No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Again takes place a year after the events of the original, but it's not exactly a sequel. Along with fighting waves of baddies, players will have to navigate through indie games like Hotline Miami.
The post ‘No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Again’ could be seven games in one on the Switch appeared first on Digital Trends.
Our Biomutant hands-on preview from Gamescom has definitely piqued our interest for this Redwall-meets-Fallout, third-person action-RPG.
The post ‘BioMutant’ Hands-On Preview appeared first on Digital Trends.
Absolver lets players live their kung-fu dreams wandering from battle to hard-won battle, using a rewarding combat system and a mix of cooperative and competitive multiplayer.
The post ‘Absolver’ review appeared first on Digital Trends.
The sequel to Destiny will see a staggered launch in 2017, with console gamers gaining first access to the beta and final release, though PC gamers can expect better visuals and options when it shows up in October.
The post ‘Destiny 2’ rumors and news – everything we know so far appeared first on Digital Trends.
[Editor’s Note] – This article was previously published on November 23, 2016, but has been republished today to coincide with our latest article here about the Alien: Isolation VR mod. It now has support for both Oculus Rift CV1 and the HTC Vive directly through SteamVR. Now this is one of the best VR horror games that you totally can play again!
VR and horror are a match made in Heaven (or Hell, depending on who you ask). I’m a horror fanatic, and always have been ever since I played the first Resident Evil on the original PlayStation. It was always that sense of atmosphere, immersion and fear of the unknown that kept bringing me back for more. So naturally the first thing I did when I started experimenting in VR was look for some great horror experiences.
Dreadhalls, and Lost in the Rift were the first VR horror games that made me realize the potential there was for scaring the crap out of people in VR. As simple as those games are, they still scared me more than any other horror game I’d ever played at that point.
The full potential of the genre was realized when Sega released Alien Isolation on October 7th, 2014 and a few weeks later I had eagerly modded a couple of lines of code in the config file unlocking an “experimental” VR build of the game. Sega used the VR version of the game to help promote the 2D version during E3, and it worked as many a reporters came away scared silly by their first horror experience in VR. Luckily for us Oculus Rift DK2 owners at the time, Sega left the VR build intact in the final retail release.
Alien Isolation is still, to this day, the premiere showcase for what can be achieved when a AAA horror game is given the VR treatment. Since it’s still early for many big game developers to commit big budgets to VR projects, most recent horror games have so far been created by small indie teams and they generally feature simplistic game mechanics, low production values, and often rely on cheap jump scares to get a reaction out of people. Alien Isolation is able to leverage these AAA production values and create a game that can instead focus on world building, suspense, story, atmosphere, and gameplay.
VR surrounds you with visuals and sound in full 360 environments, providing the ultimate sense of immersion, and when the developer meticulously replaces your world with one of their design, the results in the case of Alien Isolation are remarkable. Developer Creative Assembly has taken the essence of the first Alien movie, and has captured the atmosphere, the 80’s stylistic future tech-noir, pumping music, high-quality visuals, and used it all to faithfully recreate that feeling in the game. The authenticity of the world is a big reason why this game works so well in VR. It’s a fully fleshed out, darkly beautiful world that can be fully explored and interacted with.
I played a good portion of Alien Isolation on my tri-monitor surround setup in 2D and the transition to VR was far beyond what I’d thought the experience would add. Playing Alien Isolation in VR felt more like a dream now that I think about it. I can still clearly remember exact level layouts. I can remember walking the halls, and corridors of the Sevastopol – like I was there in person, more like a memory of being somewhere than just playing through a video game.
The sense of scale can only be realized through the power of VR, and it really is essential to achieving the sense of presence that the game can elicit. Presence is the holy grail of the VR experience, and Alien Isolation was one of the few games ever to make me feel like I was “really” someplace else. You feel like you’ve walked the entire space station, multiple times, and can truly appreciate all the detail that went into the game’s great level design, and overall aesthetic. The atmosphere is genuinely terrifying and leaves your senses completely consumed. After experiencing Alien Isolation VR, I felt like a survivor, like I’d been a part of one of the best horror games ever made.
All that being said, he highlights of the experience are undoubtedly the Alien encounters. Each moment is a suspenseful game of cat and mouse. Instead of just holding a button to peak out around a corner, or from behind a desk, or from under a bed, trying to spot the Alien from the other side of a TV screen,you are actually using your head and your body movements to try and keep your foe in visible range. Being finally discovered by the Alien in VR, really is something that made my heart skip a beat (or two) and the fact that as I ran I could actually turn my head and look behind me as the Alien was bearing down on me is something that could never be experienced in standard flat 2D gaming. The sense of fear is much more palatable in VR, and it’s really difficult to separate yourself from the horror unfolding around you.
Horror is a genre that people either love, hate, or love to hate. I sometimes ask myself why I want to put myself in such traumatic situations and I believe it’s the feeling of being alive, that fight or flight response, that really makes me come back for more. VR takes that fear to a new level, and with games like Alien Isolation it’s possible to get completely immersed and scared like never before. You live the horror around you, and there is no looking away (closing your eyes is cheating!)
The future looks very promising for horror VR with games like Resident Evil 7, Alison Road, Stifled, and Narcosis all coming soon. Anyone who has played the Resident Evil 7 Kitchen demo will be sure to tell you that Capcom is not concerned with easing the potential millions of PS VR players into the awesome world of AAA VR horror.
With Sega recently confirming that they are in fact working on VR titles, the prospect of a fully-featured and more complete version of Alien Isolation running inside virtual reality headsets could be more likely than you think.
Tagged with: alien isolation, Creative Assembly, resident evil, scary, sega, vr horror
Lurking on the fringes of society after terrifying monsters have consumed the city, a monster waits. It listens to every conversation, digs up long-forgotten secrets, uncovers lies from the past, it consumes human emotion. It is you. This is the experience that awaits players of Manimal Sanctuary.
Postopian Games have released a free demo of its virtual reality (VR) horror title for Google Cardboard. Available for both iOS and Android, the demo puts the player in role of a Lovecraftian monster who is lurking in the suburban islands of Toronto after the rest of the city was consumed by some dark monstrosity. The player can eavesdrop on conversations between the survivors as they try to scrap together a living and survive. Players need to search for strong emotions to survive, and if they can’t find any, there are dark secrets hidden in the pasts of some of the survivors, just waiting to be uncovered.
Controls are handled using gaze-based interaction, so will not require extra peripherals or controllers to function. The developers also made a deliberate choice to make the performance of the title not be too demanding on older or lower-spec smartphones, to allow more people to enjoy Manimal Sanctuary.
