AHA-Lambda
Member
Think he's absolutely correct
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Phil Spencer on VR "Right now feels like Demos and Experiments"
- Thread starter Guerrilla
- Start date
I think Sony and the other players in the VR space would have to pinch themselves if gen 1 VR got to that level in sales.
If you want to equate availability across retail channels with overall sales performance (which is silly), it was sold out across Japan and Amazon UK had sold out of stock since launch, with a projected restock for the middle of November. If an organisation with that sort of supply chain muscle isn't getting stock, it's a safe bet to say that demand isn't insignificant. Units sitting on store shelves doesn't exactly suggest that it bombed.
I think VR will find its spot in gaming; I would make that bet, he continued. We designed Scorpio as a VR-capable console. Whether that happens this year, next year or the year after like I said, I still think the creative community has to get its arms around what are these new tools, and this new feeling this new immersion.
What experiences do you put in peoples hands to have a long term engagement? Most of these things Im playing now feel like demos and experiments, which I actually think its absolutely the right thing to have happened. Thats not a criticism at all, but should be happening. But I think it will take time.
With HoloLens we picked where we think the techs going to be in ten years, because we see a lot of people doing great work in the VR space today. Were working with most of them on Windows to make sure those devices run well on Windows, so let them go do the stuff theyre going to do in VR. Well go do stuff on the content side with Minecraft and other things in VR and then we will, as a platform company, focus our first party efforts on something more in a mixed reality world with the belief that thats where this all plays out eventually any way.
His stance is basically VR is in the early stages and they're working behind the scenes right now, looking to expand sometime down the road.
Marty Chinn
Member
Ya, everyone needs to keep in mind that it's highly likely to sell way worse than Kinect.
I didn't say or suggest that it bombed. I'm questioning how well do we know it sold without any numbers, ratio of SKUs, ratio of territory distribution, etc? Selling out isn't always an indicator either of how well something sold. Too many times simply selling out has little meaning on how well it's really selling. I was simply observing that I'm surprised how readily available it is in the US. I expected it to be hard to get for at least some period of time. So that observation has me wondering how well it is or isn't selling and really none of us really know because we don't have any other data to tell us one way or another.
Seriously ?
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
'We're going to support VR at some point in the future but right now I'm taking this opportunity to put down the PSVR.'
Possumowner
Member
Can't argue with him to be honest,thats exactly how I've felt with my PSVR,couldnt answer for the other VR platforms but I'm guessing it's similar
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
I think he's wrong. I'm having a blast with RIGS, Eve Valkyrie, and Driveclub. Those aren't tech demos to me. In fact, I much prefer playing DCVR to playing vanilla DC. I can't wait for more VR games to sink my teeth into.
Bitch Pudding
Member
What? Are you really saying "toying around internally with VR" gets you the same kind of insights than releasing a full-fledged VR headset on the market? There's a reason why the first mover is ready to pay them market development costs.
That tune will change come E3 2017 obviously.
edit: In case you missed it, Microsoft announced last week their own VR headsets releasing in 2017: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1300443
edit: In case you missed it, Microsoft announced last week their own VR headsets releasing in 2017: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1300443
Yeah, except he didn't do this by any stretch of the imagination.
Marty Chinn
Member
I think internal R&D and seeing what everyone else is doing, how everyone else is reacting to what people are doing, and how sales are reflected upon that is a wealth of data that they're getting too. You don't need to be a VR headset manufacturer to get those insights on what's working, what's not, and where the problems lie.
SuperBanana
Banned
According to Steam stats the Vive userbase only grew by 0.1% in September, down from 0.3% in July. Occulus has DROPPED 0.1%. In the last 3 months the combined VR userbase has grown 0.1%. That's dead as fuck.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
I wonder- the last time XBox 'experimented', they got the Xbone backlash. I can imagine them still feeling the sting from that burn.
The problem though is every time they wait till Sony does everything and plant roots into the ground, they risk losing the audience. It's why Sony is selling PS4s in every part of the world while Xbox is stuck in US and UK.
IF, VR takes off then years from now people would be associating it with Playstation and wondering "Xbox wa nani?"
