Zero Punctuation: PlayStation VR

Erttheking

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I never thought about space combat with VR. That makes me interested in it. They're still gonna have to find a work around for the giant price tags though. I mean for the same cash, I could buy another console so my dad and I could play COD without being in the same room so that screen peaking isn't a problem.
 

ToastyMozart

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erttheking said:
They're still gonna have to find a work around for the giant price tags though. I mean for the same cash, I could buy another console so my dad and I could play COD without being in the same room so that screen peaking isn't a problem.
I think the price reductions are only going to come with time (or mass-market adoption). A VR headset essentially boils down to a high-end (or middle-end) cell phone screen, a set of lenses, a set of accelerometers, and some means of position tracking.

The glass can be mass-produced without much fuss, and fortunately tiny accelerometers are cheap enough, but that screen is a real killer price-wise. Once phones have moved on to UHD OLEDs or whatever, the standard QHD screen will likely reduce in price, but until then $400 (or $460, in the PSVR's case) is probably the best you're going to find without serious quality compromises.
 

Erttheking

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ToastyMozart said:
erttheking said:
They're still gonna have to find a work around for the giant price tags though. I mean for the same cash, I could buy another console so my dad and I could play COD without being in the same room so that screen peaking isn't a problem.
I think the price reductions are only going to come with time (or mass-market adoption). A VR headset essentially boils down to a high-end (or middle-end) cell phone screen, a set of lenses, a set of accelerometers, and some means of position tracking.

The glass can be mass-produced without much fuss, and fortunately tiny accelerometers are cheap enough, but that screen is a real killer price-wise. Once phones have moved on to UHD OLEDs or whatever, the standard QHD screen will likely reduce in price, but until then $400 (or $460, in the PSVR's case) is probably the best you're going to find without serious quality compromises.
Good thing I wasn't terribly invested in the concept. Doesn't help that most of the games for it look like tech demos. Still, it has potential, particularly if more games are like that EVE game. Although preferably longer and with more reasonable pricing.
 

ToastyMozart

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erttheking said:
Doesn't help that most of the games for it look like tech demos. Still, it has potential, particularly if more games are like that EVE game. Although preferably longer and with more reasonable pricing.
I definitely agree that's its biggest problem right now. Aside from a few racing/flying games, there aren't really any major full-length releases for VR sets. And as with most if not all computer-related systems, software is everything.

Hopefully a major publisher decides to take a chance and greenlight a major foray into the concept. Maybe SteamVR's the "big tech change" valve was looking for to make HL3, who knows.
 

Igor-Rowan

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I freaking called it Yahtzee would review one of the VR headsets.

I am concerned about people strictly saying that VR is the future, it can't just exist. And Sony's doing everything to ensure people they hold the ball on this one, which is a double-edge sword if VR is to fail like it did before.
 

Vendor-Lazarus

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I've always felt that VR was just a fad that never really went away.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love for it to work but practically, it just doesn't...period.

While we are on the subject of immersion, call me back when my nanobots can decouple my body's motion sense/nausea and directly drop me into a game-world without any exterior hardware.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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How weird, had that similar head/eyes conversation in my head also when mulling over the cage-around-face anti-puke initiative. Alas, it is original no more and i should have staked that flag earlier in a public place where the exact date and time are recorded for the rest of civilised humanity. Somewhere that is not affected by the corrosive erosion of time's physical manifestations. Somewhere that cannot be burnt, murdered or eaten in disgrace. Hmmm...

Oh, that Mr eyes-imp looks like something ferocious was suddenly shoved up its' arse.
 

unzi

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I advise everyone to try out the HTC Vive before passing judgment on VR or Oculus when the Touch controllers actually come out.
Roomscale is absolutely what VR was made for, if you think you got immersed looking around and playing on an playstation controller wait until you try some proper controller tracking. I do agree whoever that racing and hotas are a pretty great fit as well, but the immersion i get from playing rpg, and horror games on the vive is just surreal.

Go check out a demo if you can, you won't regret it :D
 

Darth_Payn

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Igor-Rowan said:
I freaking called it Yahtzee would review one of the VR headsets.

I am concerned about people strictly saying that VR is the future, it can't just exist. And Sony's doing everything to ensure people they hold the ball on this one, which is a double-edge sword if VR is to fail like it did before.
My memory's kinda fuzzy (slight hangover, don't ask why), but I thought Yahtzee already talked about this new wave of VR headsets, with some unkind words for he Oculus Rift.
 

Steve the Pocket

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This motion-sickness business is going to be tricky to sort out. Judging by the disparate reviews out there, it sounds like Person A and Person B can both play Game X and Game Y, and Person A will get nauseous playing Game X but not Game Y, and Person B will have the exact opposite experience. Figuring out why this happens could take years of research, but the hardware is already out there in the hands of the public.
 

Sheo_Dagana

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I'm the kind of person that can't go to 3D movies without getting motion sick and my 3DS gives me a headache. I couldn't possibly justify the price tag for the PSVR and it's selection of over-priced tech demos. I know a lot of people keep saying that VR is the future of gaming, but for the sake of myself and other people that can't use VR for whatever reason, I hope that's a very distant future.
 

Kenjitsuka

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Hooray!!! Some love for the great movie Shooter!!!
Yahtzee is the man!!!
Ooooh, time to switch to the Live Stream :O :O :O
 

hentropy

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I don't really like Walt Disney getting this rap as a "closet Nazi". The dude talked to a film maker who was a Nazi fellow traveler at best once in the 30s and he's gotten crap for being some kind of obvious Nazi ever since.
 

Naldan

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All the time, people complained about motion sickness caused by VR but at least I for one never got a definitive description on why or what exactly happens and if it occurs all the time or not. Finally, I got the answer thanks to Yahtzee's episode here.

So it turns out that people get so immersed visually that they have a hard time to accept that they control their 'body' with sticks or anything like that. But as soon as their brain tells them that their body keeps sitting or something similar and instead, they're moving the vehicle with the sticks instead of the body, they feel fine.

Of course, there will be more nuanced reasons, but this is the first time I hear of any sort of actual explanation instead of "because.".

I really wonder how this will turn out. Because, what can you do as a designer? Making games with vehicles only gets boring and is inappropriate for many, many genres.

I'd suggest to wait and let the people grind, which might even not happen. I can't help but to feel that people will get used to it after a while, accepting that their thumbs move their body and head.

But then again, I sadly never had the opportunity to try any VR headset out myself.

Didn't expect such important information in a ZP episode. Thanks, Yahtzee.
 

moosemaimer

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VR seems to work pretty well for platformers, because the 3D means you can see how far away that ledge is and you can actually move your head/camera around to see something from a different angle. I imagine it would work wonders for city simulation games. 3rd person RPGs would probably do just fine as long as the viewpoint doesn't zip around too quickly. And yes, playing any kind of simulator makes you feel like this is what videogames were invented for. Just maybe not Goat Simulator.

The real bugaboo for anything FPS related is that if you keep turning in either direction you're going to get tangled in the cord, and using the analog stick to rotate your viewpoint while your head is either stationary or (worse!) turning in the opposite direction is like undoing the plug that closes your stomach.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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I don't know if there's anything that can be done for simulation sickness. It's just a simple reaction the brain has to receiving blatantly different signals from the eyes (whee, we're moving around!) and the inner ear (the hell we are, we're sitting still!)- it treats the discrepancy as a possible reaction to poisoning, and voids the contents of the stomach as a safety measure.

Now if we could only get around to developing cybernetic brain implants to overcome our stupid outdated wetware programming....