A blog by writer and designer Jim Munroe speaks further to the goals they developers had in mind with Manimal Sanctuary: “This question of what kind of society do we want to have — how safe, and how just — is of obvious relevance to our current political discussion about immigration, refugees, and terrorism,” he said, “We’re also interested in seeing what the player comfort is in relation to the creature they embody. Is manipulation of humans OK if it’s allowing them to survive? Is the farmer/livestock relationship — wherein humans are providing emotions, as cows provide milk — one we’re entirely comfortable with?”
A video trailer is available to view below.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Manimal Sanctuary as it becomes available.
Lenovo has comes out all guns blazing today at IFA in Germany this week, with its big augmented reality (AR) announcement coming in the form of the Lenovo Mirage AR headset – with plenty of mentions to Star Wars. While smartphones aren’t generally VRFocus’ thing unless mentioned alongside headset support like the LG V30, Lenovo’s Motorola division has unveiled the Moto x4 a mid-range device with an AR photo feature.
Essentially a way to spice up user images – mainly selfies – the feature lets them add a layer of animations to their photos or videos. While few details have been released on what this actually looks like, it sounds very similar to those from Snapchat or Facebook for example.
While not exactly the most amazing use of AR technology adding features such as these certainly does help bring the tech to as wider audience as possible, certainly helping consumers take notice when headset like the Mirage arrive.
In May a report by eMarketer showed that because of the rise in these types of features, AR market growth has continued to climb, estimating that in the US AR use has grown by around 30 percent since 2016.
As AR continues to grow, seeing greater use as an everyday technology, VRFocus will bring you the latest announcements.
It feels like every few days for the past month or so we’ve been covering a new Windows ‘Mixed Reality’ VR headset from a different manufacturer that gets new details, new apps, or a price/release date. As a result, today is no different. Lenovo announced that its newly dubbed “Lenovo Explorer” headset will cost $349 and is expected to be available across the globe “in coming weeks” according to a company blog post.
The Lenovo Explorer joins the Acer, HP, Asus, and Dell in a growing portfolio of VR headsets running on the Windows VR platform that we’ve known about but haven’t seen many details on. The Lenovo device comes in at the exact same $349 price tag as the Dell, while the HP is $20 cheaper at $329 and the Acer is poised to be the cheapest with the lowest price of $299. The lack of headstrap padding and less precise tightening mechanisms both contribute to the lower cost. We’re still waiting to find out the US price of the Asus, but it’s set at 449 euro for now.
In terms of specs the Lenovo Explorer is expected to be identical to all of the other Windows VR devices with inside-out tracking cameras and no need for external sensors. You can read more about the system requirements here. Optionally, just like the other headsets, you can also purchase a pair of Windows VR motion controllers for $99 or in a bundle with the Lenovo Explorer for $449. The controllers connect via bluetooth and grant you hand presence inside the virtual space.
Once the Windows VR platform is fully launched there should be plenty of stuff for users to do. In addition to big VR titles like Superhot, Arizona Sunshine, and Rec Room all making their way over to the Windows Store, these headsets will also support Steam and are expected to receive their very own Halo VR game as well sometime soon. In fact, Lenovo is stating that “more than 100 VR-ready titles” are in the line-up. Although we expect that at least some of these “more than 100 VR-ready titles” could just be non-VR games upscaled to VR using Lenovo’s Entertainment Hub.
On a mostly unrelated note, Lenovo also detailed today its upcoming collaborative project with Disney: the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges AR platform. It’s releasing this November for $199 and includes the new Lenovo Mirage AR headset, lightsaber controller, a stationary tracking beacon, and a suite of apps that let you duel Sith lords and command forces on the battlefield.
What do you think of the Lenovo Explorer and Windows VR as a whole? Let us know down in the comments below!
Tagged with: lenovo, windows mixed reality, windows VR
Last year virtual reality (VR) developer Turbo Button released quirky puzzle title Floor Plan for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. Today the studio has announced the addition of motion controller support with an update called Floor Plan: Hands-On Edition.
For existing Oculus Rift owners the update is free of charge, so they can start using their hands to navigate the different floors. And there’s good news for HTC Vive owners, with Turbo Button has confirmed support will be coming soon.
For those new to Floor Plan, the videogame is a puzzle solving adventure set entirely inside an elevator. Players will go from floor to floor uncovering mysteries and surprises along the way. A few floors are open initially and as you progress more will open up. Some include graveyards, snow filled freezers and pools of lava. And each puzzle isn’t necessarily solved on its own floor, you’ll have to remember which floors are which as you take the elevator ever higher.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Turbo Button and Floor Plan, reporting back with any further updates.
Lenovo was announced as one of the companies creating the Windows 10 Mixed Reality headsets earlier this year, alongside other brands such as Dell, Acer and ASUS. Lenovo has now announced the official name of the device: the Lenovo Explorer.
Full details on the device, such as a full specification list, are yet to be unveiled, but Lenovo have confirmed that there will be more than 100 virtual reality (VR) compatible videogames and apps available for the device on launch. The company further says that users will be able to access Microsoft Office, explore ‘holo-tours’ and use a virtual office environment as well as play VR videogames and watch 360-degree video.
Curiously, the website for the Lenovo Explorer specifically mentioned Xbox titles as follows: “Be the hero in popular Xbox games in a world you deserve.” Most take this to mean playing Xbox titles via the Windows 10 Xbox app, but it is a curious choice of phrasing since several analysts have noted that cross-compatibility between Xbox One and Windows 10 would, theoretically, be fairly easy for the Mixed reality devices, a point raised by head of Xbox China Xie Enwei.
Microsoft have previously confirmed that there will be MR projects for top Microsoft franchise Halo, and there are plans for have Windows 10 MR devices, such as the Lenovo Explorer, compatible with Steam VR.
A price point and release date for the Lenovo Explorer has yet to be confirmed, though it is expected to launch sometime in December, 2017 and the price will likely be comparable to the HP and Acer devices, which are currently priced at $329 (USD) and $299 respectively.
VRFocus will bring you further information on the Lenovo Explorer and other Windows 10 MR devices as it becomes available.
At the D23 Expo in Anaheim, CA earlier this year Lenovo and Disney revealed a partnership, with Lucasfilm, to work on a Star Wars-themed AR experience platform. Titled Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, users would don a specially created Lenovo headset, hold a replica lightsaber handle, and embark on a series of adventures and challenges to become one with The Force.