The problem though is every time they wait till Sony does everything and plant roots into the ground, they risk losing the audience. It's why Sony is selling PS4s in every part of the world while Xbox is stuck in US and UK.
IF, VR takes off then years from now people would be associating it with Playstation and wondering "Xbox wa nani?"
He did use the qualifier 'most' tbf.
Regarding AR, I wonder what Phil thinks about Magic Leap...
Backfoggen
Banned
PSVR has plenty of legitimate games I don't see as demos at all. I think smaller games work best anyways.
'Toying around' isn't all they are doing. Obviously.
No one is saying there isnt value in releasing a headset. But there are many ways to skin a cat. MS can be in VR without EVER releasing their own headset. They can approach the market strictly from the software side and still be a major player.
They have access to quite a few partners who HAVE RELEASED hmd's and VR software. They also have released their own APIs for VR software developers.
You act like 1 year from now, MS will be VR virgins. They have simply taken a different (and less risky) tact towards getting valuable experience. You also act like being "first mover" always pays off. It doesn't.
It remains to be seen when/if either approach will pay off. I suspect both approaches will prove to be fine in the long run, should VR gaming take off.
Lol, comment of the day.
If people bothered to read the interview you would see he isn't bashing the PSVR, as a matter of fact he seems quite favourable of it. I don't think anyone's going to argue that a) there aren't many full fledged titles for it (YET) and b) that anyone wants to see anything other than the technology flourish in terms of sales and scope.
GeordieMark
Member
Read it again and then slap yourself.
TheUnsunghero26
Member
Yeah, judging from a lot of the responses here already, I'm going to guess most people didn't read the article. Phil's answers are all worded pretty carefully. He clearly has no problems with VR, and he even brings up Kinect.
Kinect had a higher attach rate than what psvr will achieve.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
i wouldnt say that is accurate for now at least, considering the headsets is still in a limited launch worldwide. Asking if it is selling well now is meaningless.
Daffy Duck
Member
Hmmm, except it's not at all, I like what kinects add to the system and games (FH3 for example)
Alx
Member
I wouldn't call those "their own VR headsets", rather "VR headsets from Dell, Asus, Lenovo etc. that support Windows".
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
He's not played Tethered yet.
CyberPunked
Member
You mean in the future, when it's no longer "right now"? Shocking to think that technology can improve with time...
LyleLanley
Banned
A lot of posts in this thread seem to think his comments were inflammatory but I'm not seeing that at all.
Rick Dangerous
Member
Phill spencer interviews are all over the place, when MS has no product this year (VR, against PRO). It gets annoying and it's called FUD, so that people hesitate to buy a competing product. So obvious.
I need more full fledged games to go aboard. Some of the coolest experiences are only an hour long or even less. If there would be several 10 hours or so action adventures (from wathever genre), I would be notably more tempted to pay like 500 dollars for the whole thing (PSVR). Resi7 is a step in the good direction, but I don't think I can handle that game with a VR headset.
Bits N Pieces
Member
You cant beat a Phil Spencer thread first thing in the morning to see how many Jimmies he's rustled.
Quite a few it would seem even when he's talking common sense, lol.
Quite a few it would seem even when he's talking common sense, lol.
Cropduster89
Neo Member
He's not wrong.
VR will need new and unique models for games, not just normal games with VR support, or disposable tech demos. Right now no one really knows what a full vr game will even look like or play like, and no one seems to want to risk the money to get creatively involved with a big project yet.
VR will need new and unique models for games, not just normal games with VR support, or disposable tech demos. Right now no one really knows what a full vr game will even look like or play like, and no one seems to want to risk the money to get creatively involved with a big project yet.
VindicatorZ
Member
Robinson: The Journey comes out next week. Time to dust off your PSVR and be blown away by some Cry Engine VR graphics.
In other words, give it some fucking time.
In other words, give it some fucking time.
Auto-Reply
Member
It's the most exciting time for VR to be honest, I wish there were more little experiments from devs for us regular folks to try out, I want to try out that 3dsmax like tool I've seen on the Vive Reddit for example.
I don't really care about triple A games on VR, they probably will always be an afterthougth until far into the future when the tech has evolved into something mass market friendly.
