It's really hard to gauge the hype on this. I'd say it's not worth the hassle but I'm the type of turkey that gives away his old stuff instead of dealing with the hassle of Craigslisting it.
PSVR Review Thread
- Thread starter Savantcore
- Start date
It's really hard to gauge the hype on this. I'd say it's not worth the hassle but I'm the type of turkey that gives away his old stuff instead of dealing with the hassle of Craigslisting it.
I understood that it wouldn't be vive in that it didn't have room scale and it didn't have the open platform of the PC behind it.
What I didn't expect was issues with tracking. They may only be here and there, but that's enough to ruin it. It's disorienting and it's frustrating personally as a gamer to me when stuff doesn't work as it's supposed to. I distinctly remember playing through dead space on psmove with my girlfriend and hitting the button on the side of the psmove to recenter the crosshair as it drifted all over the place. It was beyond frustrating. like I said before even if that only happened 3-4 times in an hour long session it's a real bummer for how I feel about PSVR. Prior to today everything I had read was that its tracking was on par with Vive and Rift. Apparently it's not.
Fair enough. I didn't think any of us were of the opinion that the PS Move would be on par with the Vive's motion tracking seeing as how we had personal experience with it given the fact that its been out for over 5 years. We all get to decide what concessions we are willing to make. That's why we've got these reviews.
ShadowKingpin
Member
Now that I recall, my first time seeing the PSVR in person, someone ahead of me was playing London Heist. I remember specifically a moment where his PlayStation Move controllers were twigging out and all over the place, and at one moment they were pointed at him. This was at a local GameStop store.
wanderingprostheyltite
Member
Er...where exactly? Randos on gaf? It's been understood since some of the first demos (after Vive was revealed/demoed at trade shows) that the tracking wasn't as precise as the latter two, especially Vive. That isn't a knock per se, but you can't really expect as good of tracking fidelity in that price range.
DangerMouse
Member
Maybe they should have mentioned that during the stream then (didn't watch the whole thing but didn't really hear them say that to reassure people as much as they harped on how it wasn't working for them), and not just that they've had the same issues at home to give the whole story which they made sure to mention a few times. Ofcourse they were still being fair harping on the issues whether or not it ends up tied to their units or setting or actual software problem.
On the positive side for all their problems apparently the visual output of the headset quite impressed them.
I don't recall reading too much headset tracking problems in the past, the only area it mainly got some criticism at being worse at tracking was the with the Moves supposedly being less precise than the newer Vive controllers, which agreed is not unexpected given the cheaper price and ofcourse lack of room scale tracking. It's like half the price of the Vive though so lesser controllers isn't too bad as long as the headset itself especially does it's job.
I'm not referring to the wands here, I'm just making the comparison in that any sort of misfire in gaming like that drives me nuts. I liken it to a button tap not going through. Imagine high paced platformers and you need to time your jumps perfectly, but for whatever reason the x button is like... nah and you just fall. I've had it happen with older controllers or games having a hiccup and it's frustrating, but it's very very rare. PS move it wasn't. Agressive movements threw it off for me in a big way, so for games like disc golf or ping pong, I was constantly re calibrating. Sometimes I'd be holding the disc paralell to the ground, but it'd be pointing upwards and whatnot.
It's also why I wrote off kinect pretty much from the get go (ever wonder what the bottom of the avatars shoe looks like?!) the tracking was so mediocre.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but if that number of occurrences is anything but rare for me it's disappointing. I want my devices to work as they're supposed to, and in this case if it doesn't, it leads to all sorts of problems such as nausea and ruins the immersion.
I've said it several times, I'm too invested in this now, I'm too hyped to not get it, I'm really looking forward to it... but my expectations have dropped for now.
edit-
I'm not referring to the wands, I'm talking about headtracking.
edit edit- I also don't really give 2 shits about the wands, all I'm interested in is the HMD. Move wands are a mediocre tech. I have them already so I'll probably use them for games like until dawn and whatnot, but overall I'm not interested in using those for full experiences. I was hoping the farpoint controller would improve the issues of move- impressions have been really good about how it feels.
This is strange how people are expecting PSVR to be on part with products twice the price. I've had Moves for 5+ years, it's a decent starting point for VR controls and it's cheap as hell.
Why doesn't this product that has been on shelves for 5+ years not work perfectly for something it wasn't really created for? And why is something that was made specifically for this purpose, costs twice as much, and came out this year, perform better?
