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PlayStation VR Will Arrive in October for $399
- FLGMwt 11y agoHeads up, this also requires a PS4 camera which costs $60 if you don't have one.
- brazzledazzle 11y agoAlso a heads up: Based on Amazon's price history you can usually get it between $40 and $50. If you see it for $60 probably worth waiting for it to drop.
- Narishma 11y agoHardly. It has been about $40 pretty much everywhere for the last couple of years and gets frequent sales.
- illumin8 11y agoWith a 36-million installed base with compatible hardware, ~$150 lower starting cost (including PS4 camera), and the ability for people without a headset to play on the main screen in the livingroom, it looks like Sony might clean up on the first generation of consumer VR.
- fla 11y agoThis will certainly be a big step for VR democratisation. I'm surprised they aim for 120hz, it's really amazing. Can't wait to see what gets out of it.
- sgarman 11y agoI saw somewhere that this number is apples to oranges as far as comparing it to the Rift and Vive. Trying to find a source.
- fnfjcnc 11y agoI think the word you're looking for is "adoption," not "democratization." Nobody is opening up VR to a vote.
- nnutter 11y agoDemocratization of technology refers to the process by which access to technology rapidly continues to become more accessible to more people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratization_of_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratization_of_technology
- danharaj 11y agoThat's a very strange use of the word democratization, a domain error really, because it's about markets, not politics. A better word would be consumerization. Associating democracy with a particular economic pattern is just a swindle to try to make the two inextricable. I suppose that's why Thomas Friedman was so fond of this abuse of language.
- wagglycocks 11y ago: to make (something) available to all people : to make it possible for all people to understand (something)
- Dylan16807 11y ago"consumerization" just tells you that something is going into the market, not that it's becoming accessible to everyone. "Democratic" is not the best word but it's better than that.
- icebraining 11y agoNo, it's not about markets nor any particular economic pattern; it's about the outcome, while being agnostic to the means. For example, it's also been said that the expansion of (free) public schooling has lead to a democratization of knowledge.
- fla 11y ago
- MLR 11y agoI believe it's interpolated from sixty rather than the true 90Hz that the Vive and Rift will be using.
- robbies 11y agoNope. That's one of the options possible, but not the only mode. The device can present at 90 or 120, and the rendering can be done at 60, 90, or 120. Not sure of all the combos possible though (like can you render at 60 and present at 120?)
- kevingadd 11y agoIn their slide decks they showed a 60->120 mode based on frame doubling plus asynchronous time warping (so head movement is partially taken into account). I don't think they actually allow you to run it below 90hz.
- cubehouse 11y agoYou can run at 90, but I think 60 -> 120 will be the common strategy given easier development and ultimately better refresh rate
- Negative1 11y agoThat's an 8 millisecond frame time! I've seen physics simulations that take longer, never mind graphics intensive systems like post-processing (think Depth-of-Field, Tonemapping, 'HDR'/Bloom). I'm skeptical at how this will affect the quality of upcoming VR games since less time to render generally means a scene that is less photorealistic. Then again, maybe the immersion (presence) factor will overcome the graphical drop in quality?
- teej 11y agoPhoto realism isn't going to happen in the first generation. Game developers are going to have to be creative in art direction and gameplay instead. And for games that do this well you won't ever notice a drop in quality. To me, that's one of the most fascinating things about games. Breakout hits make the right trade offs to push the platform further than you thought it could go. This stands true since games were put on computers.
- rubber_duck 11y agoAnd also stuff that's not games (like say interactive stores, presentations, etc.) can easily hit that frame rate because of simpler scenes
- mortenjorck 11y agoAt this point, photorealism isn't so much a question of hardware limitations as one of scene complexity and interactivity. If you have a simple enough subject to start with, and bake enough lighting and shadow mapping into the textures, you can make a photorealistic scene on even previous-generation console hardware. Once you start adding more objects, and allowing more things to move, you start needing to calculate more in real time, and you need more processing and rendering power. A room with a table and a teapot could probably be made photorealistic on a PS3, even at 90 FPS. A densely populated street with moving cars and pedestrians, however, would have to be fairly visually abstracted to hit that target even on a PS4.
- Dylan16807 11y agoIt's okay if the physics run at 30fps, the key is that head movement is instantly tracked with a new frame. It'll be interesting to see what quality the PS4 can support on this, but we already know good games are possible with simpler graphics.
