Sony VR Headset/Project Morpheus/PlayStation VR

[pjbliverpool]

Even if it does have technical limitations, if it's the system most people buy, it's the norm. How can it not be? A 'normal' car is a four/five door family motor and not a technically and performance superior supercar. And 'technical limitations' on PS4 basically boils down to artistic limitations, as that's the only thing that'll be limited. Devs in turn will target the lowest common denominator, so quite probably aim for Morpheus and add a little trivial eye candy for PC versions. The Morpheus experience itself regards responsiveness and FOV and whatnot is every bit as valid a VR experience as the rivals. Only if PC outsells Morpheus and has a significantly higher base spec (at significantly increased cost at this point in VR's latest attempt) will the Morpheus experience be below the norm.

It's starting to look highly likely that Oculus will also be the VR headset of the XB1 so there's a good chance the sales numbers Morpheus will be comparing to will be PC+XBO.

On the graphics front, while there will be multiplatform games that are exclusively for use in VR there will also be plenty of "2D first" games that have been designed to work well in VR if you have the capability. ARK is a great example. It looks awesome in 2D but unless it's running at 1080p/60fps in 2D mode on the PS4, then it's going to have to make big sacrifices to get it playable in VR. Those sacrifices could end up as quite a visual disparity between the two versions - before accounting for the higher resolution and frame rate of Oculus.

Also given the massive funding Oculus has I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a few Oculus funded PC exclusives.

Actually input seems a more significant concern/factor to me than headset. All the headsets will be great, but what input will devs be targeting on what platforms and how well does that perform in the games people want to play?

ARK is a good example for this actually. Given that the weapons include the likes of a spear and bow/arrow which would be perfect for dual motion controls within a VR world, Morpheus may have a limitation with the move controllers of being unable to control the characters movement through the game at the same time as allowing both of the players arms to interact with the games weapons via motion control.

 

[DieH@rd]

http://giant.gfycat.com/WideeyedTimelyChafer.webm

Kinda bummed Oculus will still heavily promote "dumb" not-trackable gamepad, while asking for their users to spend additional money on new control scheme.

 

[Nesh]

Even if it does have technical limitations, if it's the system most people buy, it's the norm. How can it not be? A 'normal' car is a four/five door family motor and not a technically and performance superior supercar. And 'technical limitations' on PS4 basically boils down to artistic limitations, as that's the only thing that'll be limited. Devs in turn will target the lowest common denominator, so quite probably aim for Morpheus and add a little trivial eye candy for PC versions. The Morpheus experience itself regards responsiveness and FOV and whatnot is every bit as valid a VR experience as the rivals. Only if PC outsells Morpheus and has a significantly higher base spec (at significantly increased cost at this point in VR's latest attempt) will the Morpheus experience be below the norm.

Actually input seems a more significant concern/factor to me than headset. All the headsets will be great, but what input will devs be targeting on what platforms and how well does that perform in the games people want to play?

Eh....too many ifs in there. What you say will depend on how much the developers will feel "constrained" and if the end result will be what people will WANT to buy. I as well as you, know nothing about that yet. We havent seen how much the hardware is being "taxed" to offer a VR experience. One variable is Morpheus, the second are the developers, the third is the hardware. Developers cant do magic if the hardware is too restrictive and it doesnt mean that the majority will be accepting no matter what. But as I said we dont know that yet. So why dont we leave these hypothetical scenarios and simply wait and see?

 

[pjbliverpool]

http://giant.gfycat.com/WideeyedTimelyChafer.webm

Kinda bummed Oculus will still heavily promote "dumb" not-trackable gamepad, while asking for their users to spend additional money on new control scheme.

Agreed that the touch controllers should definitely come as standard, seems quite silly for them not too, hopefully that will change before launch. I'm not sure that it matters whether the gamepad is trackable or not though. The uses of that seem pretty limited in game to me. Better to rely on the proper touch controls (which replicate all the functions/buttons of the gamepad anyway between them) for "hand presence".

I do wonder at the logic of bundling the XBO pad with OR though, it's certainly a good move but I wonder whether it's part of the Microsoft deal and that maybe MS are subsidizing it's inclusion under that deal.

 

[cheapchips]

The xbone pad has ir leds so it can be tracked by Kinect. Presumably the oculus ir camera could track it too.

 

[MrFox]

Maybe the hidden feature of the new xbox controller is a constellation of leds, improved accel/gyros, and magnetometers, which would make it 6 dof. That's a much better reason to make a new one instead of just the headset connector.

 

[cheapchips]

I was just suggesting crude positional tracking and aiming. I forgot that it didn't have a giro though. I assume DS3 does?

 

[MrFox]

DS4 have the full 1:1 mapping to place it in a game and use it as a gun. With only a point led on the xb1 controller it's not enough to aim, it needs at least three but this is trivial to add and cost a few cents. Heck it could be a clip-on.

 

[hesido]

DS4 have the full 1:1 mapping to place it in a game and use it as a gun. With only a point led on the xb1 controller it's not enough to aim, it needs at least three but this is trivial to add and cost a few cents. Heck it could be a clip-on.

Let's not forget the Move is also extensible through the Ext connector. I'm hoping Sony wises up and re-releases with analogue buttons and clip-on analogues for existing move controllers.

