Microsoft Has Been Working on VR for "quite a while" - Says Phil Spencer

[takieda]

The people that chose the first option have never tried the Oculus Rift
I voted on the last option, I'm not particularly interested in the Xbox One but anything that can make VR gaming more mainstream is a great thing in my book.

Some people have major problems with 3D in general. The 3DS makes them nauseated or worse. Seeing movies in 3d are even worse for them. And then some people only have use of one eye (though this doesn't stop them from being able to properly use a VR headset - for motion tracking and immersion purposes, it still works - just no 3D), and would prefer to stick with standard play methods.

But yes, I want the Oculus Rift. I'm a bit iffy on the Playstation implementation on it as the HMZ was Sony's first VR headset after the announcement of the Rift, and was touted, IIRC, as better than anything the Rift can do, and well, they didn't really do a damn thing about immersion, as it still had a terrible FOV, and was an awful lot like looking at a crappy version of a 1080p screen (it was 720p) at a huge distance away. Might as well have been VR theater, and that's about it. I'd like to think they've learned from their mistake, but they've so far made no statements that I've seen about having a decent FOV.

 

[Covarr]

I know MS was working on that thing that projects colors all around the room to make something more immersive. Is that what he means? It didn't go anywhere, and wasn't really VR anyway.

 

[grossaffe]

I'll take the Rift, thank-you.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

in an ideal scenario, any HDMI video game should work with any VR display with HDMI port, but Microsoft and Sony had such nice engineers that will find a way to block it and will try to sell their single platform device for more than they should...

 

[Foxi4]

I know MS was working on that thing that projects colors all around the room to make something more immersive. Is that what he means? It didn't go anywhere, and wasn't really VR anyway.

I would assume he meant some type of gogles, the projector was just a fancy tech demo, not an actual product they were planning to release, at least that's my understanding of it.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Some people have major problems with 3D in general. The 3DS makes them nauseated or worse. Seeing movies in 3d are even worse for them. And then some people only have use of one eye (though this doesn't stop them from being able to properly use a VR headset - for motion tracking and immersion purposes, it still works - just no 3D), and would prefer to stick with standard play methods.

But yes, I want the Oculus Rift. I'm a bit iffy on the Playstation implementation on it as the HMZ was Sony's first VR headset after the announcement of the Rift, and was touted, IIRC, as better than anything the Rift can do, and well, they didn't really do a damn thing about immersion, as it still had a terrible FOV, and was an awful lot like looking at a crappy version of a 1080p screen (it was 720p) at a huge distance away. Might as well have been VR theater, and that's about it. I'd like to think they've learned from their mistake, but they've so far made no statements that I've seen about having a decent FOV.

Your first statement is true, although the OR is meant to make the eyes see 3D as naturally as possible, eliminating problems like that. They're still working on that, but the latest prototypes and the new devkit have several improvements to eliminate what they call simulation sickness, mainly focusing on lowering latency as much as possible to make it closer to natural. They've stated that they'll be doing everything they can to eliminate simulation sickness so everyone can enjoy the OR, without having to slowly get used to it or anything like that. They've improved response time of the head tracker, it's now 1000Hz vs 250Hz, they've switched to an OLED screen as well, reducing ghosting and motion blur, and they've worked on reducing latency in every part of the system, so the response will be effectively immediate to the brain when you move your head around.

In fact, some people who can't see depth normally but have both eyes working have even been able to see depth on the Oculus Rift by tweaking parameters. It's pretty impressive, and it must be amazing to see in 3D for the first time in your life

I'm not sure whether you're talking about Sony or the OR in the last statement.
I will assume you meant Sony, since the OR currently has the market's leading FOV from what I know.
Owning an Oculus Rift DK1 myself, I have to say the FOV still needs improving, even if it is much higher than competing devices it's still a far cry from the eyes' natural FOV of nearly 180 degrees (horizontally), it's only half of that. Vertically, it's quite close (110 vs 135 degrees) but the small horizontal FOV compared to the eyes makes you rather claustrophobic in certain games. In others, you're so immersed you don't even notice the tunnel vision. The screens they are using also limit this to some degree since there are less horizontal pixels than vertical ones while it should be the other way around.