- Mikeb85 11y ago120hz means smooth playback at 24, 30, 60 fps (3 most common formats), because you can simply show each image for 2, 4, 5 frames. 60hz would mean potentially stuttery video at a native 24fps (some movies).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jimrandomh 11y agoI actually think being tied to a PS4 is a disadvantage, not an advantage, and a large one at that. The install base of high-end PCs is larger, and upgrading a PC is easier to justify than buying a game console. And for most people, the living room isn't the right place; when you can't see your surroundings, you'd rather be somewhere private.
- msabalau 11y agoOn the other hand, a console is an easy gift to give, regardless of your technical capabilities, and as a kid, it's easier to endless encourage your parents to get the right thing. Ask for a computer, and you may end up with a chromebook!
- witty_username 11y agoYou can give a desktop PC easily too.
- renox 11y agoEasily? Not really, there are more choices in the GPU alone than there are choices in the console (PS or X-Box?).
- witty_username 11y agoI'm saying it's not that hard to give away a desktop PC as a gift.
- Veratyr 11y ago> The install base of high-end PCs is larger I'm not sure that's true, although it depends on what you define as "high-end". Steam, as of last February, has 125m active users [0]. According to their hardware survey [1], only 30% of those users' GPUs support DirectX above version 9, with the overwhelming majority of "GPUs" being integrated and not up to the demands of 1080p gaming (a cursory glance suggests we can cut that 30% in half at least). Given all that, you have ~15% of 125m for a maximum of ~19m "high-end" PCs, which is substantially smaller than the current number of PS4s. > and upgrading a PC is easier to justify than buying a game console A GTX 970, the minimum required for Oculus, is around $300 on Amazon. That's not withstanding the extra CPU and RAM upgrades that are likely necessary (per [1]) to support the demands of modern PC games. There's also the fact that PC games tend to require more and more hardware upgrades as time goes on, while console games tend to use the hardware they have more efficiently. A $350 console can be expected to last 5-10 years without need for an upgrade. A PC needs upgrading every ~3 to keep up to date with modern requirements. I say all this as someone who exclusively games on PC, don't get me wrong. It's great but it's not the best financial decision for the mass market. [0]: https://www.vg247.com/2015/02/24/steam-has-over-125-million-active-users-8-9m-concurrent-peak/ https://www.vg247.com/2015/02/24/steam-has-over-125-million-... [1]: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
- joshguthrie 11y agoThe same way they cleaned up for the Blu-Ray. The latest Playstation's have become gateway drugs to Sony's technologies.
- JavaScriptrr 11y agoIt seems history is repeating itself. This VR hype is going to be killed by lack of business innovation. We've seen this exact scenario with 3D printers. Awesome tech, but with a pricetag that has kept those devices from going mainstream. With VR, the guys are delivering innovative tech, but with the oldschool business model, trying to make money on the hardware. Sony would lead the game if they would lose money, offering a simple to use VR headset for $99 -$199, dominating the market and then make money on games and apps.
- skewart 11y agoI totally agree that a different business model with low-priced devices might be needed for consumer gamer VR to take off any time soon. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw adoption of expensive VR/AR devices for industrial/enterprise applications in a much bigger way long before consumer stuff takes off. In a lot of ways gaming us a bad place to introduce VR - immersion doesn't necessarily make for a "better" gaming experience once the novelty fades, motion and speed and high quality graphics are hard to deal with, and buyers are fairly price-sensitive. 3D printing is doing relatively well in industrial usage, despite the consumer hype having faded.
- randyrand 11y agoVR hype will be killed. What will remain is vr without the hype.
- gwern 11y agoWhat sort of VR headset do you expect for $99? At that price, you get Cardboard and Gear, at best, and those have underwhelmed the market and people who have tried them & Vive/Rift/PS.
- JavaScriptrr 11y agoThe question is: why not lose money on the hardware, to accelerate distribution and put an awesome device in people's hands and then make money on software. So my suggestion would be to sell the $399 devixe for $99. Not push out something crappy
- __david__ 11y agoNeat. Has Sony demoed this yet? I've heard first hand reports of Valve's and Occulus, but I've not heard anything about Sony's yet...