 

[MrFox]

So there's still 3 possible scenarios for an xb1 VR competitor:
1. Simple solution, oculus CV1 will also work with XB1
2. Cross patent licensing with oculus for a custom headset better suited for XB1
3. No VR directly on XB1, buy a PC with windows 10, etc...

#3 is now very unlikely. #1 and #2 have additional questions of:
- Will it require a new gamepad
- Will it have a new motion controller similar to all the others
- Will it require Kinect2
- Will it have an outboard processor

 

[pjbliverpool]

So there's still 3 possible scenarios for an xb1 VR competitor:
1. Simple solution, oculus CV1 will also work with XB1
2. Cross patent licensing with oculus for a custom headset better suited for XB1
3. No VR directly on XB1, buy a PC with windows 10, etc...

#3 is now very unlikely. #1 and #2 have additional questions of:
- Will it require a new gamepad
- Will it have a new motion controller similar to all the others
- Will it require Kinect2
- Will it have an outboard processor

Given how much Microsoft are trying to bring the two platforms together in terms of OS, API, online service, gaming ecosystem, and other peripherals, I think it'd be a pretty crazy move to bring out a different version of the Rift for the XBO that is incompatible with the PC (and vice versa). It would pretty much negate all the advantages of partnering with OR in the first place. 1, or 3 seem much more likely to me with 1 being the most likely IMO. Still, it is questionable how the XBO will be able to render at the OR's specs. It would pretty much be stuck with a non-native resolution and sub refresh frame rate - potentially using re-projection like Sony to get up to the full 90hz.

 

[eastmen]

Well people do seen happy with the interpolation on the ps4. So ms could surely make a small breakiut box that doss the same along with high quality scaler and just make the gamesrender at 900p 60fps scaled to 1200×1080 per eye needed at 90 fps.

That way oculus gets the benfitis of scale production

 

[MrFox]

Technically there's no native resolution in VR, since it's necessarily rendered at whatever resolution to be warped significantly afterwards. The only question is whether the XB1 hdmi output can sync to the non-standard resolution and 90hz of oculus.

 

[eastmen]

Technically there's no native resolution in VR, since it's necessarily rendered at whatever resolution to be warped significantly afterwards. The only question is whether the XB1 hdmi output can sync to the non-standard resolution and 90hz of oculus.

it shouldn't be a problem with an external scaler / interpoler .

 

[MrFox]

Phil Spencer said...

The Rift will natively work with Windows 10. And we all know that VR experiences require the highest performance, and with Direct X 12, we believe we’ll be able to create state of the art virtual reality experiences on top of Windows.

Maybe I dismissed #3 too quickly. They wouldn't have put an emphasis on the requirement for highest performance if they wanted to announce VR on XB1 on Monday.

 

[eastmen]

Phil Spencer said...

Maybe I dismissed #3 too quickly. They wouldn't have put an emphasis on the requirement for highest performance if they wanted to announce VR on XB1 on Monday.

But windows 10 and dx 12 are on the xbox one. So marketing speak makes it work fine

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

But windows 10 and dx 12 are on the xbox one. So marketing speak makes it work fine

I'm a bit confused (I understand the nexus, don't get me wrong) why all the Rift discussion is in the Morpheus thread rather than in the "durango" thread where it properly belongs.

But my understanding is that Rift requires a PC. The only real thing that was announced is that it is going to ship with the XB1 controller and that you can stream from your XB1 to your PC to Rift. I'm struggling to see how this is any different than anything else they already talked about in terms of streaming from your PC to your XB1? I guess the big deal is that Rift requires W10?

It still seems to me like a niche product that has some great applications for the 1-5% of the population that will take advantage of it.

I could be missing something, I didn't get to watch the Live Stream, and the only videos I can find are Xbox videos with Major Nelson after they fact where they talk about the announcement but don't show the actual live video stream where apparently the entire thing was dumb, looked stupid, and everybody had a fit. Which is what you would expect, because VR isn't something you can really demo.

 

[eastmen]

this kinda became a catch all. awhile ago.

The rift requires a windows platform with hdmi 1.3b (I think its b)

The xbox will be a windows 10 platform with hdmi .

They said on stage that the controller and streaming was only the start of their relationship.

Some of us believe that MS is going to go in on AR with hololense but it might not be tied to the xbox .

Sony has a VR helmet and MS doesn't , so that could be a selling point that MS wants to be able to check off. Oculus already has a completed headset that has had a lot of work put into it , they are part of facebook and MS+ facebook has always had a great relationship.

 

[MrFox]

But windows 10 and dx 12 are on the xbox one. So marketing speak makes it work fine

Yeah but it's really shitty marketing as anyone will immediately think about the PS4 much better GPU and low level API. MS xbox marketing effort have been about the games, and away from numbers, it was their most successful angle last year. Now he said "requires the highest performance". That's PC. On console that's PS4.

We could be surprised, but now I think they have nothing for XB1. They would be shooting themselves in the foot with that remark, but instead it could have been preemptive strike to reduce Morpheus as not being the highest performance...which is required. It would be FUD but correct marketing compared to the alternative blunder.

 

[MrFox]

I'm a bit confused (I understand the nexus, don't get me wrong) why all the Rift discussion is in the Morpheus thread rather than in the "durango" thread where it properly belongs.

I decided to stop trying to fight it and go with the flow. Be one with the universe.