Report: Sony to Unveil Its VR Gaming Headset at GDC 2014

[faefrost]

WHY IT WILL BE THE NEXT GREAT THING IN GAMING! IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING! What's that you ask? Then how come it didn't change anything when they tried it in the 90's? or the 2000's or just the other year when they paired PS3 with 3d TV's? BUT BUT! THIS IS SOOO MUCH BETTERERERER! You wear this one on your head! How could you not want to do that? Wait? What do you mean we tried this gimmick already 20 years ago and everybody thought it was neat but ignored it? Hmmm? Nintendo's biggest failure ever? Really? Ummm? What are you saying? SEGA's lawyers blocked them from releasing their similar device for the Genesis? Something about causing actual damage to peoples eyes? But it's 20 years later! The tech is so much better now! What do you mean the first thing every 3dS owner does is disable the 3d? But It's VIRTUAL REALITY!!! You know like in that cutting edge state of the art movie about the future Lawnmower Man! Wait! Come back! Why are you all poking at your dinky little smart phones? We're giving you the future here! The one we always promised! It's like a Holodeck! Only bolted onto your head like an unwanted appendage. No wait come back....

 

[james.sponge]

I am confident that Oculus Rift will turn out better than this, seems like a lot more competent people are involved in it and ofc PCs have the performance advantage, when we talk about possible games for the experiences.

This and add modability, sony will never allow pesky users to mess with their precious high tech product

 

[J Tyran]

A machine that can barely reach 1080p @ 60 fps is going to support VR now? Yeah, not happening, unless they make it at 480p or something, but that's just vomit-inducing. This will most likely be seen as a short-lived gimmick, just as the Move was, especially with it being made for a closed platform in mind. The reason OR is taking off now is because of how open PCs and the device are in nature. Sony can't provided that openness.

I'm really tired of seeing Sony just try to blatantly copy other companies' ideas and sell them as their own, less-successful version.

It will be the PS3s "3D gaming" all over again, the PS3 barely manages decent frame rates at the best of times and the attempt at Stereoscopic 3D was pure comedy.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

WHY IT WILL BE THE NEXT GREAT THING IN GAMING! IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING! What's that you ask? Then how come it didn't change anything when they tried it in the 90's? or the 2000's or just the other year when they paired PS3 with 3d TV's? BUT BUT! THIS IS SOOO MUCH BETTERERERER! You wear this one on your head! How could you not want to do that? Wait? What do you mean we tried this gimmick already 20 years ago and everybody thought it was neat but ignored it? Hmmm? Nintendo's biggest failure ever? Really? Ummm? What are you saying? SEGA's lawyers blocked them from releasing their similar device for the Genesis? Something about causing actual damage to peoples eyes? But it's 20 years later! The tech is so much better now! What do you mean the first thing every 3dS owner does is disable the 3d? But It's VIRTUAL REALITY!!! You know like in that cutting edge state of the art movie about the future Lawnmower Man! Wait! Come back! Why are you all poking at your dinky little smart phones? We're giving you the future here! The one we always promised! It's like a Holodeck! Only bolted onto your head like an unwanted appendage. No wait come back....

thing is most of the 'things' that tried to do VR in 90s were even more huge than the thing Oculus has shown up until now,and they were priced with ridiculous prices like 3000$,5000$...
You would have to spend huge amount of money,and have lots of room in your room to have a thing like that in your house. The very few that were actually used,were only placed on public places like malls to attract people,because simple consumers couldn't/wouldn't buy such things.
Nintendo's Virtual Boy was nothing like that of course. It was just a thing that only could output 2 colors (black,red) and play 2d games with Gameboy resolution,and no head tracking,3d picture or anything. Basically just a thing with 2 red gameboy screens that you wear in your head.

Now if Oculus delivers a thing that actually works,and does what its supposed to do and doesn't use 'VR' just because it sounds cool,and they publish it at a 'normal' price affordable by the average video game player,odds are that it will be received quite more better than those "we say we do that,but not exactly,but we will charge you premium anyway" things from the 90s.

I think what we should really do is neither get over-hyped,nor say its dead that early either.
Let's just wait and see. Wait until the final consumer version ships,see how people review it,and see what games come for it and how they are reviewed,and then decide if its worth it or not.