- Tiktaalik 11y agoThey've demoed it a fair bit. Impressions I've heard so far seem quite positive. This announcement is from Game Developers Conference, which is going on right now and where they're demoing it to a ton of people, so I'm sure we'll get even more impressions soon.
- Narishma 11y agoThey've been demoing it for 2 years now.
- tgb 11y agoDoes anyone have links to someone playtesting the PSVR recently? One imagines there's some quality lost compared to the more expensive Oculus and Rift offerings, and I'm curious to know the difference.
- monk_e_boy 11y agoYeah, it'd be interesting to know if this gives you 'presence'
- dcw303 11y agoI remain sceptical yet hopeful that they've solved the motion sickness problem. Biggest problem for me playing DK2 was spending more than a minute running around in anything first person induced the urge to vomit. I see that Star Wars Battlefront has been announced, and the idea of that seems excellent. One thing lacking in the Rift demos was a distinct lack of characters. Lots of vast, empty landscapes, but no actual people.
- sinatra 11y agoThe most interesting bit for me was about "Social Screen." If I understand correctly, this will allow two people to play non-VR games on the same PS4 without splitting screen on TV. One person will be looking at the TV, and the other person will be looking at the VR headset. This means that even if we get no good VR games for a while, there will still be nice benefit of owning a VR headset.
- alirazaq 11y agoThere was a similar feature demonstrated with 3D TV's. Both users would have a fullscreen and to a viewer without glasses the images would be overlayed.
- sbarre 11y agoKeep Talking and Nobody Explodes comes to mind almost immediately here...
- untog 11y agoThat doesn't feel social to me, though. I don't really want to be strapped into a VR headset when I'm playing a game in the same room as my friends.
- prbuckley 11y agoIt seems like there will be three tiers of VR... High-End VR: Gaming and graphic intensive applications will run on computers wired to special HMD systems. Vive, Oculus and PSVR Smartphone VR: This will be the GearVR type experience, dedicated VR appstore of content. Casual VR: Google Cardboard type devices used for viewing 360 photos and video,download content from existing Play store and Apples App Store. full disclosure we are making and selling things in the casual VR category (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smartvr-make-your-phone-a-virtual-reality-viewer/x/7469849#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smartvr-make-your-phone-a...)
- Karunamon 11y agoI'm not sure the PSVR can qualify as high end. And I'm not saying this as a subscriber to PC Master Race Weekly, I'm saying it with the limited specs of the PS4 in mind compared to even the minimum requirements of the Vive and Rift. Given how those requirements are just north of crazy right now, it follows that there must be something that was compromised on to allow the PSVR to work - and also keeping in mind that the Rift/Vive specs are that high just to get VR that's acceptably convincing.. I just can't work up the excitement. I'm hoping that I'm wrong here, and that they did some kind of insane algorithm or something to do a lot more with a lot less hardware. Anyone who's had hands on the device care to chime in?
- radiorental 11y agoWhat I took away from the video below was - no complaints, asking for another go = good enough! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYwAtfCAjwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYwAtfCAjwM
- serge2k 11y agoThe insane algorithm could just be "design games that need less power". I mean, why not?
- ethbro 11y agoWe're talking about a PS4 with roughly an AMD 7870 under the hood vs a minimum 290 spec'd for the Rift. Using Passmark, that's 4289 vs 6875. Admittedly, there are a ton of caveats to those comparisons, and the PS4 has the benefit of system integration, a standard platform, and a dedicated OS. But that's still a fairly substantial difference. Especially when framerate & latency are no longer quite as optional and able to be fudged.
- jerf 11y agoProtip to future VR marketers: The generic "staring longingly into the future" pose does not work if you put a freaking VR headset on!
- emcq 11y agoSeems like it's only one 1920x1080 screen, so half that resolution per eye at 120hz. That's going to be some chunky pixels. I'd rather have double the resolution at 90hz with a Vive or Rift :)
- chc 11y agoI'd rather have a Tesla Model S, but it's twice the price of my car. PlayStation VR is much cheaper than Oculus or Vive and works with much more affordable hardware.
