Support NeoGAF

[Bsigg12]

Seems to me just a nice way of saying they will not sell well.

Thats funny because most people who follow VR and those working on these products already understand that they're not going to sell like gangbusters let alone in any significant amount for a long time.

VR as a whole will be brought to many things though. LG just announced a VR headset for their new phone and Samsung is giving away Gear VR to Galaxy S7 preorders. We also know Google (Cardboard) and Apple are working on a few significant VR projects. VR on the smaller scale will do well but the high quality VR from PC and even PSVR will take several years before it becomes a mainstream success because of price and availability.

Anybody expecting VR devices to sell 10s of millions of units in the next 3-4 years are delusional.

 

[bobbytkc]

Thats funny because most people who follow VR and those working on these products already understand that they're not going to sell like gangbusters let alone in any significant amount for a long time.

Considering the products like they exist is a vacuum is funny as well. They have a competitor that is going to debut at 300-400 dollar price point (if the rumours are correct, and the rumours gave the correct price for oculus). How funny do you think it is still going to be when people realize they can buy a PS4+PSVR for less than the price of the Vive?

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I think the big challenge that Sony and Valve both run up against in the long-run is content.

On the contrary, I think if Oculus or anyone else attempts to make VR a full-fledged walled garden on PC, they will fail in the long run. Exclusive software is not going to be the future on PC. I see every reason to expect most games and software both in the near and distant future to be compatible with all relevant PC VR headsets on the market. Nobody is going to have 90% of any marketshare. That's just silly. This isn't the smartphone market and Oculus is not Apple.

Further, I expect to see both the OR and Vive to be supply constrained through 2016. Whoever manages to make the most units will win.

Sony will be fine regardless. All they have to do is convince PS4 owners their solution will let them get a good taste of VR. They don't have to compete with OR and Vive. They're running a parallel existence.

Zero chance that the PSVR is $800. Like less than zero.

It won't be priced anywhere near that.

Agreed. It's far less advanced tech for a far less advanced platform. There's no reason to expect it to be more than $400.

Seems to me just a nice way of saying they will not sell well at this price.

OR's pre-orders are backed up through the Fall. Expect Vive to be the same. Selling well won't be a problem. People with rigs capable of running OR and Vive are the same people who spend more than this on a monitor.

 

[the_batman]

it can do well if they use great marketing for it.

i mean, people buy all the overpriced Apple junk.

 

[Bsigg12]

Considering the products like they exist is a vacuum is funny as well. They have a competitor that is going to debut at 300-400 dollar price point. How funny do you think it is still going to be when people realize they can buy a PS4+PSVR for less than the price of the Vive?

It's a great entry point for high quality VR however the best experiences for VR will come from PC. Sony will push the PS4 as far as they can but it will still lack what will be capable with the Vive or Rift, especially in a year or 2 as Epic and Unity really get their engines optimized for building great VR experiences.

That said getting a VR device out at what will still be more expensive than most people are willing to pay for an accessory that will have a limited library is a huge first step in getting adoption of the technology into the home.

 

[23qwerty]

No man's sky and horizon will definitely not run on PSVR, because they are 30 fps games.

You should be looking at 60fps games for that. Tekken, for instance, will have PSVR support.

No Mans Sky is 60fps

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

GO THE FUCK HOME VALVE

RIFT WINS

 

[bobbytkc]

No Mans Sky is 60fps

Okay, I stand corrected.

 

[Ponn]

it can do well if they use great marketing for it.

i mean, people buy all the overpriced Apple junk.

That's a poor unit of measurement. iPhones, iPads, etc have many, many, many uses besides being portable and being able to take out in public and say "Hey look at me!" It's used everyday and for many people every minute of their lives.

VR is something you will do at home, by yourself and though hyped up here on a techie/geek/nerd/game forum the average person wouldn't be caught wearing those googles. Thats a huge investment for what most people will consider very little return.