Today, Lenovo is announcing that the entire platform (Lenovo Mirage headset, lightsaber handle, tracking beacon, and AR apps) will launch this holiday season in November, 2017 for $199.99 and will feature “hours of gameplay.” You can pre-order it now at Best Buy and Lenovo.
The Jedi Challenges platform will feature three core experiences: lightsaber battles, strategic combat, and holochess. You’ll be able to fight in a lightsaber duel against the likes of Kylo Ren and even Darth Vader whereas the “strategic combat” is reportedly like a mini-RTS shrunk down onto the floor.
By looking down with the headset on you’ll see rebel and empire forces duking it out as you take control and command the armies. Finally, there’s holochess, because of course there is. In the video below you can get a first-look at what there is on display from a video featuring the Carlin Brothers.
Once the headset is released all you need to do is download the Jedi Challenges app and slide the phone into Lenovo Mirage headset. You place the tracking beacon (shown below a couple of paragraphs) on the floor so it can see the lightsaber controller, and then you’re good to go. The headset looks like it works very similarly to the Mira Prism AR headset.
There are two sensors on the front of the headset to provide inside-out positional tracking so you can easily move around the environment. Since the visor just rests in front of your eyes you can also easily see through the images and still get a feel for your physical surroundings, which is how it creates the illusion of augmented reality in a 3D space.
Once you pair the lightsaber you’ll use it for everything from fighting off Sith lords to selecting options in the menu. Lenovo describes it as a “collectible quality” replica Skywalker lightsaber handle. “Through visible light-tracking technology, the headset’s sensors work together to lock onto the position of the Lightsaber controller, allowing players to see a beam form above the “hilt”, which they can use to block and interact with the universe in-game,” Lenovo states in its press release. “Haptic feedback is activated as players strike or block their opponents, while an inertial measurement unit sends rotational information from the controller to the smartphone to assist the beam in remaining stable mid-swing.
How all of this adds up to “hours of gameplay” remains to be seen, but it’s certainly an exciting thing to think about unwrapping beneath a Christmas tree this holiday season.
What do you think of the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges AR platform? Let us know down in the comments below!
Tagged with: Star Wars
Sync Think’s concussion diagnosis VR kit aims to accurately and quickly identify players who are injured.
A pair of companies are leading the charge to change professional and college sports using VR.
We’ve previously covered STRIVR, a startup which emerged from Stanford, as the company works to evolve training for football and other sports. The startup even extended out to the corporate world to train Walmart workers. We’ve now confirmed with the company more than 30 teams are using STRIVR with notable additions entering the winter and spring seasons including the US Ski Team, German National Soccer Team, Chicago Bears, Baylor Bears (college football) and the Chicago Blackhawks. STRIVR captures 360-degree footage allowing players to put on a VR headset to extend their training beyond the hours they spend on the field, slope, pitch, or rink. The startup has been rolling out its technology to more and more teams over the last few years.
Another company called SyncThink is working to diagnose concussions more quickly and accurately using VR. With an injured player donning a VR headset with eye tracking technology inside, and proprietary software powering the system, SyncThink aims to track eye movement patterns that are a signature of concussions. The company recently announced roll-outs at Iowa State and the University of Texas, which join Stanford University. The company expects to announce more partners in the coming months.
The classic way of testing for a concussion would be for a physician to move their finger in front of the player’s eyes and see how well it is followed. Using cameras and infrared lights inside a VR headset, though, SyncThink aims to objectively track the precise eye movements of a player. The below chart from SyncThink shows the eye movements of a healthy person and one suffering from a concussion. The jerky movements traced in the red indicate a concussion. As time passes you can see the movements more closely resembling the baseline.
SyncThink’s technology enables teams to “get an assessment of how the brain is functioning in real-time,” according to Scott Anderson, the former Director of Athletic Training at Stanford University, and SyncThink’s Chief Customer officer.
These companies are far from the only ones attempting to use VR to change sports, but they are doing real-world roll-outs aimed at making individual teams both better at the game and healthier in the long run. We hope to hear detailed results in the coming months and years that indicate how successful these efforts are at changing the game.
Tagged with: STRIVR, Sync Think, training
Originally founded in 2016, the aim of VRrOOm was to bring virtual reality (VR) experiences to a broader range of people, along with helping to accelerate the growth of the VR market. In furtherance of that aim, VRrOOm is launching a syndication program called Speedr to help make high-quality VR experiences available to all.
Founder of VRrOOm Louis Cacciuttolo believes that location-based VR outlets are the key to bringing VR to a wider audience, and in order to further the efforts of location-based VR, Speedr is hoping to offer a syndication of quality VR content to make is available to various VR outlets. The company also hopes this will spur further development of high-quality VR content for location-based VR, since there is more likely to be a guaranteed market for it to be sold to.
Cacciuttolo said: “Speedr is meant to accelerate the growth of the VR entertainment market by bridging the numerous gaps existing between VR content producers / developers, distributors, technology or equipment suppliers, and the audience. We believe that physical outlets providing quality VR experiences are the key to unlock the market and we want to help our Location Based
Experience (LBE) partners succeed.” he continued, “VR is taking too long, and Speedr is born to make it happen faster. Industry professionals are suffering but few concrete steps are taken to tackle the immediate causes of the issue. Speedr is like a spider building a net to link all VR entertainment industry actors together, in order to attract a larger audience with better offers across a stronger and wider platform, as soon as possible.”
VRFocus will bring you further information on Speedr and VRrOOm as it becomes available.
Earlier this year Microsoft hired the head of marketing from Oculus, Liz Hamren, to run the company’s efforts as it started building up toward launching a series of VR headsets. We’re starting to see the culmination of those efforts, with a Halo project coming for VR, a $900 all-in entry point for Windows-based VR systems, Steam support and some quality content on the way to the Windows store.
Turns out Oculus found a replacement for Hamren in Rebecca Van Dyck, a veteran of the company who just spent “6 months away,” according to a Facebook update:
In 2014 Facebook acquired Oculus (the leader in virtual reality technology) and as a FB employee, we all got these t-shirts to commemorate the new addition to the family. My daughters immediately co-opted the shirt, telling me I wasn’t cool enough to wear it.
Today that all changes!
I’m super excited to announce that I will be rejoining my Facebook family after 6 months away! Starting next week (September 5th), I’ll be the new Chief Marketing Officer for the Oculus team. Oculus’ virtual reality technology aims to serve Facebook’s mission of “bringing the world closer together” and I’m thrilled to be a part of advancing this mission and advancing virtual reality with all of its zillions of possible incarnations. I can’t wait to dive in and help bring some of world’s most innovative tech products to people across the globe.
