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[RoadHazard]

Not hating on sony or anything but based on the track record of sony engineers and designers, I predict the sony vr headset will be nicely made but overpriced. It will seem decent but there will be one weird design aspect or omission. In addition, it will have some kind of proprietary cable or port. Finally, it will probably have terrible software support even with the power of their playstation hand. *grimaces about ps4 and ps3 firmware*

This isn't a TV though. Sony are not known for making overpriced consoles. Rather, the PS3 was the most underpriced console ever, and the PS4 is pretty much priced just right. Ok, so the morpheus is an accessory, and I guess they're not quite as generous there (their controllers are definitely overpriced, just like MS's and Nintendo's), but if they really want to make a big push into VR I could see them pricing the Morpheus at cost or thereabouts.

 

[serversurfer]

Anyways, rushing to market on console is a waste of time and only liable to shoot themselves in the feet in the process.

Why can Sony only be first to market by "rushing"? Sony are incapable of meeting their design goals before Oculus meet their design goals? =/

I jus continue to struggle to see why any big name devs spend time here when the upside is so little. See Kinect

VR is pretty cool, but Kinect is kinda lame.

I completely agree. I just get the sense that a lot of people think its going to revolutionize social interactions, but there are so many aspects of social interaction that we don't even understand and thus there is no way to replicate it.

Perhaps VR will help us to identify and isolate such nuances, thereby advancing the field of social science.

Basically, boiled down to simple terms (and again, it's vastly simplified) Sony is going for a wiimote, while Oculus is going for a wm+/move as their starting points. So just look at how that turned out and what it meant for motion controls in gaming.

Well, not exactly. The author isn't saying that Morpheus will turn out to be the Wiimote to Oculus' Move, he's just saying it could suck if it turned out that way. I'd say there's a better that even chance that Morpheus will turn out to be more Move and less Wiimote though.

My biggest issue on the cost side isn't the headsets themselves, its who spends the money to recreate each location to the level of detail required to create a fully 3D immersive environment for use. Today, game developers build the world can cater it to VR. Think about having to go and perform measurements at possible field trip locations to approximate being there. The amount of time and money that would need to go into that is absurd. You would need to front all of that money and then hope that people are willing to license the tour from you.

I propose we assign that task to the Library of Congress and the US Geological Survey. They can start with that solidscan tech; that looked nice enough.

Simpler geometry, etc. Sony has said that Morpheus devs should start out with PS3-level visuals as a base (which the PS4 can definitely do in 3D at 1080p60), and then work up from there. So that's pretty much the minimum we should expect. I expect many/most games to reach quite a bit higher than that. I haven't tried OR/Morpheus myself, but I've seen many reports that it doesn't really matter that the visuals are simpler (as they usually are with OR demos as well), because good VR makes even rather low-fi games very immersive. So I'm not worried.

Wasn't it actually Carmack that said that? lol

 

[lukeskymac]

Then it's just going to lead to the same problem motion controlling went through. If the Wii had launched with MotionPlus level of control people wouldn't think it was simply a gimmick. VR similarly has to have a certain "level" that it must start at, and if they launch with something below that, and people get a wrong first impression, it could screw up or set back future progress

You clearly don't know what are you talking about.

What's gonna make or break Morpheus isn't the PS4, it's the unit itself.

 

[BeatResetsTheWorld]

You clearly don't know what are you talking about.

What's gonna make or break Morpheus isn't the PS4, it's the unit itself.

I don't think you understood what I at all...we literally are saying the same thing.

Motion controls perception was make or break based on the performance of the wiimote.
Virtual reality's perception will be make or break based on the performance of the morpheus

Basically the first major device in a space is what will dominate it's perception for years, even if better ones come out.

 

[metareferential]

edit: wrong quote -_-

 

[Nexus Zero]

ITT we discover it's difficult to make 3D worlds populated by avatars.

 

[Fafalada]

No joke.

For all the surprised people - here's is what PS2 actually launched with 14 years ago:

Anyway more on topic - I think beyond the first consumer units, the interesting question is how the devices will evolve. Control schemes still have a very long way to go - and VR actually has a chance to grow on closed-platforms - eg. with advent of eye-tracking & foveated rendering unlocking higher-resolutions etc. to much wider range of HW eventually (in addition to obvious advances in sensors, optics, displays etc.).

 

[mugwhump]

Eh. If Sony planned to launch morpheus before Q2 2015, I really feel like we would've seen more games by now. They'll release the morpheus alongside their first VR killer app. Summer Lessons... is probably not that killer app.

If it beats Oculus to market I don't think it'll beat it by much.

 

[Seanspeed]

Why can Sony only be first to market by "rushing"? Sony are incapable of meeting their design goals before Oculus meet their design goals? =/

Because they will lack content. Doesn't matter how quickly their headset is ready to go, if they release with hardly anything to use with it, its going to get some dire impressions from users and the press. That's kind of the downside of doing this on a console. The expectations are a bit different than on PC.