Again I'm not talking about the wands here, the move wands are trash tech IMO. I'm talking about the headset. I don't think ANYBODY is expecting PSVR to be the vive or rift in terms of visual fidelity, but in terms of headtracking? Hell yes I was. Headtracking is the key to VR, it's what creates presence when coupled with the FOV. If that's off even a hair it's disorienting and nauseating.
wanderingprostheyltite
Member
Gotcha, yeah head tracking should be more than adequate and that swimmy motion GB was experiencing is hopefully just a faulty unit occurrence and not a sign of a bad batch/larger manufacturing issue. I'd like to get one at some point so hopefully they can iron out any problems in the pipeline that may be occurring, and it isn't a larger tracking design/tech issue.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
I find the logic I'm reading here odd. We have Giant Bomb talking about problems and we have Gamestop saying there are no problems, so what's the conclusion? 'We'll have to wait and see'.
Why?
Are those people in the wait and see camp thinking it could be a fault that made the PSVR actually work 'correctly' for Gamespot? It's not a matter of which is telling the truth because I watched a bit of both and Gamespot had no problems just like they said, just as Giant Bomb had problems just like they said.
This only leaves ONE conclusion: something was wrong at Giant Bomb's end. That's all you can take from their stream. Something can't WORK when it's broken or of low quality. Stop this nonsensical back and forth and try to work out what went wrong with Giant Bombs stream. The firmware update? The lights or set up?
If people are using the Giant Bomb stream as a reason to doubt the PSVR even though we've got others saying they had no problem ... then I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously and have to suspect your motives.
Why?
Are those people in the wait and see camp thinking it could be a fault that made the PSVR actually work 'correctly' for Gamespot? It's not a matter of which is telling the truth because I watched a bit of both and Gamespot had no problems just like they said, just as Giant Bomb had problems just like they said.
This only leaves ONE conclusion: something was wrong at Giant Bomb's end. That's all you can take from their stream. Something can't WORK when it's broken or of low quality. Stop this nonsensical back and forth and try to work out what went wrong with Giant Bombs stream. The firmware update? The lights or set up?
If people are using the Giant Bomb stream as a reason to doubt the PSVR even though we've got others saying they had no problem ... then I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously and have to suspect your motives.
That's what I'm hopeful for. After months of trade shows I hadn't seen one negative comment. I was shocked tbh at first because the move tech was so troublesome with calibration. I figured it was the combination of software upgrades, maybe a tweak to the design, and the new camera since the pseye was pretty awful in certain lighting. Apparently this issue sounds like standard move stuff, where it needs very particular lighting, and it can be quite finnicky. Now I'm really interested to see somebody "stress test" it if you will. I know it wouldn't be common, but try some jarring/rapid head movements see how the tracking holds up. As I said with move, if the wands were swung around too much the cursor would drift really badly. I wouldn't expect it at all to be the same level, but even if it's only off a bit, that can ruin the VR experience.
Again you must not be reading the reviews, because there are several that cite a few tracking issues. Also Eurogamer apparently had a faulty unit as well. One of the problems is people read a positive review and assume everything went great. a few of the more positive reviews have mentioned minor issues of calibration.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Yep lol
jellies_two
Member
I've trawled through a whole bunch of written reviews and the median opinion seems to be
- The move controller tracking can be janky
- The headset tracking is good but with the proviso
a) if you adjust the camera for your height , the floor may be out of reach (of controllers and of headset if you feel the need to put your head on the ground)
b) if you sit too far away tracking is worse. 10 feet gets mentioned. So you either move a chair closer to the camera, best-buy style, or you move the camera closer to you. I suspect this is the source of a lot of headset tracking complaints.
c) the small dual shock controllers are easily obscured from the camera or lost by the camera, depending on how you like to hold them, which gets annoying.
So that's basically it. I'd say anything worse than this is some extra problem that shouldn't be there with a good unit.
- The move controller tracking can be janky
- The headset tracking is good but with the proviso
a) if you adjust the camera for your height , the floor may be out of reach (of controllers and of headset if you feel the need to put your head on the ground)
b) if you sit too far away tracking is worse. 10 feet gets mentioned. So you either move a chair closer to the camera, best-buy style, or you move the camera closer to you. I suspect this is the source of a lot of headset tracking complaints.
c) the small dual shock controllers are easily obscured from the camera or lost by the camera, depending on how you like to hold them, which gets annoying.