 

[the_batman]

VR is something you will do at home, by yourself and though hyped up here on a techie/geek/nerd/game forum the average person wouldn't be caught wearing those googles.

no way is VR only for individual use. people can use it at parties, the other people can watch what's occurring on a second screen like a television.

all they need to do is pay some hipsters and celebrities to hype it up and the mainstream MAY pay attention.

 

[Fess]

Zero chance that the PSVR is $800. Like less than zero.

It won't be priced anywhere near that.

He talked about the 2 pieces you need so probably PS4+PSVR. Still too expensive though, my guess is €549 for the bundle and €299 for PSVR alone.

 

[23qwerty]

He talked about the 2 pieces you need so probably PS4+PSVR. Still too expensive though, my guess is €549 for the bundle and €299 for PSVR alone.

I kinda assumed they meant the PSVR and the Processing box. I guess they think the box is doing more than it does lol

 

[Elandyll]

To the people saying that the PSVR is going to be cheaper than either of them is wrong there is no way Sony is going to release the 2 pieces you need for it to work at a huge loss expect around $800-1000

One does not simply post on GAF while drunk and try be taken seriously.

He talked about the 2 pieces you need so probably PS4+PSVR. Still too expensive though, my guess is €549 for the bundle and €299 for PSVR alone.

But the PS4 has already been released, and they do not lose money on it afawk. So it looks like he/she is talking about headset + breakout box.

Even if PS4+PSVR, that puts it at $500-$700, which is already lol.

 

[ryanofcall]

Would love to dip, but will have to wait for a price drop on VR then, because I simply can't afford that
I hope it won't bomb.

 

[Stiler]

Tell Apple to pack up the iPhone, people don't want expensive PalmPilots that can't even send faxes.

Entirely different thing.

All I said was that the VB was a VR headset, I didn't say the vive/rift didn't have new/better technologies or capabilities.

It's like complaning that I called a old 90's cell phone a "phone" and an Iphone a "phone," because they are both you know..phones.

 

[Rorschach]

Phone prices... I'm going with Google Cardboard!

 

[Bear Force One]

To the people saying that the PSVR is going to be cheaper than either of them is wrong there is no way Sony is going to release the 2 pieces you need for it to work at a huge loss expect around $800-1000

LOL NO

 

[Hugstable]

GO THE FUCK HOME VALVE

RIFT WINS

Welp

Is it bad that this may be a deciding factor for me? lol

 

[Fess]

I kinda assumed they meant the PSVR and the Processing box. I guess they think the box is doing more than it does lol

aha lol then $800-1000 is the craziest guess yet. They'll be lower than $599 for the bundle for sure, they don't want to be near that price again, so like I said, without using symbols that GAF breaks this time, PS4+PSVR(with the processing box) will be $549 and PSVR alone (but still with the processing box) will be $349. This or even cheaper is my guess, they won't be near the OR/Vive prices, they want to take the main chunk of the market right away and that's the way to do that, Oculus and Vive are both way too expensive for any type of mass market appeal no matter how many great media preview shows they do.
Conclusion: PSVR wins

 

[RadicalVelocity]

But tech and software wise, sony is closer to them. Also they don't really have room to grow. Mobile tech is getting better much, much faster.

And we don't even know if psvr will actually be "cheap".

Youssa say whatsa? This is like the third time I've seen this in this thread alone.

There's almost an order of magnitude difference in graphical capability between, say, a Galaxy S6 and a PS4 rendering for VR. There's about a factor of 2 difference between the Oculus baseline and PS4, before accounting for slightly lower resolution for PSVR. So that's ridiculous platform zealotry or ignorance to even pretend to believe that.

PSVR, Rift, and Vive all support very good positional tracking with tracked motion controllers, have >60Hz displays tailored to VR, high quality optics, etc. The gear VR is a massively marked up plastic case with accelerometers and lenses (and sometimes a fan) running content at 60fps, which is a no-no for 'real' VR. We'll see if the S7 brings changes, but until then.... once again, no, PSVR is NOT 'closer' to mobile VR than PC VR.