I’ve come back from our “semester abroad” energized, with perspective and curiosity. And I’m so excited to start this new chapter, and to earn the right to wear the shirt.
According to a Linkein profile in Rebecca Van Dyck’s name, she worked at Facebook for five years and left in February this year as VP of Consumer and Brand Marketing. She serves on a number of boards including the New York Times. She returns to Facebook’s Oculus as its chief marketing officer.
It will likely fall on Van Dyck to lead marketing efforts as Facebook prepares standalone headsets and ultimately aims to reach billions of people with VR, going way beyond the hardcore gamers that were initially targeted for the Oculus Rift.
Tagged with: marketing, oculus
If you’ve been keeping up with VRFocus’ coverage of the IFA conference in Germany you’ll have seen Ricoh announce a new 360-degree camera, LG supporting Daydream with the V30 and Dell showcasing its Windows mixed reality (MR) headset. For all those Star Wars fans out there – and there’s certainly a few – the best is yet to come. Lenovo has now confirmed a price plus release window for its augmented reality (AR) headset, the Mirage, which will feature exclusive title Star Wars: Jedi Challenges.
First teased back in July with a brief trailer, further details are now available. The smartphone-powered Lenovo Mirage AR headset, Tracking Beacon, Lightsaber controller and Star Wars: Jedi Challenges have been unveiled as part of Force Friday II which occurs tomorrow. The kit will be available to pre-order tomorrow for $199.99 USD at BestBuy.com and Lenovo online, with Best Buy stores having stock in November. The kit will be available in other markets during November, but there’s no confirmation yet of price or retailers.
“With Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, Lenovo and Disney are bringing Star Wars to fans in ways they could previously only imagine,” said Jeff Meredith, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo Consumer PCs & Smart Devices in as statement. “Augmented Reality has always been an important part of Star Wars, and it’s exciting to bring these key moments to life by marrying Lenovo technology with Disney’s storytelling.”
As for Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, players will be able to hone their Jedi talents across three separate AR-based experiences. First there are Lightsaber Battles. Using the lightsaber controller, fans can train against legendary dark side villains like Kylo Ren and Darth Vader. Players will then be able to rally the forces of the Republic, Rebel Alliance, and Resistance against the might of the Separatists, Empire, and First Order in battles across their living rooms. Lastly to get that grey matter working there’s Holochess. So now fans can actually direct holographic alien pieces across a board.
“We believe augmented reality will usher in a new era of storytelling and play an important role in the experiences we create for our fans,” said Kyle Laughlin, Senior Vice President, Games and Interactive Experiences, Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media. “With Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, we’re bringing together the latest technology and one of the most recognized franchises in the galaxy to fulfill the wishes of anyone who’s ever wanted to wield a lightsaber or take on the empire forces on the battlefield.”
The videogame supports both Android and iOS smartphones. The Lenovo Mirage AR headset features two built-in fisheye sensors to provide inside-out positional tracking, while the Tracking Beacon is placed on the floor, acting as a stable base for the headset’s sensors to detect the user’s movement during gameplay.
As further details on the Lenovo Mirage are released VRFocus will let you know.
Animation is a complex, specialised process. Animators spend years learning and perfecting their craft. CGI animation often costs millions of dollars to make and several years to go from concept to release. Now its possible to bypass all of that and create animated virtual reality (VR) movies using your body and voice with Mindshow.
Mindshow has just been launched in Steam Early Access, where it is now available for users of the HTC Vive. With VR integration, users can simply act out the various parts of the animation, then skin your characters how you want and piece them together to create an animated short. The current Early Access version includes the ‘Presentation Playset’ which includes three ‘puppet’ characters that users can pilot around, several set pieces, props and a stage area.
Users can link in their YouTube accounts to share finished or work-in-progress animation works with the community. Content shared this way will be curated and shared by the development team as part of the ‘Featured Shows’ tab inside the app.
Mindshow is available as a free download to Steam users. The current version is only available with official support for HTC Vive, but compatibility with Oculus Rift is expected to be added at a later date.
The development team are actively seeking feedback from the community on what features they want to see improved, or now things to add into the application.
A trailer for the Early access launch is available to view below. Further information and updates can be found on the Steam Store page.
VRFocus will bring you further news on Mindshow as it becomes available.
Capcom must be feeling nostalgic since this year marks the 30th anniversary of the Street Fighter franchise. In celebration, the company is re-releasing the SNES version of Street Fighter 2 this November.
The post Capcom celebrates ‘Street Fighter 2’ anniversary with real SNES cartridges appeared first on Digital Trends.
Until September 9, Amazon is offering 20 percent off a selection of brand-name mice, keyboards, headsets, and more for PAX West. These hot gaming accessory deals include high-ticket items from makers like Logitech and Razer.
The post Eight hot gaming accessory deals from Amazon’s PAX West 20 percent off sale appeared first on Digital Trends.
The president of the International Olympic Committee has indicated that video games chosen for potential esports events at the 2024 summer games would be held to strict content standards.
The post IOC president doesn’t want esports bringing violent video games to the Olympics appeared first on Digital Trends.
Want to be a Jedi? Disney and Lenovo have teamed up to create an augmented reality headset that lets you wield a lightsaber. Deflect blaster shots, play Holochess, or fight Kylo Ren in ‘Star Wars: Jedi Challenges.’
The post ‘Star Wars: Jedi Challenges’ hands-on preview appeared first on Digital Trends.
There was some good news for laptop gamers, and their wallets, out of IFA on Thursday, August 31, as Razer announced a new configuration for its top-end 17.3-inch Blade Pro laptop.
The post Razer carves out a place for budget-minded gamers with new Blade Pro appeared first on Digital Trends.
Watch us play Destiny 2 on PC. We'll check out the new strike mission and some serious competitive multi-player action, all from the comfort of a high-end PC.
The post Watch us play Destiny 2 on PC at 3 p.m. Pacific / 6 p.m. Eastern appeared first on Digital Trends.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) content studio UNLTD has announced the closure of a seed funding round, securing the company $1.1 million of investment.
The round was led by a group formed by serial entrepreneur and Vrvana investor Richard D. Adler of Interdomus as well as media and entertainment investor David Reckziegel of Rex Media Capital. UNLTD will use the funding to expand its client services as well as continue its original immersive content.
“Virtual and augmented reality are the next frontier in entertainment and branded content,” says co-founder and CEO, John Hamilton in a statement. “At UNLTD we are committed to driving immersive content to new levels. It’s an amazing new storytelling platform and we’re developing cutting edge production techniques for immersive content. With this funding, we have the opportunity to continue building on our current success with clients such as Universal Pictures (Fifty Shades Darker), A&E Networks (Fall Into Me) and brands such as L’Oréal Cosmetics and Intercontinental Hotels”.