And I don't think Sony can afford to start off with anything less than good press. Doesn't necessarily need to be a huge slam dunk, million-selling device overnight, but the repercussions of a bad start can be damaging to not only Project Morpheus, but also VR in general.

 

[serversurfer]

Because they will lack content. Doesn't matter how quickly their headset is ready to go, if they release with hardly anything to use with it, its going to get some dire impressions from users and the press. That's kind of the downside of doing this on a console. The expectations are a bit different than on PC.

And I don't think Sony can afford to start off with anything less than good press. Doesn't necessarily need to be a huge slam dunk, million-selling device overnight, but the repercussions of a bad start can be damaging to not only Project Morpheus, but also VR in general.

Fair enough. I certainly agree with the bolded, but I'm not sure the statement that precedes it is a given.

Although, I expect Sony to be ready to go by next fall. Possibly by summer. I think the best thing for them to do would be to try to time it with a $100 drop on the PS4, which would indicate later in the year, I suspect. I think Oculus are certainly capable of having a consumer product by Christmas '15. Didn't Palmer say they could ship CB, but they have some "last minute" stuff to do? I could see them launching in a year as well.

So you're just saying that, for example, a theoretical spring launch may be rushed? It's possible. I think that mostly depends on what their internal studios have been doing. There seem to be a lot of big, secret projects going on with their principle teams. A VR construction set from Media Molecule and a space opera from Naughty Dog could really anchor a launch, and we really have no idea how close projects like those actually are to completion. Of course, we also don't know whether they're being developed for Morpheus at all, but that might explain why we don't know much about them yet. Certainly, they're developing something, but we don't know what, or how close it is to finished.

Personally, I'd say that even if the software is ready to go next spring, they're still better off until they can time it with a price cut, so prospects can either knock $100 off the price of the console or the headset in their heads, depending on which component they were reluctant to buy in the first place. lol

 

[HolyBaikal]

I beg to differ. Can VR replace touch? How will you feel the wind gusting at the Grand Canyon?

Well, at first people are going to do it with haptics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_technology

And maybe they won't be that popular on the Oculus Rift at first. But lots of them will get more popular and will get better. Wearable technology is supposed to become more and more popular, just like virtual reality. And "smart clothes" are supposed to be popular soon.

With these other technologies, it could be easy and popular to have haptic "smart clothes" everywhere.
And after that, hopefully soon there will be implantable technology so that we can have "smart skin" and virtual reality and augmented reality contact lenses or implants. And maybe even someday we'll have neural implants! That way we can have all our senses at once.

Oh, and there's synesthesia and things like that. Maybe before we have neural implants, we'll find ways to make people feel touch and other senses like that with our eyes.
But haptics seem pretty neat for now. There are all sorts of things that can replicate all of the senses right now. And they're going to get better and better.

 

[Stimpack]

I highly doubt the entire premise of Morpheus being released as a product significantly before the Rift.

As do I. They're acting like Oculus is still stumbling around, when from everything I've seen/read, that couldn't be farther from the case. Meanwhile I have no idea how far along the Morpheus is, but I have my doubts that they're so significantly apart in terms of development time.

 

[InaudibleWhispa]

I want VR to work in the sense of making a really cool video game. I think it can add a ton to the immersion on that end. Whenever I get a real gaming rig built up, I will be diving into OR.

I just think the recreation of making field trips and other real life encounters is far fetched.

Sure, going to the Grand Canyon in VR isn't going to replace the real thing. But it's going to be infinitely better than looking at 2D video and images, and that's great for the vast majority of people who will never go. Sense of scale is one thing VR does incredibly well and isn't done justice until you experience it. From personal experience, VR makes what would otherwise be pretty boring little demos that I'd turn off after a couple of minutes incredibly fascinating experiences. But really, like movies and games and books, the real potential isn't in just replicating real life. Why stop there?

Most of what people consider the best demos for Oculus so far are more experiences than games, such as Titans of Space and Sightline The Chair. You can't go on a field trip of the solar system in real life or replicate the trippy distortion of reality as seen in Sightline. Heck, there's video of people floating in space in Elite and being brought to tears, and that's just in a DK2 using beta software (here's one vid, if you're curious). I don't think virtual tourism is far fetched at all, I think it's inevitable. Companies like Marriott are already setting up VR travel booths.

 

[Bad_Boy]

I think sony should wait till ps5. Double the power of ps4, to keep graphics on par with uncharted 4. And enable backwards compatibility.

Ship morpheus and a camera in the box. Require all devs to support future games, and patch old ps4 bc titles to support morpheus.

Thats just me thinking though.