The news about virtual reality company Oculus, makers of the Oculus Rift, being bought up by Facebook for a whopping $2 billion yesterday has garnered some very important reactions across the video game industry. In a recent Polygon article, many developers seemed to be excited, but skeptical. That seems to be the solid general consensus across the board, but there is more to it than that.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was able to try out the Playstation VR 2 at CES and was "blown away" by the experience.
Yeah, you've got to be thinking he's used plenty of headsets. Not a bad person to impress!
True. And this PSVR seems to be pushing the envelope for VR with its marriage of eye tracking and foveated rendering. I have a feeling the fans are in for a nice surprise.
This is the guy who recently created a VR headset that kills you when you lose right?
Was that a joke? I read that and was like is it april fools? Lol I ask because even creating such a thing would be considered a crime.
For the people that try to downplay the original PSVR's success by comparing to total PS4 units, he also said:
"The first PSVR was arguably the biggest success of the generation, this version will do even better".
🤣🤣🤣 spec wise it weaker then what on the market already so, gotta be talking about games.
And he says that like it's a bad thing. Aren't games the most important part?
Pay no attention to the troll and they'll go back under their bridge.
it has the highest resolution of any currently available headset. Is the only one with eye tracking or foveated rendering... only one with full haptic feedback... sit down.
And it works, sonyslave has 10 replays. Some guys like him and Orchad love the attention when they talk negative about Sony cous they get a rush out of it.
technically it'll be the most advanced VR headset when it's released. Sure there will newer headsets that push the envelope further, but this will be a huge step up from what we have currently.
PSVR2 has the highest specs of any headset outside of the $1500 and above headsets out there which are not aimed at gamers, and even gives those a run for their money due to marriage of foveated rendering+Eye tracking.
It also has specs that the other headsets (even the $1500+ headsets) dont have which are game changers. Foveated rendering+eye tracking, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers.
PSVR2 is the biggest launch in VR and you could tell by the way it was treated at CES by the press and crowd. It also won headset of the show at CES.
Overall PSVR2 specs are well above anything out there currently.
I'm debating on getting the PSVR2 but not having backward compatibility is currently my roadblock
What game(s) specifically are you wanting? Loads of devs have confirmed they're working on patches, many for free, some we don't know yet.
I'd like to hear if this is happening for Superhot, but nothing as of yet.
Yeah, by release they have 30 and there are about 100 games in development.
That a sign that developers believe in PSVR2..,,
I was in the same boat(and still ticked about it), but I caved. I just love tech toys too much to hold that grudge I guess.
While it would be nice it's a silly road block imo. Maybe some devs will do a free upgrade or a patch or something but I wouldn't say eh I can't play my psvr games with my psvr2 so f that. It seems this one is gonna do good in the games department so there won't be a shortage or anything.
businessinsider writes: "His exit came on Friday, the people said. Carmack, who has been openly critical of Meta's advancements in AR and VR, core to its metaverse ambitions, posted to the company's internal Workplace forum about his decision to leave."
I hope he starts up another new company and can get another new game engine on the market too.
He's apparently focusing on AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, AKA trying to get AI to be sentient. Which according to Ray Kurzweil could happen by 2029.
Then I need to look more into this because it sounds like the backbone tech I need to make Projekt Monika a reality.
AI advances are really starting to open my eyes to us not even having scratched the surface. But with the field itself growing exponentially and stuff I'd never considered before like putting AI to work finding cures for major diseases - it's exciting but also kinda scary tbh.
More on topic - sentient AI. Creating a digital soul so to speak. Spooky in a what have we done and is it good or bad kind of way.
He is like: "Im done with F#@#$%NG nonsense, pff Metaverse da funk I was thinking!!, Im out!! :D"
Yeah he put a smile in his face too in the end.
I hope he goes back to traditional games.
VR gaming is a flop and the Metaverse has (fortunately) completely failed to take off.
VR has much more potential than flat screen games. Just need to tap the right market and fund AAA development. Meta is a rotten company though so good to see him leave.
That's where it becomes a catch-22 problem though. Very few companies (if any) are going to spend AAA amounts of dollars on VR if the market isn't there - and the market isn't there.
If it was the future of gaming we'd see the big publishers getting involved - and basically none of them are.
Agree on Meta 100% - horrible company and I really do hope FB (and social media) dies some day soon.
There will never be AAA games until VR sells at the rate of mainstream consoles. Understand that even if Sony do sell 3.5 million VR in the next 2 or 3 years like they hope, that isn't ever going to get any commitments for AAA budget. No investor would ever sign off on that.
The adoption has been terrible and the market basically non-existent as a result of that.
We're now 10 years into PC VR gaming, 6 years into console VR gaming and it just hasn't taken off - the reality is, most consumers don't care for it.
Even with a huge install base like the PS4, only a few million adopted it, about 3-4%.
He only thinks it in his mind. Because Microsoft isn't offering "high fidelity VR." Only Sony is offering "high fidelity VR" because they actually deliver.
I just read today that Honda is moving forward in using VR and has vehicles that were built in VR without an actual real vehicle.