 

[Hop2089]

I'm more interested in Oculus Rift since I only want it as a novelty and for use in other more adult matters, not a game I want would even be using this (I don't remember the last time I even bought a first person game save for DRPGs) and chances are VR won't be 30 fps or higher, it would be a miracle if it hits 20-25 fps.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm more interested in Oculus Rift since I only want it as a novelty and for use in other more adult matters (...)

I see what you did there.

 

[Arras]

I'm more interested in Oculus Rift since I only want it as a novelty and for use in other more adult matters, not a game I want would even be using this (I don't remember the last time I even bought a first person game save for DRPGs) and chances are VR won't be 30 fps or higher, it would be a miracle if it hits 20-25 fps.

It HAS to hit 60FPS or higher, otherwise everyone would get INSANE nausea.

 

[Hop2089]

It HAS to hit 60FPS or higher, otherwise everyone would get INSANE nausea.

I already can hear the complaints and the thing isn't even on the consumer market yet. I can't see this happening initially and then there's the whole system requirements, I can't see the system requirements being anything close to being reasonable for the OR to function at 30 fps much less 60+ which will limit the market to companies and gamers.

 

[Foxi4]

I still don't understand why people assume that 60 FPS is some kind of a mythical number that can't be reached by consoles or PC's. The Nintendo DS does 60 FPS natively and it was outdated the day it was released. If the game will be designed to work with a 60 FPS VR set, it's going to be programmed to reach that framerate out of the get-go, point. Will the games look like KillZone: Shadowfall? No, they won't, they'll definitely be less complex, but they'll be in full immersive 3D.

 

[Arras]

Enter the Facebook.

 

[Foxi4]

Enter the Facebook.

Enter ads on every single corner and idiotic bloatware that will "share your experiences over the cloud!" aka collect personal data. This sort of thing was bent to happen, I was just expecting companies from a different sector to buy the device.

 

[spiral6]

And so, the chat subsequently changes...

 

[hksrb25s14]

VR on 720p no thanks, and being quite awhile hmmm that's just hopping on the bandwagon.

 

[takieda]

VR on 720p no thanks, and being quite awhile hmmm that's just hopping on the bandwagon.

There's no reason to assume that it will run at 720p, as stated numerous times on this thread the graphics can be toned down to allow for full 1080p visuals. Plus, even if you run 720p on a display that shows 1080p, given the way the display works, the issue with lower res is not there as the screen door effect is only based on the actual resolution of the display. While the graphics won't be as nice at 720p upscaled to 1080p, it will still look better than the displays showing 720p natively.

Enter the Facebook.

yeah, I heard, and now I want Mark Zuckerberg to either A) get the @#$% away from Facebook and get someone else in there, B) sell Facebook and/or Oculus VR as fast as humanly possible, or C) have horrible unnameable things happen to him, involving a chainsaw, a 65gallon aquarium of lube, half a stick of TNT, 118 mercury based thermometers, and a basil plant.

On the upside - Apple didn't buy it, so until I've heard that Facebook HAS done unmentionable things to the product I virtually love, I'm likely to still buy it.

 

[calmwaters]

Gogles? Controler? I know you didn't do it on purpose, but it's funny. I'm surprised by all the comedic comments in this thread: there weren't many such comments in the article where Sony revealed their headset. Also, I'm not into wearing Cyclops-like visors when playing games. Why couldn't they have a pair of gloves instead? Wow, a whole new way to play Tekken. Have some friends over for even more virtual punching and kicking.

 

[CrimzonEyed]

I like VR but I probably wait for technology like Brain Implant Chip or a Neuro Linker.

 

[KingVamp]

On the fence with VR. Got to see where it's going first.