And for software, Sony and Oculus are pumping significant resources into high-quality experiences. Robinson, RIGS, EVE: Valkyrie, etc. are more similar to mobile VR experiences than those coming to PC headsets? Haha

 

[ArtHands]

Youssa say whatsa? This is like the third time I've seen this in this thread alone.

There's almost an order of magnitude difference in graphical capability between, say, a Galaxy S6 and a PS4 rendering for VR. There's about a factor of 2 difference between the Oculus baseline and PS4, before accounting for slightly lower resolution for PSVR. So that's ridiculous platform zealotry or ignorance to even pretend to believe that.

PSVR, Rift, and Vive all support very good positional tracking with tracked motion controllers, have >60Hz displays tailored to VR, high quality optics, etc. The gear VR is a massively marked up plastic case with accelerometers and lenses (and sometimes a fan) running content at 60fps, which is a no-no for 'real' VR. We'll see if the S7 brings changes, but until then.... once again, no, PSVR is NOT 'closer' to mobile VR than PC VR.

And for software, Sony and Oculus are pumping significant resources into high-quality experiences. Robinson, RIGS, EVE: Valkyrie, etc. are more similar to mobile VR experiences than those coming to PC headsets? Haha

PSVR only have positional tracking in front aka barebone tracking, due to the lack of multiple tracking device.

John Carmack is working hard on positional tracking on Gear VR now. Samsung also showcased a motion controller "Rink" for the Gear VR last month as well. its only a matter of time when we'll see Gear VR being as good as PSVR.

 

[Arulan]

Nice. I was anticipating anywhere between $800-$1200. Staying on the low-end of that range is certainly welcome. I'll be there on the 29th.

After reading through some of the reactions and posts the theory of an ostensibly enthusiast forum continues to hit true; one obsessed with mainstream appeal, and used to subsidized and mass-market-ready hardware prices.

 

[SMOK3Y]

The price would be fine if the content wasn't so shit. VR desperately needs a killer app.

VR is the Killer APP

 

[Diancecht]

Well guess I am going to be late to the party for two or three years.

 

[Stiler]

Same as a ViewMaster, same as binoculars, same as a hot towel?

VR isn't just any old thing that you put against your face.

Yeah, that's where your utter ignorance shines though. Virtual Boy had *NOTHING* to do with Virtual Reality, except the word "virtual" in its name. Aside from the name Nintendo never once marketed it as a virtual reality device. Virtual Boy was a tabletop Nintendo 3DS without color. It was a 2D tile-based portable game system that could display 4 shades of red and 1 shade of black. It did have a mode where rather than using tiles the developer could treat the screen like a bitmap, drawing full screen pictures every frame, so one single game used that to fake 3D rendering to have a Starfox-like game with line-art, maybe you somehow thought the entire library was like that? It wasn't even a headset, it was something you set down on a table and looked into.

Here's a couple examples of Virtual Boy games:

Nobody would ever mistake that for any form of Virtual Reality. Saying the Virtual Boy is an example of virtual reality failing would be the same thing as saying a 3DS is an example of virtual reality being pretty successful.

The VB was marketed as a VR device, from Nintendo saying "true 3d-graphics/true 3d worlds" in many of the ads/commericals portraying it as a VR device, etc.

Was it good? Heck no, the color choices sucked, the fact it sit on a stand sucked, but it was marketed as a VR device unless you were blind back in the day when it came out and didn't see any of the ads or write ups or commericals for it.

Basically you're saying it isn't VR because the graphics sucked? Let me ask you then, is this VR?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVn3H93Ysag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP8wSw4bBuA

Plenty of those graphics were around in other VR devices in the 90's, like the popular arcade VR machines

The Rift/Vive's graphics are going to look archaic 20+ years down the road, we are never going to have "VR" until we have photo-realistic graphics if that is your line of thinking that VR is only "VR" when we can't tell that it's a game.