 

[Living_Brain]

WHY IT WILL BE THE NEXT GREAT THING IN GAMING! IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING! What's that you ask? Then how come it didn't change anything when they tried it in the 90's? or the 2000's or just the other year when they paired PS3 with 3d TV's? BUT BUT! THIS IS SOOO MUCH BETTERERERER! You wear this one on your head! How could you not want to do that? Wait? What do you mean we tried this gimmick already 20 years ago and everybody thought it was neat but ignored it? Hmmm? Nintendo's biggest failure ever? Really? Ummm? What are you saying? SEGA's lawyers blocked them from releasing their similar device for the Genesis? Something about causing actual damage to peoples eyes? But it's 20 years later! The tech is so much better now! What do you mean the first thing every 3dS owner does is disable the 3d? But It's VIRTUAL REALITY!!! You know like in that cutting edge state of the art movie about the future Lawnmower Man! Wait! Come back! Why are you all poking at your dinky little smart phones? We're giving you the future here! The one we always promised! It's like a Holodeck! Only bolted onto your head like an unwanted appendage. No wait come back....

Sounds like you're stuck in the 90s. Honestly, technology has advanced, move on. Things are better now and as @StavrosDimou said, it will be well within an affordable price range. (Okay, I read the part about smartphones, but even still a huge market of people use Desktop PCs because of affordability and power, and that's the demographic they're going for.)

 

[faefrost]

WHY IT WILL BE THE NEXT GREAT THING IN GAMING! IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING! What's that you ask? Then how come it didn't change anything when they tried it in the 90's? or the 2000's or just the other year when they paired PS3 with 3d TV's? BUT BUT! THIS IS SOOO MUCH BETTERERERER! You wear this one on your head! How could you not want to do that? Wait? What do you mean we tried this gimmick already 20 years ago and everybody thought it was neat but ignored it? Hmmm? Nintendo's biggest failure ever? Really? Ummm? What are you saying? SEGA's lawyers blocked them from releasing their similar device for the Genesis? Something about causing actual damage to peoples eyes? But it's 20 years later! The tech is so much better now! What do you mean the first thing every 3dS owner does is disable the 3d? But It's VIRTUAL REALITY!!! You know like in that cutting edge state of the art movie about the future Lawnmower Man! Wait! Come back! Why are you all poking at your dinky little smart phones? We're giving you the future here! The one we always promised! It's like a Holodeck! Only bolted onto your head like an unwanted appendage. No wait come back....

Sounds like you're stuck in the 90s. Honestly, technology has advanced, move on. Things are better now and as @StavrosDimou said, it will be well within an affordable price range. (Okay, I read the part about smartphones, but even still a huge market of people use Desktop PCs because of affordability and power, and that's the demographic they're going for.)

I'm not stuck in the 90's. The simple fact is that Occulus Rift and this SONY attempt will fail for the same root reason that they failed in the past. They will fail for the same reason that 3d TV's failed, even when they were all but giving them away. It will fail for the same reason that gaming motion controls are little more than a barely used gimmick. The technology is neat. But the market that will actually ultimately elect to use a real world obscuring VR device for gaming is so small and so niche that the whole thing will once again collapse. It doesn't matter how much lighter the device is, or how much better the tech is. It is by definition not seamless to the users life. And that is the heart of the problem. People do not like intrusive devices or technology. And covering up your eyes is one of the most intrusive tech experiences you can foist on someone. It will find a high end niche, maybe. But the average gamer or member of the public will try it once and otherwise simply ignore it. It doesn't matter what generation you are from. There are some key flaws in the assumptions behind the desirability for these things.

In order for tech adoption to occur it must slip seamlessly into the users life. The bulk of the users does no slip their life into the tech. VR has been some gaming holy grail for almost 2 generations now. Yet they have never completely explained why or understood that by definition VR requires a certain degree of isolation or dislocation from Actual reality. and the typical user really has no desire to do this, much as they mat Oo and Aaah at the tech. And of those few who are more than willing to happily strap on the goggles and tune out, better than half of them will quickly get yelled at by their mothers for doing so. Or will only do so until such time as they discover girls and all the ways that actual reality can be more interesting. It's a neat technology long bundled to a flawed user assumption.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

I'd be more inclined to buy a Sony VR product than I am to ever buy a bulky over hyped OR device, putting it simply certain over hyped items push me right away from them.