UNLTD’s recent work includes live-action interactive film project Trinity. A science fiction VR series, the story is set in the future where humans have long been extinct. Androids, the last surviving beings on Earth, are fighting a final war for freedom against an all-powerful A.I., their God. Currently in post-production, Trinity’s pilot episode will be released to select partners by fall of 2017.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of UNLTD, reporting back with further updates.
Sensics is finally releasing its VR headset to public venues. The design of these goggles reportedly brings a more hygienic and comfortable experience while also sporting a higher resolution than consumer headsets.
The post Sensics’ latest VR headset has 70 percent more pixels than the Vive or Rift appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fallout 4 VR really brings the beloved game into VR with all its content intact. It will be heaven for fans who just want to see it, and hell for anyone who actually tries to play it.
The post ‘Fallout 4 VR’ hands-on preview appeared first on Digital Trends.
Technology enthusiasts continue to itch for a proper look at Magic Leap’s technology. The Florida-based company carries an incredible amount of financial backing, roughly $1.4 billion, to build out its technology platform. For years now we’ve been forced to piece together our best guesses at the company’s approach to the VR/AR industry, with a headset that is purported to deliver light fields to its wearer’s eyes. This method of inserting digital objects into your view might be visually indistinguishable from unaltered reality, or at least that’s the promise.
Even if the technology is able to deliver on that lofty promise there are serious concerns about the size, weight, processing and power requirements of the hardware that could make it uncomfortable, ugly or impossible to wear in a real world setting. The company seems to be continually showing hints of what it hopes to deliver one day, including a series of patents depicting a variety of designs that may or may not resemble the final product.
And that seems to again be the case with the latest patent, filed in 2015 and published this week. Magic Leap told Business Insider “what you are looking at is not our product.”
Nevertheless, the level of interest in updates on Magic Leap, as well as the title of the patent (“Virtual reality glasses”) demands that we shine a light on the latest from the company. The company has been a defender of the term “Mixed Reality” to refer to its technology and its CEO Rony Abovitz has been critical of the current way VR headsets display imagery. So to see the company patent VR glasses is certainly notable, even if powered by different technology.
The patent is number D795,952.
Tagged with: Magic Leap
If you own an Oculus Rift and enjoy the odd first-person shooter (FPS) or two, then you’ll might be pleased to hear that indie developer Game Cooks will be releasing its videogame Vindicta on the headset next month.
Game Cooks originally launched Vindicta on HTC Vive back in June as an Early Access title, and since then has received additional content and a price reduction. The Oculus Rift release on 14th September will not only add support for the headset but also improvements and bug fixes. On top of that there will be another discount, reducing the price from $14.99 USD down to $12.89.
The storyline of Vindicta revolves around the player taking the role of Agent V, who has been sent to infiltrate the fortified headquarters of the sinister UB Industries, a company seeking to build a robot army in an attempt to take over the world. The player will encounter a variety of robotic foes, from humanoid robots to big mechanical spiders as they work through several levels.
To make it standout from the rest of the FPS crowd Vindicta employs a movement system, whereby players swing their arms to make them move – much like Survios’ Sprint Vector or Dash Dash Run! – which hasn’t been used on this genre of videogame before. And for those that don’t want to swing their arms around there’s always the trackpad option.
As further details are released VRFocus will keep you updated.
Sparc from CCP Games just launched for PlayStation VR (PSVR) and if you’re considering picking it up you should be warned: it’s pretty intense. After each session (even if it’s only an hour long) I am already sweating and need to take a break. It plays out a lot like a Tron disc battle, except instead of throwing discs you throw glowing orbs at your opponents.
In theory it’s a simple game, but when you start considering the angles of bouncing the ball, strategies of racking up strikes, deflections, dodging, and more — it’s a surprisingly deep experience. And since everything is all about competitive 1v1 multiplayer, you’ll need all the tips you can get to excel. That’s exactly why we reached out to Sigurdur Gunnarsson, a developer at CCP, and combined his advice with our own to help you take control of the court online.
When you’re playing a new multiplayer game it can be tempting to skip the training scenarios and dive straight into the full game. I’m advising you not to do that here. While the premise itself is simple enough (throw your ball at your opponent but don’t get hit) the underlying systems do require a bit of explanation. For starters, if you hit the zone directly behind your opponent (but miss them) you earn a “strike” instead of a point.
As you rack up strikes the size of your orb will increase, as will its speed. This balances the game out because even if your opponent is dodging your orb like crazy you still get rewarded for good accuracy. Watch the video above for more details about the game’s Training session and you can also do the solo challenge missions to help with target practice and aiming your deflections.
At the heart of Sparc is the orb that you throw and the shield that it creates when held in your own hand. Its easy to become reliant on the shield and feel helpless if you’re not holding your ball, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You should really practice your dodging.
Ducking is easy enough, as is moving from side to side, but more than just avoiding the orb is deciding how you want to avoid the orb. If you duck down low and let it sail over your head, that could throw off your aim for a follow-up. When possible, try turning or side-stepping the orb and immediately following up with a throw of your own because you know your opponent will be defenseless.
From my experience there are a few times that are best to throw your orb at your opponent. As mentioned before the obvious time to do it is when they’re waiting on their orb to return and they don’t have a shield. This way they’re forced to try and dodge (or punch, if you’re playing Basic.)
But another smart strategy is to deflect your opponent’s orb back at them with your own shield and then immediately throw your orb as well. If you aim both attacks correctly then your opponent could be forced to try and dodge two orbs at the same time, or quickly retriever their own and deflect yours back immediately. It’s a tough position for them to be in and is one of the best ways to get a point.
When throwing your orb you should make a conscious effort to extend your entire arm and follow through with throws. Reach back all the way behind your head with the orb and perform a complete arc. Don’t just flick your wrist because that won’t have enough speed and is more likely to get thrown off erratically.
This is especially helpful if you’re trying to make straight shots down the arena or bank orbs off of walls. Good throwing form is just as important as good aim — they go hand in hand.
Speaking of, don’t try and pelt your opponent with the orb directly each time. These shots are easy to deflect or punch and can very simply be side-stepped without much issue. A much smarter approach is to bank the orb off of walls and keep your opponent guessing.
It can be hard to predict where an orb is going to land if you bank it off of walls, but that’s not really your concern. If it misses then it will come back without issue and if you land a hit, then great! You really have nothing to lose. Eventually, you’ll even get the hang of the trajectories and and be able to intentionally make hits from wall bounces with regularity.