You can't judge the VB not being "VR" because it used the technology of that time to (poorly) try to simulate VR.

VR isn't restricted to only headsets, nor is it restricted to simply one graphic style or palette, the goal is to put a player into another world to try and immerse them as much as possible through sight, sound, anything you can think of. This does not meant that nothing is "VR" until we achieve the ability to do full-brain implants where we can transport our minds into another photo-realistic simulation with complete sense awareness (sight/sound/touch/smell, etc) it is just the evolution of VR to get there, it's still VR.

Also:
http://time.com/2881482/interview-nintendo-miyamoto-virtual-reality/

Miyamoto: We’ve been doing our own experiments with virtual reality dating back to the Virtual Boy.

I guess Miyamoto doesn't know that the VB wasn't VR either.

 

[Jimrpg]

On second thoughts, Vive is probably gonna sell out of its first batch.

Occulus Rift expected delivery date is now July, so if you really want VR Vive is a good option if they ship early April.

 

[EdReedFan20]

I think it's almost guaranteed that Sony announces PSVR's price point and release window at GDC (March 14th-18th) now that the two other major VR devices have been priced. This panel seems to be the best bet: PlayStation VR: Development and Innovations (presented by Sony). It's set for Wednesday, March 16th, 2016 from 11:00am - 12:00pm (Pacific). Hope it's streamed!

Join us as we enter the world of PlayStation VR and explore various development concepts and design innovations. It will be an exciting journey that you surely won't want to miss. We will be updating the online session description with more details to come.

Takeaway
Attendees will gain new insights and concepts into PlayStation VR development.

 

[Specialmias]

Big question as someone who may buy both. Do we have any suggedtion there will be more game support for the vive because valve? Is there any big software title aside from Eve and elite dangerous,rigs announced yet?

 

[Wallach]

GO THE FUCK HOME VALVE

RIFT WINS

👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌th 👌 ere👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my selｆ 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳ&#7497 mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠＯOOＯOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit

 

[ArtHands]

It wouldn't make sense for Sony to announce price/date at GDC. Its a panel for the developers, not the publics or journalists.

 

[kungfuian]

The entry level price for both OR and Vive is in a way bad news for Sony. While it gives them an opportunity to under cut them both on price, these $600-800 enthusiast price tags also mean a slower adoption rate and a lower install base of all VR devices.

This is going to hurt software support for sure (most of which I assume will need to be cross platform to justify dev costs). If the other platforms don't effectively launch for another year, or until prices come down to the mass market $300-400 range, I expect software support for all of VR to stay soft.

 

[Azax]

So can I sit down and play with Vive or do I have to move around?

 

[Wallach]

The entry level price for both OR and Vive is in a way bad news for Sony. While it gives them an opportunity to under cut them both on price, these $600-800 enthusiast price tags also mean a slower adoption rate and a lower install base of all VR devices.

This is going to hurt software support for sure (most of which I assume will need to be cross platform to justify dev costs). If the other platforms don't effectively launch for another year, or until prices come down to the mass market $300-400 range, I expect software support for all of VR to stay soft.

Honestly what I think Sony's biggest concern is going to be is not game support but overall software support. What's going to actually be breakout software in VR is probably not going to be games-focused, and I don't know how much of that software will have a market or will even be possible on PS4.

 

[ArtHands]

So can I sit down and play with Vive or do I have to move around?

It can do both. You can use it while seated too

Big question as someone who may buy both. Do we have any suggedtion there will be more game support for the vive because valve? Is there any big software title aside from Eve and elite dangerous,rigs announced yet?