So that's basically it. I'd say anything worse than this is some extra problem that shouldn't be there with a good unit.
foolishoptimist
Member
Ars found their lighting could cause the issues GB were having, but solved them by dimming their lights.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Something can't work properly by accident. If it worked for some then it should work for everyone given the same situation, set up, lighting. We just need to know what they did wrong so we know how to rectify it when we eventually get PSVR.
I just find it crazy that people are ignoring the good reviews and just taking the less than stellar reviews to form an opinion on the quality of the hardware. You can't do that if it works for some but not others. It HAS to be the set up or some other random thing.
What are you talking about? Gamespot had the same issues:
Gamespot PS VR review said:
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Look, you're now being picky to prove a point. No one said perfection here. Giant Bomb's stream was filled with all sorts of problems that they spent 80% of the stream talking about constantly. Gamespot might have had a few problems but the only time they mentioned it while I was watching was in answer to a post they read in which they were asked if they were having problems just like GB. They answered 'no'.
You see, we're still doing it here. It's illogical unless you assume it was a fault that made it work for Gamespot and the reason it was not working for GB is because the tech was working is it should.
Can't you see how illogical that is? If someone had a game and it ran at 60fps on their PS4 but ran 55fps on your PS4, would you assume it was because their PS4 was faulty? Of course not, you'd immediately want to know what was wrong with your PS4.
ShadowKingpin
Member
Is there a video or article for that? I saw this mentioned last page as well.
Gamespot did not have the issues where the world around them was literally dancing.
NOBODY is ignoring anything except people like you imo. Bad experiences are more often than not outliers, but it doesn't mean it's not a problem. The major problem I have though is you claim to have paid attention to the "good reviews" and refused to acknowledge that even the good ones mention tracking issues. Look at the gamespot in the post linked above. This is not a unique problem, it appears this has the same tracking inconsistencies as psmove.
Wait what are you even saying. That judder and drift have been mentioned in a ton of reviews - Kotaku, gamespot, giant bombs stream, Eurogamer, mashables, and roadtovr. I don't think anybody is saying it'll be a problem like giant bomb was havung- what it does show is that sonys colored light technology still appears to be having issues with consistent tracking.
Glitchesarecool
Member
Yeah because that's a completely painless process.
Flashbacks to the RROD days should give people pause about this sort of thing.
DangerMouse
Member
This.
Pretty much this, some of the problems seem accurate but there's enough good that GB's "extra bad" shouldn't be used as "ammo" until the resolution as to what caused their problem, whether it's defective, a real issue, software, etc.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
You're missing my point. Let's leave it there because I've said it as many ways as I can in order to be clear. I choose to believe the tech is solid based on the fact it worked well for a lot of people. What I now want to know is why it didn't work for some so I can make sure I set it up right when I finally buy one.
Got the Shakes
Member
Right? Won't be able to exchange it at a store since they won't have any stock and then you're stuck dealing with sending it to Sony.
I haven't missed your point. You've missed mine and other people's points. VR needs to have perfect headtracking to be great. It just does. For some people it might not be a problem... for others the prospect of drift or judder is enough to make them feel queasy just thinking about it. My other problem with it is that the distinct possibility is there. Something like rigs for instance, which is supposed to be a highly competitive game, needs quick, snappy, and precise response in order for it to be considered as a legitimate competitive game. If the tech is unreliable games like that will fail.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I'm not sure how it is in other parts of the world, but if you live anywhere in the west, I don't see what's to be nervous about. If it's not working to your satisfaction, or if the unit is defective, just return it to a store you got it from. You'll know this after just few hours, if not less. I'd be bummed if it doesn't work well enough, for sure, but I think that if the vast majority can set it up properly, I'll be able to as well.
Keep in mind also that three of the most technically minded review sites have been very positive about it: Ars, Road to VR and Eurogamer should hold more weight IMO than most, when it comes to review of a tech like this.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Seriously look ... to put it in a nutshell: Some people are using GB to say it's rubbish and some people are using Gamespot to say it's good. You wouldn't assume that a fault with the hardware would make it work so clearly there isn't a fault with the hardware. The only logical thing is to try and find out why it didn't work for GB. It's illogical thinking to look at it any other way. Is it perfect, NO. Is it as bad as GB made it look, Not even close.
Are you kidding me?
