Sony VR headset unveiled

[Hydrazine]

Are there still people using the Virtual Boy's fail as argument? That was around 20 years ago. Technology has advanced WAY past what we had back then. Throughout the 1800s, many tried to create powered aircrafts and failed, until success came in 1903. Just because it failed before doesn't mean it'll never succeed.

 

[DaVince]

Are there still people using the Virtual Boy's fail as argument? That was around 20 years ago. Technology has advanced WAY past what we had back then. Throughout the 1800s, many tried to create powered aircrafts and failed, until success came in 1903. Just because it failed before doesn't mean it'll never succeed.

Now, now. The VB failed for multiple reasons and we all know it. It's not even comparable to these modern-day goggles. People just seem to be bringing it up as a joke.

 

[Hydrazine]

Now, now. The VB failed for multiple reasons and we all know it. It's not even comparable to these modern-day goggles. People just seem to be bringing it up as a joke.

Wouldn't be surprised if there's some people who are serious about it...

 

[Foxi4]

Isn't Kirito a character from SAO?

I find it odd that you'd know that considering SAO is obscure as f*ck, but alright.

As far as the Oculus Rift is concerned, the great thing about it is that it continues to be a prototype and isn't on storeshelves yet, however everybody still circlejerks around it for some reason. Both headsets are prototypes, we don't actually know what the final specifications or prices will be, so this entire conversation is completely pointless.

 

[Hydrazine]

I find it odd that you'd know that considering SAO is obscure as f*ck, but alright.

As far as the Oculus Rift is concerned, the great thing about it is that it continues to be a prototype and isn't on storeshelves yet, however everybody still circlejerks around it for some reason. Both headsets are prototypes, we don't actually know what the final specifications or prices will be, so this entire conversation is completely pointless.

https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=Kirito (Although in actually, I've known what SAO is before, but never bother watching it. Seen it talked about a lot though.)

Although the Rift is a prototype, it's still well within consumer usability. I'm fairly certain the majority of people who bought DK1 weren't devs.

 

[Foxi4]

https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=Kirito (Although in actually, I've known what SAO is before, but never bother watching it. Seen it talked about a lot though.)

Although the Rift is a prototype, it's still well within consumer usability. I'm fairly certain the majority of people who bought DK1 weren't devs.

The DK1 was also infinitely worse than Crystal Cove.

 

[DaVince]

Well, it's fun to speculate (especially since we got approximations of the specs of both of them). Still, though... Sony just hasn't revealed enough info to really get a proper statement out on if it'll work or not. Except that it just won't with the specs they announced for now.

 

[Hydrazine]

The DK1 was also infinitely worse than Crystal Cove.

But DK2 is on-par with Crystal Cove. The reason some people choose to make-do with DK1 is reason was CC was never sold and they couldn't wait. You made-do with what you have. I bet many people will buy DK2 who aren't devs, just to play around with it. Rift enabled games already exist.

 

[kristianity77]

Well, it's fun to speculate (especially since we got approximations of the specs of both of them). Still, though... Sony just hasn't revealed enough info to really get a proper statement out on if it'll work or not. Except that it just won't with the specs they announced for now.

Im pretty sure actually, that it will work..... I don't see a company designing a product, shipping a product (for $500 a go apparently!) for it to just "not work".

 

[DaVince]

Im pretty sure actually, that it will work..... I don't see a company designing a product, shipping a product (for $500 a go apparently!) for it to just "not work".

It'll work... but I don't think it will under the current released spec info. 60 FPS + an LCD screen have already been shown to perform pretty poorly. Which is why I think these are not at all the final specs to begin with. (Not to mention Oculus released a dev kit that's better than that already.)

 

[Hydrazine]

Im pretty sure actually, that it will work..... I don't see a company designing a product, shipping a product (for $500 a go apparently!) for it to just "not work".

If you think it'll be priced less than $500, look at this:

http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/head-mounted-display-products/hmz-t3w

This is sony's most similar thing they have to VR headset right now. It's for movies mostly, but in design, principle, and form is the same. Guess how much it cost? 1300 EUROS! GG for anyone's wallet.