This is a bit harder to pull off, but if you twist your wrist just right as you’re throwing with a full motion, then you can actually curve the orb through the air.
Curving a throw is useful because you can throw an orb diagonally towards the corner and then have it curve down into your opponent. Alternatively, you could aim it at the opponent, then have it curve down into the floor of the arena before bouncing up and hitting them.
Finally, don’t forget about the strike zone behind your opponent. Just because you miss or your opponent is an avid dodger doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. If they keep dodging but you’re throwing the orb straight down the middle then you’re still getting strikes and having it grow in size.
Eventually they’re going to mess up. Target the strike zone from angles via wall bounces to earn the strikes and then time your throw with a smart deflection and you’ll likely score at least one point, or perhaps two points, from the bombardment.
These are some of the best tips we have for getting started with competitive multiplayer play in Sparc! Let us know what you think of the game down in the comments below! And don’t forget to read our full review here for the final verdict.
A virtual reality (VR) smartphone app has been developed as part of an effort to gather data on dementia for the biggest dementia research experiment ever devised. The experiment involves an app called Sea Hero Quest, which was originally a non-VR smartphone app, but the researchers hope the move to VR will yield better results.
The original mobile title and the new VR incarnation was created by development studio Glitchers, along with Alzheimer’s Research UK. The developers are expecting up to fifteen times more data from the VR version, which should be a boon to scientists who are seeking a way to detect dementia in its early stages.
One of the first cognitive problems to develop is loss of the ability to navigate. As such, Sea Hero Quest puts the player in the role of a boat captain, trying to navigate the ocean and chase down various sea creatures. The app gathers data by recording data on the directions players take, as well as the length of time needed to look around and make a decision.
Max Scott-Slade, from the Glitchers development team, told the BBC: “It’s interesting to try to make something that’s normally quite a boring subject matter, and lab-based, and bring it to the public and make it as fun as possible. The value for us is to create this much richer dataset, we’re capturing 15 times more data from the VR version because we’re separating out where the head looks and where the boat’s moving.”
Sea Hero Quest is available for the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR for free download.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Sea Hero Quest VR as it becomes available.
Infamous: Second Son and the PlayStation VR game Rigs: Mechanized Combat League are free with PlayStation Plus next month. As always, two PlayStation 3 games and two Vita games are also free.
The post ‘Infamous: Second Son’ leads September’s free PlayStation Plus games appeared first on Digital Trends.
Nevermind that social VR still has years ahead of it before it’s a truly convincing tool for virtual meetings; Conde Nast is diving right in at the deep end and making people date each other inside virtual reality, and you can watch.
Virtually Dating is a new show for Facebook’s Watch platform that debuted earlier today. In it, two people are hooked up to HTC Vive headsets (no one tell Zuckerberg) and fitted with gear for full body tracking. Their faces are then photographed and pasted onto virtual avatars and the two then meet in virtual environments. Weirdly, the two people are actually in the same room (though they’re kept hidden from each other until their headsets are on). That kind of defeats the point of virtual dating, but never mind that; there’s hilarity to be had!
You can watch the entire first episode below. It doesn’t mess around; we get a quick introduction to John and Shelby, two young people in search of love. They’re then thrust into a virtual bar for awkward introductions before being whisked away to a spaceship and then onto the moon. They seem to be enjoying their time together, though that’s mostly thanks to them poking fun at the various bugs and visual glitches they’re confronted with.
John and Shelby are set up on a blind date that takes place in a virtual reality world set in outer space.
Posted by Virtually Dating on Tuesday, 29 August 2017
But do they fall for each other? Well I won’t spoil it for those that are able to bear the awfulness until the very end. It’s safe to say this isn’t the best example of the power of VR.
New episodes of the series will debut every Wednesday for the next four weeks (next weeks’ looks especially hilarious). Check out the trailer for the rest of the series below.
Tech start-up Magic Leap are best known in virtual reality (VR) circles for its upcoming mixed reality (MR) headset, whose prototype has been experienced by celebrities such as singer Beyonce and comedian Ricky Gervais. Now a patent has surfaced showing that the company may also be developing augmented reality (AR) smart glasses.
Since the revival of Google Glass as Google Glass Enterprise Edition, there has been renewed interest in AR Smartglasses technology, particularly for commercial and industrial use. Companies such as Vuzix have already gone in this direction. Though it is unknown if the product depicted in the patent is intended for industrial or entertainment use.
The patent application was discovered by Business Insider. The patent was originally filed in 2015 and showed a pair of oval lenses with thick frames, a pair of cameras is mounted on either side of the lenses in a ‘side-pod’ type arrangement. Magic Leap have so far denied that they are working on such a device, with Magic Leap spokesperson Julia Gaynor telling Business Insider: “As you know, we file lots of patents that take a long time to get approved and so what you are looking at is not our product.”
Sources from within Magic Leap contradicted this, however, saying that the design in the patent was a reasonably close match to Magic Leap’s product, though the prototype hardware was bigger and bulkier, with a section in the middle near the nose bridge to hold a depth sensor and only one camera on each arm.
It is presently unconfirmed if this patent or the information received from inside sources does match the present iteration of the Magic Leap Mixed Reality hardware, ir is a different and unrelated product. Those who have already experienced the Magic Leap hardware described the device as being closer to swimming goggles that glasses, so it seems unlikely that they are the same.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Magic Leap and its products as it becomes available.
We’ve now seen Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo’s Windows-based VR headsets, and today we’ve finally got our look at the last one expected to launch this year, made by Asus.
The Asus headset was detailed at the company’s IFA press event today. By now you should pretty much know the deal; it’s got two 1440 x 1440 displays with a 90Hz refresh rate and a 95 degree field of view (FOV), just like the other devices. It also sports the same inside-out tracking solution and comes with a four-meter cable.
The real differentiator seems to be the design. The headset’s polygonal finish is quite stylish, setting itself apart from other Windows headsets with ease. You can flip the visor up like other devices can, and the entire thing weighs 400g. Asus says it balanced the device to make it fit comfortably on your head and has made the headband out of quick-drying materials to combat the VR sweats.
As for pricing, Asus stated that the kit will retail for 449 euro, though from the sounds of it that may be with a pair of Windows VR motion controllers bundled in. We’ve reached out to the company to confirm that’s the case and get the official US price but that’s essentially in line with Dell’s offering and the specs don’t seem too different.