Orchard just doesn't know any better. He claims he's a PlayStation fan but doesn't want Sony to succeed in growing the VR market. But he's okay with Microsoft buying up the industry and game pass. Tell you where his mind is actually at. Or he has investment in it.
But Carmack leaving is only that he was frustrated with higher ups. But he's very interested in AI. And that's a good field of investment too.
If any of the big 3 had sales were like VR for their console, they would fold like the Saturn. Right now VR is nothing more then a high priced peripheral and no one should expect AAA for it.
By the way , I am one who would like to see VR succeed, but it has a long way to go before that ever happens.
@Apocalypse
"Only Sony is offering "high fidelity VR" because they actually deliver."
And the reality is, from what we've seen thus far, the vast majority, about 97% of Sony customers don't care about it in the slightest. They can't even sell out of PSVR2 devices, which are supposedly in short supply. Better to just invest in traditional experiences instead.
"I just read today that Honda is moving forward in using VR and has vehicles that were built in VR without an actual real vehicle."
Yes. And that helps gaming how? I've said time and time again that AR/VR is great for enterprise. Just not great for gaming.
The lack of customers, lack of customer interest, and lack of AAA game companies investing & AAA game experiences being crafted says everything we need to know about the state and future of gaming VR.
When uncle philly announced true vr experience and demoed fallout 4 in one x, some xboys sings different tune..
'Just not great for gaming.'.
That's your heavily biased opinion. You are in every VR thread trying to project your doom and gloom. Why?
There are many genres where VR is at least equal to or better than flat. VR in a driving game destroys the flat experience.
FPS, horror games, even Tetris is better in VR.
You speak about AAA as if it's the only consideration, moving goalposts.
Capcom.
Are they not a AAA publisher?
Is RE4 not a AAA game? RE7? RE8?
The Metaverse is one big flop but VR gaming on its own still has steam and growth potential. Remember Mark and his Meta wants you to associate gaming with the meta verse the gaming industry and its large number of users has the capacity to sway the opinion of the mass market.
Incidentally, Meta is haemorrhaging money and expertise that’s what this article is highlighting.
See, the problem orchard is that you see what you want to see. Sony sold PSVR at profit. They made money on software. They made money on a 10 year old peripheral. Yeah. It didn't sell 100 million. How many games sell bucket loads when they cost almost 10 times less than PSVR was at launch? That's why the new headset is coming. Before, there was no console VR. There is now. To grow the market, you must keep pushing and not be afraid like Microsoft. Facebook, HTC, ByteDance, Varjo, Valve, Sony, etc are growing the gaming market. Did flat gaming sell millions overnight? No. It took time. Just like any other product. Fads fade. VR is not a fad because it has potential in many areas. Sony doesn't want PS VR 2 to be a Kinect. A fad. Millions on advertising but no substance. It's why PS Move still exists and works on PS5. And Kinect is dead. Move had substance. PSVR had substance. Which is why PS VR 2 exists.
Honda is an example of VR entering other sectors. It's fairly obvious that it "ain't no 3D TV." Bugatti also uses VR as well as other car manufacturers. VR is here to stay. I know it hurts you that it's growing bedsides flat gaming being successful too. Just like mobile.
You just like to lie to yourself and others. VR is in education, in construction, in the automotive industry, medicine, real estate, music.... AND GAMING. The market wasn't there. Now it's here and it's growing in every sector besides gaming. But you want it to jump out there immediately like some viral video or fad. That's not how it works.
Chances are, you developed something, because you call yourself a developer. And no one wanted your product. So you're projecting.But there are other companies and developers who are successful in making VR work. You just sucked at it.
You claim Sony isn't selling out on pre-orders. But you don't even know what numbers they have allocated. Or how many they are producing to meet demand. You just pull it out from you know where and lie to everyone that Sony is failing. Sony has said they will have headsets for launch and not have to worry about production. What do you have that goes against Sony's statements on the matter? Absolutely nothing. Put up your facts against Sony's production lines?
But tell us. What software you made for VR that failed so that we all can know where your mindset is?
@Knush You just highlighted the problem perfectly - the only AAA taking part in console VR is Capcom. Where is COD VR? Battlefield VR, GTA VR? All the big pubs are skipping on it because they don’t believe in its future - if they did they’d be investing in it now.
@Apocalyspe At the time I thought MS were insane for not getting into VR, but looking back on it, given where we are now, that seems like a very smart decision.
Honda making VR for car showrooms or whatever means nothing for gaming. The vast majority of gamers - PS gamers included - don’t care in the slightest about VR. The numbers show that.
I’ve never worked on a VR game nor do I want to. The market being non-existent means salaries are substantially lower when compared to AAA salaries. I wouldn’t take the pay cut - I’ve been in AAA since graduating college, and I intend to keep it that way.
But that’s also the good point of being a developer, ultimately it doesn’t really matter to me if the game sells well or poorly - I still get paid the same at the end of the day.
It’s funny that you mention Kinect because I consider the Kinect a failure too - but it still had 4x the sales of PSVR and a way higher attach rate.
