PlayStation VR2 production paused as stock "piles up" - report
PlayStation VR2 production paused as stock "piles up" - report
Production of the PlayStation VR2 headset has been halted, a new report claims, while Sony struggles to shift a growing…
There just aren't enough engaging VR titles, everything still feels like a tech demo.
the entire vr space is a solution waiting for a problem. gaming seems the only practical application and it just cant turn out anything to trigger mass adoption.
Prices remain obscene because every idiot thinks "it needs more pixels!" when that has literally never been a limiting factor. One-millisecond head-tracking latency on a 480p watch-TV-on-a-plane HMD would beat an 8K-per-eye Pimax gizmo in 3DOF.
And every manufacturer imagines owning the entire tiny-ass market, so compatibility is worse than 1980s CP/M machines.
And you still need a monster computer or Wii graphics to run at a do-or-die 120 Hz or whatever. Which is a problem the industry won't even acknowledge. If your monitor relied on software to hit its refresh rate it would blink and flicker constantly. VR frame drops make the whole world lag.
$500 for an accessory that'll only work on a dozen games for your $600 console is not a serious business model.
There's one company doing it right, but it's Facebook, so fuck them.
Eh, I think comfort is a big factor as well. Having something strapped to your face for hours at a time is just never going to be something most people do unless there is a really compelling reason for it. Right now, there just isn't. You can already watch TV on an airplane just fine. The games are cool, but there's just nothing "can't miss" out there yet. That's probably why porn is really the biggest hit with VR, because it does offer a new experience, and it is naturally consumed in short bursts
there's also people like me that got absolutely burned with the failure that was the psvr 1 and I refuse to even concider getting another. I used the first one maybe twice but it's specs were so trash that it made me sick trying to play it. I don't have this issue with my index.
My theory has always been that the better you try and make VR, the more it's going to negatively affect the general population.
The same thing happens when you try to make life like prosthetics. If you make a prosthetic that's too visually similar to the original, your brain actually tries to communicate with it, and when it doesn't get anything back, it can cause symptoms of dysmorphia.
I think similar things are happening with VR, that the more sound and visuals are able to trick your brain, the more it will conflict with proprioceptors telling you that you're actually just sitting in your room.
One thing I noticed after playing the horizon game in VR (where it renders fake hands that follow your controllers) is that afterwards, I had a sense that my real hands weren't so real after getting used to dismissing them in the game.
I question whether VR is generally a good idea based on how our brains learn and do things. Like I'm sure that my brain has made specific pathways or weights for playing a whole bunch of games, but activating them involves sitting in front of a screen with the input devices. I think even racing sims, where some things can be applicable, it's more at the conscious level than the "I can do this without thinking about it". VR games might be realistic enough to start activating the same pathways outside of games. As much as I want better VR, I wonder if it's a be careful what you wish for kinda thing, especially for younger people.
That plus you need a spare $500 for it, makes it a hard sell
As someone who's into a lot of VR stuff, the biggest problem is that it's still a niche market that requires the consumer to be spending a lot on extra hardware in order to play it. Obviously the majority of studios would rather invest in something more people can play and therefore buy, and at most will maybe add a VR mode to their first person game. I've found VR modes and mods for games not initially developed for that sort of hardware to be more engaging and have more substance than most of the ones specifically made for it (and is most of the VR games I play), but being able to play in VR does enhance the experience imo depending on the game.
I bought a valve index to play Half Life Alyx and Boneworks. I was so excited to see what new and exciting games would come next aaaaand... nothing remotely interesting has come out since.
Also those headsets are 500 a piece. Most people can't afford to drop the cost of a mid range PC on a peripheral.
Valve should partner up with them for 1st party SteamVR support. It has good hardware and would be a good stop-gap replacement for the aging Index while Valve's next gen headset will still take some time to be released most likely.
That would be incredible, doubt Sony would go for it though.
Sony has already stated they are working on PC support and hope to release it this year: https://blog.playstation.com/2024/02/22/coming-soon-to-ps-vr2-zombie-army-vr-little-cities-bigger-wanderer-the-fragments-of-fate-the-wizards-dark-times-brotherhood-and-more/
More why would valve spend money.
Valve is profitable since they don’t spend money, they could make some games, but than they would lose the marketing, the games would never meet expectations either. Blah blah blah.
Basically valve works because they just sit on their pile of wealth hoarding it. The only thing they’ve done in a decade is the steamdeck. Big whoop, any other corp would be blasted for what they do. But they get a pass for some strange reason.
And bring first class Linux support along with it, since the options there are pretty sparse, although getting better with the Monado project in particular.
The PS VR2 wouldn't be an upgrade from the Index, it would be a downgrade in FOV, refresh rate, and controllers. Only the resolution is a bit higher than the Index
I hope PC VR support is still on the roadmap. They seem like excellent headsets, but I won't be getting a PS5 for it.
It is and is going to become available this year.
I’m very excited to have more to play than gt7 lol
They announced it but that was before the 900 layoffs. I'm concerned a project like this that probably doesn't benefit them much wouldn't have survived the cuts 😔
If my games from the first psvr were backwards compatible, I would have bought one already.
Now I'm waiting to get one for cheaper.
This was such a bad decision by Sony. Maybe there was a technical reason why it couldn't be back-compat, but if there was any way they could have done it, they should have.
It doesn't help that Sony is supporting it like it's the Vita's ugly cousin. If they made good games for it, people would buy it. Those who don't get motion sick at least.
Given how much of a janky mess the original psvr was, my money is definitely on technical problems in making compatability actually work to an acceptable level for a commercial release. Because the only thing worse than not releasing compatability would be doing it badly, such that increased support issues and development costs would outweigh however many people would buy it.
I wish there was a place where I could try before buying.
I tried an occulus dev kit a long time ago which made me horribly nauseous. I know vr has come a long way since then so I'd love to see if the improvements are sufficient to make it usable for me now or if I'm just doomed to motion sickness with goggle displays.
For what it's worth I think a lot of the nausea goes away the more you play. When I started I couldn't do more than 15 min sessions at first for a week maybe. The other thing I figured out was having a fan and cool air blowing on me made it way better.
You can counter that with a few tips. Aiming fan on the ground at you so you feel the constant air from the same direction. And a circular rug that's on the small side, so you have a unique physical feel to your play area.
Modern vr titles also have options to turn on to counter motion sickness as well, that vary from game to game.
Best Buy offers Quest 3 demos. I expect the experience would be pretty comparable to the PSVR2.
The psvr2 is a nicer experience imo (the big exception being that it’s tethered), namely because of the eye tracking. The PSVR2 also has two screens that are slightly lower resolution than the single screen in the quest 3, so visually the PSVR2 wins. It’s also a lot lighter than the quest which makes extended play a bit easier.
Overall I generally recommend folks go with the Quest unless you are really excited about GT7 and eye tracking.
I wonder if this is the impotus for that recent announcement that they're going to start supporting the pc vr games with the headset.
If they offer PC support, I'd seriously consider buying one! Still rocking my HTC Vive for now.
Also, *impetus
If it gets OpenVR support and works on iRacing, I'll buy one immediately.