 

[kristianity77]

If you think it'll be priced less than $500, look at this:

http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/head-mounted-display-products/hmz-t3w

This is sony's most similar thing they have to VR headset right now. It's for movies mostly, but in design, principle, and form is the same. Guess how much it cost? 1300 EUROS! GG for anyone's wallet.

Ok, that a fair bit of money, but a 30 second scout round the internet now shows this set (which to me, looks absolute top of the line) for $999, which is only only just over 700 euros so its a far cry from 1300 but I get your point. But still, when this Project Morpheus goes to market, it will not be $500, it will be considerably less. The reason? no one will buy it else. Granted it will be a luxury peripheral, but its gotta be priced as such so that its an affordable one, and also one that people would buy on impulse, or have just a "passing" interest in what it might be like. $500 does not put it into those categories.

Having said that, I'd fully expect in the UK where im based, for this to come out for around the £150-200 mark. So my guess is perhaps 250 euros or maybe $299. I cant see it being more than that. Even these prices are beyond the reach of many for a peripheral.

 

[Foxi4]

If you think it'll be priced less than $500, look at this:

http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/head-mounted-display-products/hmz-t3w

This is sony's most similar thing they have to VR headset right now. It's for movies mostly, but in design, principle, and form is the same. Guess how much it cost? 1300 EUROS! GG for anyone's wallet.

Assuming makes an ass out of you and me. *Shitty pun!*

Rumours about Sony working on a VR kit similar to the Oculus Rift have been around in the ether for at least half a year now and among those rumours was the pretty obvious one - that Sony wants it to be far more affordable than their earlier HMZ line simply because it's going to be a strictly gaming-oriented device so it has to be attractive for the average gamer and well-within his or her budget. Unless Sony Corp. is filled from top to bottom with orangutans, they're going to price it competitively with the Oculus - d'uh. One of the biggest and most stressed selling points of the PS4 was its affordability considering the hardware it packs at $399 - I sincerely doubt that an accessory for that system is going to follow a different pricing logic.

 

[Hydrazine]

One of the biggest and most stressed selling points of the PS4 was its affordability considering the hardware it packs at $399 - I sincerely doubt that an accessory for that system is going to follow a different pricing logic.

Speaking of that, in Canada last week they actually increased the price of the PS4 from $400 to $500. Now it's the same as the Xbone, which is also $500 here. Doubt I'll buy either, but that proof that sony does have some greed.

 

[DaVince]

Assuming makes an ass out of you and me. *Shitty pun!*

Rumours about Sony working on a VR kit similar to the Oculus Rift have been around in the ether for at least half a year now and among those rumours was the pretty obvious one - that Sony wants it to be far more affordable than their earlier HMZ line simply because it's going to be a strictly gaming-oriented device so it has to be attractive for the average gamer and well-within his or her budget. Unless Sony Corp. is filled from top to bottom with orangutans, they're going to price it competitively with the Oculus - d'uh. One of the biggest and most stressed selling points of the PS4 was its affordability considering the hardware it packs at $399 - I sincerely doubt that an accessory for that system is going to follow a different pricing logic.

Also, if Oculus can do it, why not Sony, with its better market position to negotiate better bulk deals (not to mention Sony is big enough to have a bunch of the technology in-house already)?

 

[Foxi4]

Speaking of that, in Canada last week they actually increased the price of the PS4 from $400 to $500. Now it's the same as the Xbone, which is also $500 here. Doubt I'll buy either, but that proof that sony does have some greed.

Uhh, no. It was raised from $400 CAD to $450 CAD, mostly because the value of the Canadian dollar is not equivalent to the value of the American dollar. It's not a matter of greed, it's a matter of the Canadian dollar losing value. Currency exchange and whatnot.

Guess how much $450 CAD is in USD? $400 USD. Surprise, surprise - you're paying the exact same amount of money as other people.

 

[Hydrazine]

Uhh, no. It was raised from $400 CAD to $450 CAD, mostly because the value of the Canadian dollar is not equivalent to the value of the American dollar. It's not a matter of greed, it's a matter of the Canadian dollar losing value. Currency exchange and whatnot.

Then why Wii U, Xbone, PS Vita, PS3, Xbox360, 3DS, 2DS, etc. didn't get a price increase? It's not as innocent as sony wants you to think. There's definitely some greed going on.

