with a bang
Still waiting for summer lesson episode 2-3 English release
Still waiting for firewall release
Still waiting for blood and truth release date
Still waiting for tetris effects
Can't wait for DREAMS!
And more ..
Yikes. PSVR gonna got so many serious games and calming games and more.
Hopefully many of it will have engaging story and gameplay from start of finish, instead of start with a bang,, then whimper (filler levels), then ends with a bang
I'm curious with the Psvr games buying rate. For me personally,, it's crazy. I just can't stop buying vr games.
If there's more like me,, even if Psvr hardware sales is still not as high as expected, it still bring healthy amount of money from games sold
You are not alone. I see plenty of people saying the same. I have bought 4 to 5 times more games for for PSVR than PS4 flat games.
Dreams day 1 VR support, and I kind of expert that to be a holiday season release. Kind of a big thing for me at least. Creation in VR is going to be insane. I thought some basic drawing was fantastic already like the Harmonise or whatever demo.
I agree about Bound. The developer spent some serious time on that VR support, but it is amazing how big the difference is for such a game.
I agree about Bound. The developer spent some serious time on that VR support, but it is amazing how big the difference is for such a game.
When dreams come, that one game could be anything! Haha
Just fiddling around Just lazying or playing proper game! All in dreams.
Too bad still no word on the successor of Miku future live. If they can do it with the visual quality of future tone that would be rad!
Even better if they allow you to choose to play the game or let the game plays by itself.
Heck,, I think more games should allows the game to play by itself. Or disable any kinds of damage or penalty a-la REZ "happy mode" or whatever the name was.
Just fiddling around Just lazying or playing proper game! All in dreams.
Too bad still no word on the successor of Miku future live. If they can do it with the visual quality of future tone that would be rad!
Even better if they allow you to choose to play the game or let the game plays by itself.
Heck,, I think more games should allows the game to play by itself. Or disable any kinds of damage or penalty a-la REZ "happy mode" or whatever the name was.
VR is expensive for the consumer you need to have a PS4 and pay the price of the headset, ideally you need to have move controller and maybe the AIM xontroller for games like Farpoint.
Kinect was not as expensive...
Edit: And it is not a mature technology, VR wireless headset can help, less bulky headset can help too, and better resolution and framerate will improve too.
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