At the beginning of the new year, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Japan in early January, Sony unveiled the next-generation virtual reality device PSVR 2.
Although there have been rumors from time to time that Sony has not given up the VR business, but remembering the pull-over of PSVR 1 in 2016 and the weakness of the follow-up reputation, there are still quite a few players who think that the PSVR iterator is a false rumor.
Today, can Sony's blockbuster "successor" turn the tide and even change the current backwater of the VR game market? Let's take a look at what exactly this device is?
The first is compatible equipment, and PSVR 1 is not the same, as an extension of PlayStation, VR's computing unit can only be a PS game console, can not be external to the computer, not a mobile phone. In addition, there is also an incompatibility, that is, it must be connected to the PS5, not backward compatible with the PSVR 1, nor can it be connected to the PS4 or PS4 Pro. It feels like this generation of PSVR wants to cut off the bad game lineup of the previous game, which is equivalent to starting over.
Secondly, the graphics expressiveness this time uses two 2000x2048 pixel OLED screens, the left and right eyes are put together to 4K, and the game refresh rate is 90-120Hz. The resolution is moderate on current VR devices, slightly better than the Oculus 2, and OLED comes with HDR capabilities, which have never been seen on other VR devices.
But the refresh rate of 90 to 120 is difficult to say ideal, this value just meets the standards of five years ago, and the latest research results believe that the refresh rate of VR pictures must be more than 240 to make it difficult for the human eye to distinguish. This part is also obviously subject to the GPU of the PS5 RDNA2 mid-range architecture, and the final power can only reach the level of desktop graphics card 2070.
My head started to hurt
In addition, consumers who have used the PSVR 1 will inevitably complain that the actual play of the device is very cumbersome. First of all, on the PS4 external network cable and HDMI video to the VR box, vr box needs to be supplied separately, itself also has to be responsible for power supply to the VR helmet, the handle, the handle USB is connected to the PS4 host, each play needs to be installed according to the instruction manual, the occupancy volume is not small, it is impossible to be connected all the time, and the reason why many players eat ashes is too troublesome.
A major improvement of the PSVR 2 is to remove the external box, and a line on the helmet can be connected to the host, although it is slightly inferior to the wireless experience driven by the Oculus software, but it is also a major pain point.
Finally, the PSVR 2's helmet and gamepad are equipped with a stepless motor of the PS5 DualSense controller, which can simulate multiple force feedbacks in the game content. The vibration motor on the VR controller needs no words, basically can play the same effect as the DS controller, and the vibrator in the helmet is an unprecedented creativity.
Another black technology is the integrated eye tracking in the helmet, which sounds a bit chicken ribs, in fact, in order to save performance, in the position where the eyeball is not focused, you can appropriately reduce the clarity and reduce the burden of the PS5.
Among these four major evolutions, in fact, the most imaginative thing is the head force feedback, which expands the boundaries of the somatosensory dimension of home games. As you can imagine, the vibration is combined with the stereo sound, and the bullets cross the helmet, bringing the player a shock. Or a cold slap on the stick, but also a "sensory stimulation" that is not often found in life. Of course, as to whether this motor is a "tight hoop spell" or a "massager", perhaps different games will have their own designs.
The specific price of the equipment, the date of sale, etc., have not been further explained, the former considering that a generation of VR equipment at that time is a more people-friendly solution, I believe that this PSVR 2 will not be too outrageous. The latter presumably will not be too far apart, the equipment itself configuration has just entered the first echelon, with the delay of time, the follow-up of other manufacturers, the main cost performance will be marked with a big question mark.
Whether PSVR 2 can trigger a new round of VR revolution, I don't think the situation is much better than five years ago.
In the past five years, the entry hardware of VR games has been upgraded from RTX 2070 to RTX 3060, although it has dropped a gear in the production line order, but the price has not dropped but has risen, 3070 is still high, maintained at more than 6,000 yuan, and to configure such a PC device, the price is basically over 10,000. If it is a host-based VR solution, the current premium for hosts is equally serious. In addition, it is also necessary to take into account the production capacity and ownership of PS5, and the threshold is not low.
In terms of games, the three branches are moving towards convergence. Previously, the QUALITY OF VR games on Oculus was higher, and there were more creativity in the interaction of games; PSVR focused on the VR porting of some AAA games, such as "Resident Evil 7" and "The Elder Scrolls 5"; Steam was more quantitative than qualitative, and the price of the game ranged from tens to a hundred, generally not more than half the price of the AAA game. At the moment, Oculus can also play a lot of big factory porting, Valve launched the "Half-Life: Alxy" technology shock four, the game content gradually homogenized, only the different input and output devices of the abundance of people.
How the device sells is not yet a spectrum, the news of Alxy porting already has a spectrum...
The converging game lineup made the game's creativity more conservative and compatible, and the success of Half-Life: Alxy ignited the Index ring controller and finger sensor, and subsequent VR devices including the PSVR 2 will be equipped with the same features. Perhaps this exclusive Horizon: Call of Mountain will also make the vibrating helmet standard. However, the development speed of hardware-based game ideas has always been too linear and slow, and it is difficult for mass consumers to become popular in such a transitional stage.
Another extreme of gaming convergence is the ability to play traditional games with VR devices that can experience quite different effects. The VR version of Tetris makes this already somewhat "light pollution" game even more gorgeous, and the gameplay has not been modified except for the use of fingers instead of buttons.
In the traditional perception of VR is not good SLG, JRPG, AVG can use such a line of thinking, the effect is more similar to wearing 3D glasses to watch a movie, just let the two-dimensional image show a certain depth of field and level. VR games to get rid of the limitations of FPS games, will also be a larger growth point in the future. If a manufacturer can match the cost performance of other VR devices and is compatible with the intelligent algorithm of traditional games rendering VR games, it can effortlessly come out on top.
Although there is no "kill must die", it has still become the source of motivation for many people to buy PSVR
All in all, in recent years, the time to talk about VR has been greatly reduced, and the only opportunity to show it is to carry it when everyone blows the "meta-universe" wind outlet. It is true that the future of the game will never stay on the LCD screen and remote control, and the sci-fi concepts of "brain-computer interface" and "hyper-meta-domain community" are gradually enriched. Unprecedented popularity has been devoted to the future, which has not been seen in the past two decades, but it is still too far from the concept of VR devices surpassing game consoles.