Earlier this week Microsoft confirmed that these headsets will support SteamVR titles in the future, while native games coming to the Windows Store include the likes of Halo and Arizona Sunshine.
Now that we’ve seen all of the Windows VR headsets, which one do you plan to pick up?
Hit TV series The Walking Dead will soon be bringing the undead into augmented reality (AR) according to TV network AMC, where the show is broadcast.
According to a statement from AMC, the AR mobile title will be modelled on Pokemon Go, featuring AR elements and location-based gameplay, only will obviously be aimed at a much older audience.
A trailer for The Walking Dead AR videogame, titled The Walking Dead: Our World, is mostly something of a teaser, not featuring any gameplay, but rather offering an aspirational idea of what the title will feel like to play. The trailer features players fighting off undead in various locations such as a hospital and a convenience store, using weapons such as guns, grenades and even swords. This early trailer also features characters from the show such as Rick, Daryl and Michonne to aid the players.
AMC have tapped Finnish developers Next Games to work on the title, who also developed previous The Walking Dead mobile title, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land.
A statement by AMC said: “The Walking Dead: Our World will enable players to fully immerse themselves into the action of the hit TV show by blending digital objects, such as characters and other game elements, with the players’ own environment.”
Next Games CEO Teemu Huuhtanen said: “The fans love how the show encourages you to ask, ‘What would I do in a zombie apocalypse?’, and in this game we aim to let players explore this hypothetical in a way they’ve never experienced before. AR enables players to live through the fight for survival in a whole new way in their familiar surroundings.”
There has been no release date set, but plans are for The Walking Dead: Our World to be available on iOS and Android. The trailer is available to view below. Further information and updates can be found on the Next Games blog.
VRFocus will bring you further information on The Walking Dead: Our World as it becomes available.
U.K. residents who get their internet via Virgin Fibre will be rewarded with an exclusive Sparrow vehicle decked out in the company's colors when Destiny 2 launches on September 6.
The post U.K. ISP Virgin Media offers subscribers a free Sparrow vehicle in ‘Destiny 2’ appeared first on Digital Trends.
Bethesda Softworks makes some of the most elaborate and expansive games in the world—and now they’re making them in VR. Last week, the publisher confirmed that Fallout 4 VR, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, and Doom VFR will all release before year’s end on various platforms.
It was no big shock that they were coming; after all, we went hands-on with all three back at E3. Still, it’s surprising to see that all three are debuting around the same time, marking a huge push from Bethesda to assert itself in the still young consumer VR space this holiday season. And Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR are absolutely massive games, vastly larger than the average VR experience, because they’re the very same epic role-playing adventures already out for PC and consoles.
Why serve up these enormous games in VR? I asked Pete Hines, the publisher’s vice president of marketing and PR, at this past weekend’s QuakeCon expo outside Dallas, TX.
“Honestly, a lot of it is down to how those games are built—they’re not level-based, they’re not carvable. You can’t really say, ‘Here, let’s take this chunk and make it a two, or three, or five-hour experience.’ They’re all one thing,” Hines explains. “So in looking at VR, the studio is like, ‘Well, that’s how we built it. Let’s see if it works as all one thing on VR platforms.’ And it turns out that it did. Obviously, we had to put a lot of work into UI, UX, and performance. You need people to understand how to interact with the game, and then performance-wise, make sure they’re not throwing up because you’re dropping frames. But we didn’t have to solve any of the, ‘Well, what are our quests, or the story, or characters, or stuff to do?’ Because all of that stuff was already done.”
Both games were already deeply immersive experiences on TVs and monitors, which is part of why they can potentially work so well in VR: they’re vast, incredibly detailed, and just a joy to explore. In fact, we’ve already picked out 11 places we can’t wait to explore in VR in both Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR, and that’s really just scratching the surface. Hines says that “live another life in another world” has been Bethesda Game Studios’ mantra from the start, and that virtual reality just elevates it dramatically for these open-environment games.
“VR takes that to another level, where you just have a much greater sense of place within this world. You’re up standing on a mountain and the snow is blowing. You just feel that on another level that you don’t get playing anything off of a monitor,” Hines says. “Somebody was asking, ‘For you, what really brings home those experiences?’ And honestly, it’s like when something huge is in front of you and you look at the top of it like this,” he adds, looking up to the ceiling.
“You’re not moving your mouse to do that, or a thumbstick. There’s just something about craning your neck up to look at the top of it that is just so much more of an ‘Oh shit’ moment than anything that you’ve had before,” Hines affirms. “Or playing Fallout and dropping your head to look at Dogmeat. It just makes him feel so much more like your dog, and so I think it’s just little stuff like that. Until you play it or experience it in VR, you don’t really have the same kind of appreciation for that sense of place in games like these.”
That said, one of the reasons that many from-scratch VR experiences are short is because it better fits the consumption habits of VR players. Fallout 4 and Skyrim can each be played for 100 hours apiece or more, which can be a lot easier to tolerate in long stretches on a screen rather than within a headset. Hines says “it’s possible” that people will play those games in VR for such spans, but he suspects it’ll be gradually over time instead of in marathon sessions.
“I think it’s going to be the kind of experience that folks are going to graze at,” Hines suggests. “I don’t see people binge-playing eight, 10, 12 hours for multiple days in a row like they did when those games first came out.”
By contrast, Doom VFR is a bit closer to what we’ve seen in the VR space: it’s a more compact experience that’s been altered to better fit the VR play design. Developer id Software started with the heart of last year’s excellent Doom reboot, but that game was far too frantic and insanely paced to work in virtual reality. Well, at least without rampant motion sickness.
“[Fallout and Skyrim] from a pacing standpoint work just fine as a VR thing—there’s some stuff you need to do with how you move, and obviously the UI and UX,” Hines explains. “We didn’t have the problem of like, ‘Well, you’re moving too fast.’ [But] in Doom, you’re moving too fast. You simply can’t take a game where you’re that fast and aggressive, and mantling and jumping and double-jumping, and have anybody survive that for more than 35 seconds. Rather than making a 35-second game, they had to look at it like, ‘Well, how do we take that and translate it into VR?'”
Instead of constant movement and those wild, up-close-and-personal kill moves against demons, now you’ll teleport around (or nudge forward with a tap) and can execute “telefrag” maneuvers that let you teleport into a foe to finish it off. It “still makes you feel fast and aggressive,” Hines claims, but it shouldn’t make players feel queasy in the process. Additionally, some of Doom’s environments were reworked to better suit the VR experience.
“They were designed for somebody moving fast and mantling and jumping, which you’re not doing any of,” Hines explains. “We needed stuff that’s more purposeful for how you’re moving and working through Doom VFR.”