We are supposedly still in the tail end of a chip shortage, so clearly we would expect a new device like PSVR to sell out - Sony themselves were too or they wouldn’t have done invites to get one initially - they thought it was going to be difficult for people to get one (so did many on here) but when it turned out it wasn’t they opened it up to everyone.
Clearly it isn’t moving as many units as they’d anticipated.
Come talk to me when we’re all sitting in our living rooms with VR headsets on and the attach rate is so high they ship it in the box as the default controller method - so I guess I won’t ever be hearing from you again :p
@Orchard
'the only AAA taking part in console VR is Capcom'.
No, EA and Ubisoft have VR games on console.
https://www.ea.com/games/f1...
Problem with VR is that it hasn't have legs. Everything from mevement, enemies, pacing, puzzles has to take that into equation.
Replies(2)I agree with you. I remember when Second Life was as the dogs bollocks and big business had store fronts or ambassador land parcels but soon discovered that it was pie in the sky. Second Life is still operational but only frequented by a stagnant population of people who were with it since it’s launch. New people sign up to try it out but tend to not stay. People want to browse the internet or use it to play games not live in it.
"And yet, you can provide me no evidence to the contrary."
Compare sales of gen 1 VR headsets with sales of gen 1 home consoles.
One of if not, the best game engine developer in the world. I hope he gets back into developing game engines.
They need to stick VR back in RnD departments everywhere that or let the porn industry lead the way like everything else that's been introduced then brought to mass market after porn made it a thing lmfao
Yea VR has that virt-a-mate thing which seems to be quite popular with adult Quest 2 owners, but i mean there is Half Life Alyx, few other things.. nothing huge after those so far.
Microsoft and Meta have announced a partnership that will see the cloud game streaming platform, Xbox Cloud Gaming, arrive to the Meta Quest Store, offering its suite of Xbox games to Quest users.
Flight sim inside of a vr hmd... could be interesting. Would the game had to have been built to support VR for the in game cockpit view to look around when you move your head?
It's not VR. It flat games on a screen in VR.
This was probably a deal since Facebook is encroaching on their territory of business. Putting their windows software and xcloud on Quest Pro using Microsoft's controller is a concession.
Eventually, you might see VR cloud streaming as it's already done with things like shadow PC.
This is no different than Microsoft when they tried to push games on Xbox one in VR. Which wasn't VR. Just flat.
I think the thing that's gonna keep VR from being streamable anytime soon is the bandwidth required and the sensitivity we have in VR to latency. 120FPS with a tiny bit of lag is virtually impossible to pull off over a WAN, especially with the ever increasing resolutions we're coming to expect.
I think technically MS could map head movement to mouse input, but wouldn't work with controller input, which will probably be what you're limited to, given that the games are running on xbox and you couldn't use a keyboard with the headset on practically anyway. Sorry - long way of saying probably not.
"Quest users will be able to play Xbox Cloud Gaming's hundreds of Xbox console games on a projected 2D screen while in VR"
It's cinema mode read ffs
There are several racing games with VR support now and it's one of the best genres for it. Forza would be a great addition though.
Read ffs
"Quest users will be able to play Xbox Cloud Gaming's hundreds of Xbox console games on a projected 2D screen while in VR"
I know that. It was in the comments here, too. I'm saying Forza would be great in VR.
It's not the case here, this is not "VR gaming", but yeah... Forza would look great in VR.
"Quest users will be able to play Xbox Cloud Gaming's hundreds of Xbox console games on a projected 2D screen while in VR"
Sadly this is not VR gaming but similar to Netflix in VR. Useful if you want to game in a 3D living room on a 2D screen. Maybe heavy usage will prompt developers to offer VR upgrades on old games.
True regarding Netflix in VR. Probably won't even take up the whole screen, but will be played on a virtual monitor.
Developers can't offer VR upgrades in the way you're saying though- Quest is like an android phone running an xbox streaming app similar to your phone. There's no path to VR from there unfortunately
They need to start putting actual VR games on Gamepass. Could get a share of the VR market as well.
Would’ve been more interesting to have a partnership with someone that makes actual VR games instead
Oculus isn't needed since morpheus will be the future of VR in gaming.
lol if anything, the Facebook deal will make Oculus a far bigger threat to the VR industry. There looking to expand VR into more than just gaming but still keep gaming a first priority.
Valve!! Come save us with your VR solution!!
The only way I'll trust FB if they hire someone who has a great amount of gaming experience and development to handle everything dealing with the oculus.
Its a proven fact that the success of a product can only be achieved with proper experience, with great financial backing of course. No one at FB knows anything about the core gaming market and that's a fact.
Had it been the casual market FB was taking on I would've thought differently.
I for one like that the creators of Facebook are expanding their horizons. You can't live on just Facebook forever. Especially when you have a ton of money that could go into starting new ventures and pushing the boundaries of technology.
But this jump really doesn't make sense, and looks to be one of those horse before the cart situations. I doubt much thinking went into this move aside from "this looks to be popular, lets buy it".
Facebook should really have gotten itself into the gaming scene first and then venture forth.
Looks like gaming will be changing soon with Steam, Amazon and now Facebook stepping up.