That and I'm sure Sony would give it a certain stylish image for commercial use.

And already good to see doubters ahead in the field.

Already good to see people who have complete confidence in the device even though there's no info about it.

I wouldn't hold too much weight in it. The thing about the OC is that its open-ended and allows for tweaks. I really don't think the PS4 has the capacity to run a virtual headset better than a smooth PC.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Already good to see people who have complete confidence in the device even though there's no info about it.

I wouldn't hold too much weight in it. The thing about the OC is that its open-ended and allows for tweaks. I really don't think the PS4 has the capacity to run a virtual headset better than a smooth PC.[/quote]

Is this in reply to the last part about the "doubters"?, am I not allowed to have confidence in Sony?.

Yes there's the OC, that's only for PC as far as we're all aware, this is why SOny is trying to make a version of their own for the PS4 which makes sense.

Again we don't know if it is or isn't going to run like someone who's just had the best sex in their life, but I do have hope, I'm not a massive fan of the rift but like I said before I'm more inclined to see what Sony has to offer since I've already seen what the Rift had to offer.

 

[Staskala]

I'm really tired of seeing Sony just try to blatantly copy other companies' ideas and sell them as their own, less-successful version.

What are you talking about? Sony has been in this market way longer than the Rift. And what do you mean "their ideas" anyway? Do you honestly think that this kind of technology has never been done before some entertainment companies came up with it? There's dozens of more sophisticated devises on the market.
You (and most others who over-hype the Rift) seriously need a reality check every now and then.

 

[Strazdas]

And of those few who are more than willing to happily strap on the goggles and tune out, better than half of them will quickly get yelled at by their mothers for doing so. Or will only do so until such time as they discover girls and all the ways that actual reality can be more interesting. It's a neat technology long bundled to a flawed user assumption.

i agreed with you up till this point.
Reality is NOT interesting. this is why we play games that are not reality simulators. Not everyone devotes their whole life chasing after skirts or listening to their mothers yelling. some people actually want to lay down and escape reality if only for a while. your assumtion is the flawed one. What else is flawed is the tecnology though. Oculus does not let you escape reality, it just makes you flail around while being blind. This is why VR will only take off once we can do it without actually moving, as in, with our mind.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Some people immediately hail this as a fantastic idea, and are getting all excited for it. Nothing wrong with that, but the same thing happened when the Kinect was announced. There were some people getting very excited for it. Even more amusing to me is that some choose to profess this as an awesome thing and bash the xbox in the same sentence. This is ultimately still a gimmick. Motion controls, VR, eye cameras, etc... they are all gimmicks. But these gimmicks are attempts by the gaming companies to try something different and interesting. The Kinect actually has all kinds of VERY phenomenal uses and is a game changer in and of itself, just not for actual games. You can read about all kinds of things they are using the technology for that is actually really cool, so it turns out the gimmick really did have solid uses... just not on the xbox console. But, of course, you are going to have that particular group that will condemn one and praise the other, when the truth is both are attempting new things.

Anyway, I just hope that Sony doesnt let the VR aspect go to their head, and have it dominate everything they do for the forseeable future, like the Kinect seems to have done with Microsoft. Trust me, you folks will change your tune quickly, if the next few E3's are dominated by the VR side of things, and it turns out you dont like it.

 

[faefrost]

And of those few who are more than willing to happily strap on the goggles and tune out, better than half of them will quickly get yelled at by their mothers for doing so. Or will only do so until such time as they discover girls and all the ways that actual reality can be more interesting. It's a neat technology long bundled to a flawed user assumption.

i agreed with you up till this point.
Reality is NOT interesting. this is why we play games that are not reality simulators. Not everyone devotes their whole life chasing after skirts or listening to their mothers yelling. some people actually want to lay down and escape reality if only for a while. your assumtion is the flawed one. What else is flawed is the tecnology though. Oculus does not let you escape reality, it just makes you flail around while being blind. This is why VR will only take off once we can do it without actually moving, as in, with our mind.