- emcq 11y agoThe absolute price difference is more important here than the multiple. Spending roughly $1k more for entertainment is certainly within the budget of many folks, versus $60k+ for a Tesla over a new Honda fit. But you're right that the PlayStation VR appeals to the price conscious. Almost as much as not buying one ;)
- chc 11y ago> But you're right that the PlayStation VR appeals to the price conscious. Almost as much as not buying one ;) The implication here, that there's no market for a $400 piece of video game hardware when more powerful hardware is available at higher price points, is pretty obviously wrong given the success of the PlayStation 4 itself. The simple fact is, for the price of a Vive, you can get both a PS4 and a PSVR. And the $800 Vive requires a computer even more expensive than itself. This is not an insignificant difference.
- emcq 11y agoThat's fair. If you ask people outside the VR bubble if they would trust Facebook, some company called Valve, or Sony PlayStation to make a quality VR entertainment device most would put their money on PlayStation. Not only is the cost much less, you will probably get to try it out at your local Target. But thats just the gateway drug to VR. From my perspective in the VR bubble I prefer more pixels. I think the PSVR will have much better unit sales than Rift/Vive, but that the latter will provide tangible benefits to those that enjoy VR experiences.
- guidefreitas 11y agoGo Microsoft, make Oculus work poorly on Xbox One...
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoI'm always surprised at the lack of enthusiasm for VR and AR on HN. Is there something specific about this vertical that makes it lackluster for this crowd? I get cynicism and all that but given how much HN users talk about on demand delivery, CRM tools etc... things that are relatively boring in comparison, and the massive growth in the VR/AR industry I don't get the lack of discussion.
- seivan 11y agoI think Wii is to blame. We were tricked into believing what would be full featured motions ended up just being wiggling your wrist instead of your thumbs. I'm hopeful though.
- duaneb 11y agoIt's not entirely clear how to exploit VR/AR yet—you're asking people to wear dorky headgear for what people perceive as a gaming experience. I kind of view it as gyroscopic controls—weren't they the future? Turns out they're awkward and ill-suited for many types of gameplay.
- georgemcbay 11y ago"It's not entirely clear how to exploit VR/AR yet" Well, other than the obvious, if not often publicly discussed, use (porn).
- michaelbuckbee 11y agoTested.com has done great coverage of the various VR gear. PSVR hands on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq5VVnsQgB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq5VVnsQgB8
- hrnnnnnn 11y agoThose guys always ask really good probing questions in their interviews with VR folk too.
- yingnansong 11y agoLooking forward to using it!!!
- akurilin 11y agoJust to clarify, is it possible to use the VR headset as a TV/monitor replacement? I live in a super tiny studio and this would actually make owning a console pretty feasible.
- iLoch 11y agoYeah you could probably write a program to put a TV in virtual space and use a live video stream as a texture.
- jimrandomh 11y agoTV, yes. Monitor, no, unless you're willing to stick to extremely large font sizes.
- cha5m 11y agoThe ps4 rendering 1080p at 120hz? Yeah no. Unless they significantly pare down their graphical fidelity.
- Caprinicus 11y agoThey're aiming for rendering at 60hz from what I can tell. Graphics will still have to take a hit to meet that, but not quite as badly.
- wiradikusuma 11y agolooks like VR/AR is (finally?) the new gold rush! any recommended starting point for Web/mobile dev like me who's interested to try his luck?
- bitwize 11y agoAnd with it... Rez Infinite. I am so stoked.
- qbrass 11y agoI was hoping for Rez designed around VR instead of Rez with VR tacked on. I went from wanting to buy a headset to play the game, to wanting to buy the game if I get a headset.
- bitwize 11y agoRez gets a leg up from being conceptually built around what we thought VR would be like (think Lawnmower Man), and (according to Mizuguchi) designed to accommodate future VR technology from the start. The game engine has been significantly reworked to accommodate VR; it offers a 360° panoramic perspective rather than constraining you to face forward, and the playstyle in VR is "look to aim" much like Vanguard V. I'm to understand that the enemy placement in the original levels has been changed somewhat to make better use of the technology, and no one has seen "Area X" (all new content) yet...
- sandGorgon 11y agoAnd with ARM claiming [1] that they will produce mobile chips with PS4 equivalent performance by 2018 ... We are heading towards snow crash. [1]. http://www.phonearena.com/news/ARM-says-mobile-game-graphics-will-catch-up-to-PS4-and-Xbox-One-by-2018_id78415 http://www.phonearena.com/news/ARM-says-mobile-game-graphics...