There's a good list here
https://www.reddit.com/r/vive/wiki/index

Some key titles for vive
http://vrworld.com/2016/01/29/valve-steam-vr-showcase-features-12-games/

 

[chaosblade]

Wonder what the price of PSVR will be, and whether or not people will freak out if it ends up being $400+ given the reactions to Vive and OR pricing. It's kind of surprising to me that people didn't expect these things to have enthusiast price points at the start.

 

[Atomski]

Even with that price I'd save up for one if I was in the states. Sadly here in thailand it would probably cost me well over 1k.

 

[kungfuian]

Honestly what I think Sony's biggest concern is going to be is not game support but overall software support. What's going to actually be breakout software in VR is probably not going to be games-focused, and I don't know how much of that software will have a market or will even be possible on PS4.

Yeah it's hard to tell this early on although it it's safe to assume PSVR will definitely offer a more narrow selection of software than PC VR systems.

Personally I just don't get the math from a software sales perspective at all. Let say PSVR sells to 20% of the PS4 install base (that's pretty good). So say end of lifetime 20 million units or there abouts (and that's end of life sales, install base would be much much less for some years). Why would a software developer make games for such a small subset of an audience? Who are they selling the games to?

 

[justsomeguy]

F

 

[EdReedFan20]

Honestly what I think Sony's biggest concern is going to be is not game support but overall software support. What's going to actually be breakout software in VR is probably not going to be games-focused, and I don't know how much of that software will have a market or will even be possible on PS4.

Well, one (presumably) non-game partnership has been known since PSVR was first unveiled at GDC 2014 (as Project Morpheus, of course): NASA. From what I remember, they implied we'd be able to use the imagery the Mars rovers have taken and walk on the surface of Mars using our VR headsets. Another thing I remember was talk of being able to visit museums. I really hope Sony is able to get these kinds of deals done. Also, it would be a plus if we could essentially use PSVR as an HMD and watch movies on it.

 

[cyberheater]

To the people saying that the PSVR is going to be cheaper than either of them is wrong there is no way Sony is going to release the 2 pieces you need for it to work at a huge loss expect around $800-1000

Sony already said it was going to sell at console prices.

 

[Tagyhag]

So can I sit down and play with Vive or do I have to move around?

You can do both. Valve hasn't put that out there better for those who don't follow VR news.

 

[Lunar FC]

To the people saying that the PSVR is going to be cheaper than either of them is wrong there is no way Sony is going to release the 2 pieces you need for it to work at a huge loss expect around $800-1000

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

 

[Darksol]

Wow.

How much for Canada..?

First born child

 

[KingSnake]

I just finished reading the last pages. All this talk about mainstream when you need a $1000 PC for a proper VR experience is unbelievable. Like not understanding at all the subject at hand.

And the discussion about PSVR vs. Rift/Vive is as useless as the PS4 vs. PC discussion. Different markets, different expectations in terms of quality. Both can be successful on their own market segment.

 

[ZehDon]

Just catching up with this now. It's actually cheaper than I was prepared for, but still way outside what I'm willing to pay for unproven gen 1 technology, especially in a market where content creators are more risk adverse than they've ever been.

For all the chatter about the enthusiast market, I think HTC's biggest hurdle in calling this a "premium VR experience" to explain the price tag, is that the term is meaningless. Most people don't understand what a "VR experience" is, let alone what a premium version of it looks like. Forget buying the cow before tasting the milk, this is buying a herd before knowing what milk actually is. No idea how they're going to market this thing. At least with DVD players, you could see the difference in a store.

Baseless speculation time: I see OR taking the lion's share of the PC market based on price alone, baring a RROD type catastrophe. If HTC are prepared to accept 100-200k units moved this year, then I think they're going to do well. If OR and HTC combined move +1m this year, I would consider gen 1 VR to be a resounding success. Of course, given typical software attachment rates, developers won't be making a lot of money at those numbers, which will slow development, and slow adoption. And so Sony's positioning is once again ridiculously on point. Lower cost barrier, cost effective unit, more units moved, more developer focus. If the public show up to Sony's party, room scale tracking and finger gesture recognition in third party titles might go the way of Kinect integration.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

This is where Oculus has a HUGE advantage. Developers have had access to Rift devkits for around 3 years now and I've seen plenty of developers on various forums complaining that they can't get Vive devkits for love nor money.