Not true at all. we play games as a diversion or a distraction. Something to absorb ourselves in. But that is a far cry from isolating ourselves from our surrounding environment. Something that most people, even the most dedicated gamers, really do not care to do on a regular basis. We listen to music. we play socially with friends. At a minimum we like those little background noises that tell us things like children are fighting, parents are looking for us, pets need service, the house is on fire etc. Much like Motion Control, the average gaming consumer will try the VR a couple of times for shear novelty factor, after which they will rarely find the time for it to be worth all of the effort to engage in. It's one of those things that looks good on paper. But in the end it will be extremely niche at best. The entire concept falls well outside the parameters for deep technology adoption, and for good reason in this case.

And all of this occurs before you even bump up against the potential pitfalls of the technology. We have known for decades that artificial 3d is bad for eyes. Especially developing eyes. No matter how good the tech gets this will still be an extremely high hurdle to overcome. The only real valid user base for this tech will be the fairly young (principally 7 to 21 year old males), who are typically the only people crazy enough to routinely find it acceptable to so isolate themselves in this manner for gaming. And all it will take is one major study or news report over the potential harm caused by these products to get most of that user base pretty much forbidden to touch the things. (The joys of being a child and having caring overbearing parents). Remember SEGA had an actual working production model of these things all set to go over 15 years ago. It was killed by their legal department for precisely this reason. We have seen nothing in any technical press that gives any indication that they have solved this underlying problem. (A hint, if it still says not to be used by kids 7 and under, the problem is still there big time, and it will hurt everybody.)

And honestly, if you are seeking to plunge deeper into gaming. To use it to totally escape from reality and the surrounding world. You might want to think about getting some help. Because there are things going on there that are in all likelihood not technology related. And plugging yourself into the matrix until you dehydrate will probably not fix them.

 

[Strazdas]

Not true at all. we play games as a diversion or a distraction. Something to absorb ourselves in. But that is a far cry from isolating ourselves from our surrounding environment. Something that most people, even the most dedicated gamers, really do not care to do on a regular basis. We listen to music. we play socially with friends. At a minimum we like those little background noises that tell us things like children are fighting, parents are looking for us, pets need service, the house is on fire etc. Much like Motion Control, the average gaming consumer will try the VR a couple of times for shear novelty factor, after which they will rarely find the time for it to be worth all of the effort to engage in. It's one of those things that looks good on paper. But in the end it will be extremely niche at best. The entire concept falls well outside the parameters for deep technology adoption, and for good reason in this case.

And all of this occurs before you even bump up against the potential pitfalls of the technology. We have known for decades that artificial 3d is bad for eyes. Especially developing eyes. No matter how good the tech gets this will still be an extremely high hurdle to overcome. The only real valid user base for this tech will be the fairly young (principally 7 to 21 year old males), who are typically the only people crazy enough to routinely find it acceptable to so isolate themselves in this manner for gaming. And all it will take is one major study or news report over the potential harm caused by these products to get most of that user base pretty much forbidden to touch the things. (The joys of being a child and having caring overbearing parents). Remember SEGA had an actual working production model of these things all set to go over 15 years ago. It was killed by their legal department for precisely this reason. We have seen nothing in any technical press that gives any indication that they have solved this underlying problem. (A hint, if it still says not to be used by kids 7 and under, the problem is still there big time, and it will hurt everybody.)

And honestly, if you are seeking to plunge deeper into gaming. To use it to totally escape from reality and the surrounding world. You might want to think about getting some help. Because there are things going on there that are in all likelihood not technology related. And plugging yourself into the matrix until you dehydrate will probably not fix them.

I guess i am that niche then because out of thins you list listening to music sometimes is the only thing there. No i dont want to hear kids fighting or people walking around. i want the world to "dissapear" when i am gaming. i hate it when someone decides to call me when im gaming.

As far as 3D vision being harmful, i got no knowledge of this and therefore i will have to trust you here. 3D movies do not seem to have any sideeffect on me (like some people report headaches, ect, i got none of those), and 3D games i only done once and was left... unimpressed. It may very well be harmful for all i know, and if so you do have a very good argument against it there.

Escaping reality does not have to always take to extremes. I want the world gone when im gaming but im not skipping meals or something like that for it. I usually dont have the "one more turn" problem either because i got a rigid schedule of when i want to go to sleep (even if nothings stopping me from not doing that). Plugging into the matrix doesnt have to be all or nothing experience. If you ever saw a Spinoff show called Caprica - thats a much better vision if VR i want.