All three of Bethesda’s big VR games will ship within a one-month span, although they’re not all getting multiplatform launches from the start. Skyrim VR debuts first on PlayStation VR only, on November 17, with Doom VFR following on December 1 for both PlayStation VR and HTC Vive. Meanwhile, Fallout 4 VR will only hit HTC Vive first on its release date of December 12.
Why no Fallout 4 VR for PlayStation VR? Likewise, where is Skyrim VR for Vive? Hines couldn’t offer a definitive answer.
“I don’t know. We want to put it out on as many platforms as possible,” he said about Fallout 4 for PSVR, and suggested the same kind of scenario for Skyrim on Vive. “Whatever will work and be viable, we’re up for. This one is gonna be the first, and we’ll see what happens after that.”
Similarly, he wasn’t sure if any of the games would be compatible with the Oculus Rift via SteamVR at launch, but said he could check and get back to us. I’ve inquired about it since the interview with Bethesda PR and will update if we get a response.
I also asked why Skyrim VR is launching with all of the downloadable add-on content already bundled in, while Fallout 4 VR is not, and Hines says it’s all about the code they started with. “We had done some work already with Skyrim and the Game of the Year [Edition] that already had all of that stuff,” he explained. “It was more that that was the code base and starting point for doing the VR version, and that simply didn’t exist for Fallout. What we started with was just base game [for Fallout 4] and game of the year with all the DLC [for Skyrim], so that’s why those versions look like those versions.”
Will Fallout 4 VR eventually get that DLC as post-release content? “I don’t know,” says Hines.
Ultimately, releasing all three of these large and visible VR experiences a couple weeks apart wasn’t some master plan from the start—that’s just how they all came together, claims Hines.
“It’s just how they lined up. We didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s launch three games next year.’ What we do and take on comes out of what the studios are interested in, and they know better than anybody,” he says. “They know their tech, they know their platforms—so it was really a question of how long they were going to take, and how long they needed.”
And in the case of Bethesda Game Studios and the VR versions of both Skyrim and Fallout 4, we can probably thank Dallas’ own Escalation Studios. Bethesda acquired them earlier this year, and Hines says their work has been invaluable in getting those two games ready for release. “Without their help, I’m not sure if they’d make it out this year,” he affirms.
Debuting three large VR titles at the same time might seem like a risk for Bethesda, but Hines says their performance won’t necessarily dictate the company’s future in the space. “All of our studios are actively looking at and talking about what they want to do. Our focus right now is on these three, given that they’re all coming out this year,” he says. “But it’s something we’re actively involved in and working with. We just haven’t talked about any of our other going-forward plans yet.”
Disclosure: Bethesda provided flights and accommodations to the author to attend QuakeCon.
Tagged with: Bethesda, Doom VFR, Fallout 4 VR, Pete Hines, Skyrim VR
One of the benefits of being a PlayStation Plus member is the monthly rotation of free videogames available, giving users the opportunity to play titles they may have missed when first launched. This month’s offering now features a virtual reality (VR) title for the first time, online multiplayer RIGS: Mechanised Combat League, which was a launch title for PlayStation VR.
With the head-mounted display (HMD) less than a year old and doing much better in terms of hardware sales than its competitors, it’s good to see those early titles being given a new lease of life through the PlayStation Plus programme.
As an online only multiplayer RIGS: Mechanised Combat League suffered the same fate as a lot of similar experiences, not enough players and empty servers, which snowballs into an early death even when its regarded as a good videogame. As a free release next month that may just help it gain a new audience.
RIGS: Mechanised Combat League is a first-person arena-based shooter developed specifically for PlayStation VR by Guerrilla Cambridge – which has now closed. Set in the year 2065, it immerses players in an all-action future sport that mixes elements from different athletic fields like combat sports, motorsports, basketball and football.
The title will be available for free to PlayStation Plus members in Europe and North America from 5th September through to 7th November 2017. Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) hasn’t yet confirmed if a VR videogame will make a regular appearance, so you’ll have to wait until next month to see if it does.
For the latest PlayStation VR updates, keep reading VRFocus.
When the HTC Vive was launched to compete with the Oculus Rift, many critics and analysts noted that the Oculus Rift was not at a disadvantage without its own tracked motion controllers. Oculus answered with the launch of the Oculus Touch. It seemed clear that virtual reality (VR) needed motion control as an option, so the PlayStation VR launched with compatibility with the PlayStation Move. Technology has moved on, however, is what was once an asset now a liability?
The PlayStation Move was originally launched back in 2010 for the PlayStation 3, essentially acting as a competitor to the Nintendo Wii and its Wiimote, which was dominating sales at the time. The device has an accelerometer and the glowing orbs on the end could be tracked using the PlayStation Eye camera. While it reviewed well among critics of the time, response by consumers was lacklustre, and it never achieved the support from developers of consumers that Sony had hoped for.
When the PlayStation VR was announced, the need for motion control meant that Sony dragged the PlayStation Move out of whichever dusty closet it had been thrown in in the hopes that integration with VR would revive the technology. Along with the improved version of the PlayStation Camera, Sony hopes that brand recognition and the lower price compared to its rivals on PC would attract customers. Which was largely true. However, there is no escaping the fact that the PlayStation VR often ends up relying on motion control technology which is a generation out of date, and is lacking in accuracy compared to the HTC Vive wands or the Oculus Touch.
Indeed, titles which have been ported to the PlayStation VR from other VR platforms often suffer in the accuracy department compared to other versions. Part of the effort to address this problem, which frequently cropped up in shooters where accuracy was key, led to the creation of the Aim controller, which offered true 1-to-1 controls in titles such as Arizona Sunshine and the title it was released with, Farpoint.
There’s another issue that is less commonly addressed: Ergonomics. The Vive Wands and Oculus Touch controllers are designed to be ergonomic and comfortable to hold for long periods. This is not something that can be said of the Move controllers, which due to the design and lack of contour ridges, can be difficult to hold for long periods, and can get slick with sweat, making them slippery. Many users prefer to simply use the Dual Shock 4 controller instead where the option is available, pointing to its superior ergonomics, and often to its improved motion tracking due to updated technology.
With the upcoming Vive Knuckles controllers, which are offering individual finger tracking for a more immersive experience, the PlayStation Move begins to look like a relic from a bygone era in comparison.
The PlayStation Move integration with the PlayStation VR was an excellent solution for the time of launch, but VR is one area where technology is moving so fast that companies have to run to keep up. Sony may want to at least consider breaking into a jog before they get left behind.