HTC sent out 7000 devkits at the start of this year - Oculus must have sent out over 300,000 of the things by now.

That's one of the reasons why I'm getting a Rift instead of a Vive, the Rift will have a shitload more developer support. Right now there are plenty of games with Rift support - Elite Dangerous, DCS, War Thunder, Project CARS, Assetto Corsa and Alien Isolation to name a few off the top of my head. Will these all get Vive support on launch day..? Who knows..? But I'd put good money on them all getting Runtime 1.0 support for the Oculus Rift, even Elite Dangerous.

This is the huge advantage Oculus had starting 3 years ago with grassroots community support. Also Carmack was on board in the early going which lent a lot of credibility to the project even when nobody knew what to expect from a literal startup in a guy's garage.

Valve's behavior with backing HTC is troubling because it feels like a blatant power play, they are basically hoping to take control of the nascent market by using a weak puppet company to produce hardware for them at no risk to Valve itself. If HTC flounders financially Valve could just acquire HTC and take full control in the hopes that pushing Steam users to their product will gain them control over VR in the PC space. It's an oddly Microsoft maneuver that Valve is attempting, not unlike how Microsoft was the sole backer of Toshiba during the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD when literally everyone else backed Blu-ray.

It's not clear what Valve hopes to gain from undermining VR in it's infancy by backing HTC when most of the market is clearly already aligned with Oculus. It's especially odd because the original Oculus Rift DK1's biggest proof-of-concept was a quick port of Half-Life 2 that Valve made for it, I remember playing HL2 on my DK1 way back when. Valve was really gung-ho about VR, but it seems they want to either control it or kill it. VR that they don't control is not something they want.

 

[Spikematic]

Trying it out at Paris Games Week last year was an amazing experience. IMO it's futuristic enough to warrant that price. I'll consider snapping one up if any of the titles seem attractive enough to me.

 

[a3den]

I just finished reading the last pages. All this talk about mainstream when you need a $1000 PC for a proper VR experience is unbelievable. Like not understanding at all the subject at hand.

And the discussion about PSVR vs. Rift/Vive is as useless as the PS4 vs. PC discussion. Different markets, different expectations in terms of quality. Both can be successful on their own market segment.

Happy to see some sensible people around here.

 

[AstroNut325]

For those of you saying prices mean nothing:

Look at the super-expensive consoles.

NEO GEO, 3DO...

Now look where the big winners were mostly at, NES, Genesis, SNES, playstation, etc.

With some exceptions, that tells me that the earliest video game systems cost more (adjusted for inflation) than most systems of today. This coincides with VR prices right now perfectly if you ask me.

 

[artsi]

This is where Oculus has a HUGE advantage. Developers have had access to Rift devkits for around 3 years now and I've seen plenty of developers on various forums complaining that they can't get Vive devkits for love nor money.

HTC sent out 7000 devkits at the start of this year - Oculus must have sent out over 300,000 of the things by now.

That's one of the reasons why I'm getting a Rift instead of a Vive, the Rift will have a shitload more developer support. Right now there are plenty of games with Rift support - Elite Dangerous, DCS, War Thunder, Project CARS, Assetto Corsa and Alien Isolation to name a few off the top of my head. Will these all get Vive support on launch day..? Who knows..? But I'd put good money on them all getting Runtime 1.0 support for the Oculus Rift, even Elite Dangerous.

Seconded. Most of my favourite VR potential games are already compatible with the Rift. Hell, even something like Sexy Beach is Rift compatible.

I haven't seen DCS, AC or PC crew talk about Vive support at all yet.

GO THE FUCK HOME VALVE

RIFT WINS

This too, LOL.