 

[Foxi4]

Then why Wii U, Xbone, PS Vita, PS3, Xbox360, 3DS, 2DS, etc. didn't get a price increase? It's not as innocent as sony wants you to think. There's definitely some greed going on.

Maybe because the Wii U and the PSVita don't sell, the XBox One is already overpriced and Nintendo doesn't really understand how business works as far as the 3DS and 2DS are concerned. ;O;

Fact of the matter is, the PS4 is already sold at practically dumping price. They bumped the price up not to drown in losses-per-unit that result solely from the current state of the currency exchange. And just to be clear, I don't support that move and I think Sony should just suck it up, I'm merely giving you the actual economic reason why the price was changed.

If the system would continue to sell for $400 CAD, I'd be the first in line to get it as it'd mean that it's selling for approx. $355 USD, which is almost 50 bucks less than anywhere else.

 

[kristianity77]

Then why Wii U, Xbone, PS Vita, PS3, Xbox360, 3DS, 2DS, etc. didn't get a price increase? It's not as innocent as sony wants you to think. There's definitely some greed going on.

Foxi is totally right. Its absolutely a currency thing. Granted, some companies might just swallow the losses when currencies go up and down but by no means does a company have to. And by all accounts, the canadian dollar is actually struggling, its not just your typical fluctuations that normally happens with currency. (As viewed here from the UK anyhow)

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I have been following in the VR arena since the 90s, and I'd just like to clear up a few misconceptions:

Just "porting" games over to the headset screen won't work. At all. Think about it. Your height from the ground, movement speed, Field of View, even object scaling is completely out of whack in your average console or computer game, and for a 2D display, that's completely fine. You don't really notice it when you have that one degree of separation from the in-game world. Telephones the size of your head, cars the size of Power Wheels, it's all good most of the time. In VR, you REALLY notice that stuff. The key term you will be hearing in reference to VR in the coming years is Presence.Immersion is to Presence as a drawing of a car is to an actual real life car. That's about as well as I can explain that term. It's something you have to see for yourself. Okay, so back onto what I was saying, you can't just port over a game to a VR environment. You have to completely rebuild it from the ground up, or you have the potential to make things look really wonky, or even worse, make people really sick. More often than not, you'll see games built for Morpheus rather than ported for use in Morpheus.

Second, the Virtual Boy is not even close to real VR. It's one of the first 3D consoles, a mistake and an eyesore in more than one way. Why the hell are you even referencing something that was introduced when the VR movement had barely started sprouting legs?

Third, it's not fair either to say that the Oculus Rift "sucks" because of your first 5 minutes with the Dev Kit 1. The Crystal Cove set AKA Dev Kit v2 is much better in terms of persistence and ghosting, and that's coming from someone with first-hand experience with both models, and I guarantee none of you that are poo pooing it have had any experience beyond the few pack-in demos it comes bundled with. At the present, not knowing much in terms of actual real usage of the Morpheus, it seems very close in specs to the Crystal Cove prototype/Dev Kit 2 besides having a smaller FOV.

In terms of pricing, it will have to be competitively priced with the Oculus Rift when it releases (Very likely Oculus will bust out of the gates first), or they risk it failing in the consumer market.Having a set that costs more than the console it goes for would be a bad thing, no?

Some of you are also asking "why hasn't VR succeeded before?" or "Isn't this going to fail like it has in the past?", and while I'm not a fortune teller or a mind reader, I can say that the reasons that VR failed in the past are for the most part, things that have been eliminated. Price: VR units of the past cost a hell of a lot more money than anyone would realistically spend. Graphics power and persistence: It's safe to say that early VR systems were horribly primitive in the graphics area. Not just with models and textures, but in resolution, frame rate and persistence. Using a VR system in the mid-90s would result in a massive headache if used for too long, if not motion sickness as well. Size of the hardware: It's no secret that the amount and sheer size of VR systems of the past needed a lot of room. The headset was the smallest part, and usually you needed it hooked up to a fairly large and beefy computer that would also need gargantuan cooling units to keep it from overheating. Will it succeed this time? I can't say for sure, but f I were a betting man, I'd say yes.