The tracking lights are blue, and that red light is at least 5 feet from where he's sitting. You can't see a hint of red light when they turn the lights down, and the camera is pointed in that light's general direction. If that little red light is fucking things up, PSVR's tracking is simply not good enough for the real world.
Maybe all the obsoleted dark rooms for developing film can be repurposed as PSVR play spaces because that's apparently what you need for it to work right.
Unless you think they faked the problems then it is 100% as bad as it looked in their setup.
DangerMouse
Member
Maybe I'm wrong but to me he's just saying that some problems may exist but that GB's were above and beyond so they shouldn't be the "end all be all" when there are plenty of good reviews that faced few or much more minor calibration, jittering, etc. even when they did experience it. He's not saying it's perfect or without issues or that GB's problems should be written off or not acknowledged by prospective buyers. I think his point is that when talking about it people should cite both not just one extreme or the other.
Equating it to RROD that effected virtually all of the launch units just to allow MS to launch a year earlier than the competition? C'mon on now.
Why are you ignoring the other outlets reporting similar issues?
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
DangerMouse
Member
The camera probably knows how to account for natural light or standard indoor lights (and this probably still needs software improvements as these headsets evolve) but any extra colored lights are probably a nightmare.
The dualshock can be different colors and still needs to be tracked for example.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Did you watch GB? Something was wrong. Dear God, this is infuriating. It's NOT perfect, as I've already pointed out, but clearly from all the reviews and all the other people I've seen demoing it, it's no even close to as bad as GB made it look. And I'll add that Jim Sterling and Gamespot were just playing the games while GB seemed to be constantly jerking it this way and that and contorting their arms in all sorts of unnecessary ways.
I feel as if you're trying to drag my argument to the extreme in order to retain your position on this.
That is ridiculous.
Distinguishing RED from BLUE is literally the easiest thing to do in computer vision. Don't want to see red? Don't look at the R values in your RGB image.
It should also be able to ignore things that are far away from the last known position from the headset.
I could see if the headset was using red LEDs AND he was standing near that light, but neither of those things were the case.
Am I missing something? I only see GB commenting on this issue your talking about. Is it really widespread?
DangerMouse
Member
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Most streams talked about a few hickups occasionally while GB talked about them for a good 80% of the time.
Actually Ars said lighting plays a big factor. Eurogamer got a faulty headset and had to swap it out... as for roadtovr.
"Curiously, despite also using an outside-in tracking system, Ive still seen a fair share of drift of Playstation VR. The good news is that Sony has made it easy to reset at any time by holding the Options button for a few seconds (however some apps seem to only treat that reset as a positional calibration and not a rotational recentering).
Why it drift happens in the first place on PSVR though is a bit of a mystery to me. I havent been able to put my finger on it just yet, but it seems to happen worse in some experiences than others; it could be a case of newer drift-correction code not yet being applied globally. Whatever the case, theres hope that this could be improved through software with later updates."
So they've been positive, but struggled with drift in fact a "fair bit". Also I'm worried because I want the tech to be good. Iv'e been excited for this for a while, and now it appears it has the same issues move has in general with drift.
My core argument has never been that it will be disastrous though, and I think most concerned, are worried about the drift, not the outright failure of the headset.
yes you are missing something. I'm talking about drift. more than just GB have mentioned it.
- eurogamer
- kotaku
- roadtovr
- gamespot
to name a few. there are more I'm not remembering at the moment for sure. Gamespot and roadtovr have direct quotes a few posts up.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Well, to be fair, I wasn't addressing you in my original post, I was addressing those that are investing entirely in the GB demo without taking into account the others. We'll leave it at that because we'll end up recalibrating.
DangerMouse
Member
No the topic changed to talk about drift, before the topic was overall tracking and lighting.
But GB was facing much more than drift which was, at least it seemed like to me, what got Jeff's ire up, not so much the drift.
drift is a serious problem though. It's not outright devastating like the GB situation, but it may even be related to the gb situation. They mentioned it also happened at home, and it lines up with the same issues the move wands had, where calibration was all over the place and very finnicky depending on the lighting situation.
Lol what? People have motives because they are cautious about laying down money on new tech in an industry where new tech fails to take off more often than not?
People are allowed to be cautious without there being some kind of secret conspiracy to see Sonys latest product fail. Lets not forget this is just a message board we are posting on, we aren't going to make or break Sonys success.
