PSVR first look

[Jan Ciger]

Someone has posted their first impressions from the retail PSVR kit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/57gc4x/i_played_with_psvr_all_day_here_are_my/

J.

[TobyCWood]

I played the Battlefield game. Tons o fun... but... All it did was give me a 270 degree view with a bit of parallax based 3D. Fun... but... The Vive? OMG! Full holographic 3D with elements you can move around with. The holodeck! PSVR is nothing compared to it.

[Jan Ciger]

Hi,

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 7:03 AM, TobyCWood <andyc...@gmail.com> wrote:

I played the Battlefield game. Tons o fun... but... All it did was give me a 270 degree view with a bit of parallax based 3D. Fun... but... The Vive? OMG! Full holographic 3D with elements you can move around with. The holodeck! PSVR is nothing compared to it.

I would say that is more a consequence of a poor implementation of VR support in the game - likely added as an afterthought instead of being designed to use VR from start. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from it. Think of it like a difference between a movie that has been shot in 3D from start and a movie that has been poorly converted to 3D only after it has been shot "in 2D" already. 

Vive is also the benchmark of the current consumer-oriented VR systems, so anything else, especially a system costing half of its price, is going to have a tall order to fill. 

Regards,

Jan

[TobyCWood]

Sorry Jan but to me the Tank game on the PSVR looked exactly like they built it as a "VR" game from the ground up and I think I can draw a pretty explicit conclusion from it. Specifically because it did NOT provide full room tracking nor complete 3D objects. It was awesome and I loved it but it and the other PSVR games seemed to be not all that great compared to the Occulus or the Vive.

[Jan Ciger]

Hello,

On 03/11/16 21:14, TobyCWood wrote:
> Sorry Jan but to me the Tank game on the PSVR looked exactly like they
> built it as a "VR" game from the ground up and I think I can draw a
> pretty explicit conclusion from it. Specifically because it did NOT
> provide full room tracking nor complete 3D objects. It was awesome and I
> loved it but it and the other PSVR games seemed to be not all that great
> compared to the Occulus or the Vive.

Then I was perhaps thinking about a different game.

I wouldn't write it off so quickly, though - the hard-core enthusiasts
are not likely to buy it but for people who have PS4 the $400 for the
PSVR is much easier to stomach than having to buy a high end PC and pay
another $1000 on top of that for Rift or Vive. It is designed to be good
enough and I believe it delivers there.

I have been discussing the room-scale tracking few hours ago on Twitter
with someone - in my opinion, the entire "room scale" debate is
massively overblown. Yes, PSVR certainly cannot handle that and even
Oculus is going to suffer because their tracking system is going to be
pushed to its limits in such situation, not having been really designed
for it.

However, how much does that really matter? How many people outside of
early adopter enthusiasts can actually dedicate a room to VR? My guess
is that not really that many and most will be playing in the space more
akin to what Rift & PSVR can handle - their bedrooms. Unless you are
living alone and have a room to spare, you will most likely have to
share the space with the other family members who want to watch TV or do
something else, not necessarily watch you move furniture and clown
around with the HMD on your head. There has been a survey done on this
and most people have only about 2.45x2.1m space available.
(https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4fqq4a/vr_roomscale_room_size_survey_answers_analysis/
)

So while it is great that Vive can handle a small warehouse/hangar, only
a small minority will be able to actually use that capability and thus
most content will need to be designed for smaller "rooms".

Knocking PSVR or Rift because they don't do "room scale" well is a bit
silly in this context, IMO. What is more important is how well the
tracking performs - how stable and accurate it is. And there, I believe,
PSVR is at a disadvantage and Rift may have issues too in certain
situations. Also the question is how well the content will adapt to the
smaller tracked volume - some titles designed for the Vive may suffer
when used on Rift, for example.

Regards,

J.

[TobyCWood]

I'm about to order the Vive.

I do not think we are disagreeing on the PSVR. For sure it'll probably be the number 1 xmas thing this year. $1500 plus another $700 is a lot to spend. but, but....

Have you tried the theBlu? If not, you need to. The room tracking really comes into play in the episode with the flashlight. Then there's the Lab... The magic shop. You walk around and look at the shelves and the wall. The table with the castle on it... I agree, not everyone will have a 10'x10' space and for sure the number of games/content out there at this level is still real small, but the potential is mind boggling. If the content is there the mkt will come. BTW, It does fit real nice inside a garage.

[Jan Ciger]

Hi, 

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 7:25 AM, TobyCWood <andyc...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm about to order the Vive.

I do not think we are disagreeing on the PSVR. For sure it'll probably be the number 1 xmas thing this year. $1500 plus another $700 is a lot to spend. but, but....

I would probably wait until the next year until the new controllers show up unless you really want to have it *now*. They are supposedly more akin to the Touch controllers from Oculus - including finger tracking and better ergonomics compared to the standard Vive wands (which are certainly fairly good already).

 

 

Have you tried the theBlu? If not, you need to. The room tracking really comes into play in the episode with the flashlight. Then there's the Lab... The magic shop. You walk around and look at the shelves and the wall. The table with the castle on it...

I have a Rift CV1 myself, so I have played with these only through the compatibility layer for SteamVR and using my Razer Hydra (which isn't great). However, we do have several Rifts, GearVRs and Vives at work, so yes, I know what you are talking about. 

 

I agree, not everyone will have a 10'x10' space and for sure the number of games/content out there at this level is still real small, but the potential is mind boggling. If the content is there the mkt will come.

That's a bit of a stretch, IMO. Few people will move house just to be able to have a room for Vive :) However, I am sure there are nuts like that too. The large space is more interesting for public spaces, labs, various VR "arcades" and sometimes industrial stuff, like what we are doing at work. I think that is where Vive will certainly be a better option than Rift for the foreseable future. Content is less important there, because these applications tend to have specially designed/developed software anyway and not off-the-shelf games, also the Valve's "pro" edition that is not tightly tied to Steam is very important advantage there (corporate/public installations are typically behind very restricted network connections with strict software installation policies, assuming unlimited internet access is not possible). 

 

BTW, It does fit real nice inside a garage.

Damn, I would have to leave my Porsche outside now! :-p  Cool, if you have an empty garage :) Not much use for us city apartment dwellers, though. However, that is not only problem of VR - e.g. nobody has explained to me so far where all those people who live in apartments and don't have garages (= the majority) are supposed to recharge overnight those electric cars the governments so want us to start buying instead of our diesels/petrol cars. Heck, I don't even have where to put a bike without dragging it up into my appartment every day. But that is a different rant ...

Regards,

Jan