I don't really care about triple A games on VR, they probably will always be an afterthougth until far into the future when the tech has evolved into something mass market friendly.
We are happy to have users like this to tell us what he really wants.
aspiegamer
Member
"Immersion" is a cheesy buzz word for VR, but I keep using it lately because it's apt. Playing Rez and Thumper on my PSVR is way more intense than anything I've played on my TV in ages because they're able to entirely trick my brain into being somewhere else. A game on a 2D screen might try to put the player into thinking about some fictional setting, but VR actually puts the player in whatever alternate setting it wants to.
If something is truly fun and-- gasp-- immersive, it doesn't matter if it's a short game or basic proof of concept. The actual graphical fidelity and technical prowess of the game don't matter. Take Rez and Thumper again. We're talking PSone level of some effects but I've yet to talk to a person who thought the games were of somehow lower quality because of this. People will pay for enjoyable experiences and the Sony business model seems to get that with the demo disc being awesome. It alone is hours of first impressions of new things. The $20-30 PSVR titles of relatively small scope have been so much more fun for me the past few weeks than any $60 AAA game I've played in ages. And yes, it's that damned immersion. Could play these things for weeks and not bore of it. The brain enjoys new perspectives of reality. A few people I know that want nothing to do with the gaming and mostly use it to watch the 360 degree videos and 3D short films because they're just fun. That's a tilt factor beyond just gaming that shouldn't be ignored. These are entirely new experiences!
Cannot lie and say I'd like some all-out AAA VR experiences just to see how far we can push things, but I know they're coming. For essentially a new platform, PSVR has great launch titles available, especially if you want compare to the extremely gimmicky Move and Kinect of 5 years ago.
Wouldn't look too hard at VR on Scorpio from just these comments, but it does sound like hololens is a very long-term project and that's the major focus. I have no doubt it'll end up awesome as tech improves, but to seemingly shrug off any type of VR we have before high-end AR insults how far we've come to be able to enjoy what we have right now. Millions have been eagerly awaiting a VR gaming solution for 20 since the VirtualBoy and it's finally there for the taking. Hell, my father said he'd waited 50+ years since reading his first Sci-Fi books and is in love with even the most basic things and he's had me bring it to him a few times. There is already consumer demand, even if it's starting small. A hardware manufacturer can choose to ignore that, but at their own peril. There's no way to know yet if it'll pay off in the 3-5 year range. There's certainly some degree of gambling, yes. PSVR gives me the feeling that it's meant to be forward-compatible with the PS5 so it will slowly get cheaper and be around for a number of years. I mean, there's no way 9th gen hardware will be able to render top-end games at 1080/120. There's plenty of room to grow.
Recent events at Oculus might have Microsoft shy on shorter-term VR but that's 100% conjecture. Disclaimer: I also cannot of course speak for the direction of things on PC other than to say I'm sure they try to offer a variety of experiences as well. It's the right approach.
Which is why I said that equating overall performance with the availability of units at retail is a silly metric. Why bring up the availability of units at retail at all, if it doesn't prove anything one way or another?
Sony have already stated that PSVR is selling beyond expectations but given the leap that PSVR represents and the cost, I'd expect those predictions to be conservative.
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that having experiences and reaching a conclusion that differs from his opinion was having my jimmies rustled.
But you know, Uncle Phil he knows what's up.
Imp the Dimp
Member
"[...] Most of these things I’m playing now feel like demos and experiments, which I actually think it’s absolutely the right thing to have happened. That’s not a criticism at all, but should be happening. But I think it will take time."
...is about as reasonable a statement as you can make about the current VR scene. Literally nothing wrong with it. He doesn't even mean to criticize or to mock - he says a) it's probably what should happen at this early stage of a newly introduced technology and b) that things are likely to change.
...is about as reasonable a statement as you can make about the current VR scene. Literally nothing wrong with it. He doesn't even mean to criticize or to mock - he says a) it's probably what should happen at this early stage of a newly introduced technology and b) that things are likely to change.
What?
Wowzers! After less than 3 weeks? It must be real dusty in your house!
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