(VRPinea, June 11) The last VR circle review, P Jun introduced the enmity between Oculus, Valve and HTC, and this article P Jun will separately tell the story of Sony Dafa and PS VR, which is unique in the game console market.
First of all, to talk about PS VR, we must first start with Sony's cross-era PS4.
On February 20, 2013, Sony held a press conference on the theme of "Witnessing the Future" in New York, USA. At the press conference, Sony officially announced the "PlayStation 4" trademark, the specifications of the game console, the first game and the game demo screen.
After several years of optimization and improvement, PS4 has launched PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro two models, and has also made many upgrades in hardware and software, one of which is the PlayStation VR launched in 2016.
In fact, as early as PS VR, Sony launched a set of 3D head-mounted displays HMZ-T1 in 2012, HMZ supports HDMI interface, the application scenario is a viewing device, is it not looking a bit similar to PS VR? In addition, HMZ stopped developing just after the launch of Sony PS VR, so HMZ is actually a test of Sony PS VR. PS VR also inherits a lot of experience and technology in developing HMZ devices.
The Morpheus prototype was born and developed
Having said that, Sony's PS4 console shined in the next-generation console wars, not only achieving impressive results in terms of sales, but also the performance of the game console is also the best of all consoles. So in order to attract more gamers, Sony kept up with the VR trend at the time and officially announced the VR device plan codenamed "Project Morpheus" at the 2014 Game Developers Conference.
The development plan of PS VR is codenamed "Morpheus" and the plan code name of PS4 Pro is "Neo", which corresponds to the characters in the famous science fiction movie "The Matrix". (P Jun thinks that the name of such a middle two is really suitable for Neon and the player audience...) ）
The Matrix
But in fact, the inspiration for the "Morpheus" prototype came from a head massager that Sony engineer Jeff Stafford saw at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in 2012. Isn't that the future direction of the game when the inspired Stafford hit it off with Richard Max, who developed the PlayStation Move technology, and transformed the PlayStation Move technology into motion tracking technology and put it into the headset? So the two built the first official "Morpheus" 1.0 prototype.
Richard Marks
At the same time, Oculus turned out to be a VR headset and launched a self-developed VR headset.
While Oculus was presenting its VR products with great fanfare, Sony silently pushed ahead with its own plans to expand the team for the "Morpheus" project. The Murphys team then experimented with the prototype, including different screens, field of view, refresh rate, reduced latency, and improved image quality. Some team members suggested using Sony's handheld PSVita as a screen, similar to the Low-Cost VR product Gear VR launched by Oculus and Samsung. However, PSVita's screen resolution is only 960×540, which is difficult to meet the needs of console gamers.
"Murphys" prototype
After countless exploration attempts, on October 13, 2016, Stafford and the team after five years of research and development of the product - PS VR officially launched worldwide. According to statistics, PS VR sold more than 51,000 units in the first week of Japan. In December 2017, Sony announced that the global sales of PS VR had exceeded 2 million units. By the end of 2019, the cumulative sales volume worldwide reached 5 million units.
The development of VR is inexperienced, and there are obvious constraints in software and hardware
Sony not only played a hard hand in VR hardware, but also gave full support in VR content. In 2016, Sony and Capcom joined forces to launch the sequel to the classic IP "Resident Evil" series "Resident Evil 7", and unlike in the past, this time "Resident Evil 7" also launched a VR version. In addition, Sony has also cooperated with Warner to launch the VR game "Batman: Arkham VR" of the DC Universe IP "Batman", and the "Cosmic Robot: Search and Rescue Operation" produced at a large cost.
Resident Evil 7
Sony's big moves and big moves on VR content did make many Sony fans feel that "Sony Dafa is good", but can VR technology at that time really withstand these games? The conclusion, of course, is that no.
Under the limitations of technology at that time, Sony PS VR still had many problems, such as the screen effect is more obvious, the positioning tracking is not mature, and the host performance is not enough.
Batman: Arkham VR
In addition, some of Sony's game studios only have experience in console game development, which is relatively unfamiliar to VR game development, so these less experienced game studios can't do relatively mature game content when they get some good IP for VR game development, which is why PS VR has so many demo-level games. Because many games are actually cut before they live to the official version, it can be said that Sony has suffered losses in VR content development.
Cosmic Robots: Search and Rescue Operation
The new controller exposes, PS VR 2 parameter configuration big conjecture
The results of the PS VR did not satisfy Sony, so Sony did not mention the news of the iteration of the new VR model for a long time. But fortunately, at the beginning of this year, Sony still released new news about the PS VR 2.
Although the currently known information is about the PS VR 2 controller, it is not difficult to understand the configuration parameters of the PS VR 2 from just a few words. The new PS VR's grip features an adaptive trigger, haptic feedback, and a tracking ring like the Oculus grip. In addition, there is a small detail in the PS5, that is, the PS VR-specific positioning tracking camera has been cancelled on the PS5, so if the PS VR 2 is going to come out, the high probability is an inside-out tracking and positioning headset, and then connected to the PS5 or upgraded PS5 host through wireless streaming.
There is also a saying. PS VR 2 is rumored to be connected to the PS5 console via USB Type-C, and PS VR 2 will also support eye tracking, enabling human eye visual fixation rendering technology.
Sony's next move conjecture: PS5 opens the market, PS VR 2 continues to follow
Here are definitely small partners to ask, why is the PS VR 2 not released at the same time as the PlayStation 5?
Sony has always been very cautious. Just like the previous PS VR was not released simultaneously with the PS4, but with the PS4 Pro, the PS5 is just a product pushed by Sony, and then there will be a supporting updated model, and then the PS VR 2 will be launched.
In addition, there may be reasons for insufficient capacity. As a cross-era game console, the high voice of PS5 has led to a shortage of products, coupled with the impact of the epidemic last year, the price of raw materials has soared, if PS5 and PS VR 2 are launched at the same time, it will only lead to the production capacity of both products being greatly affected, which is obviously what Sony does not want to see.
Secondly, Sony's first release of the PS5 is to first maintain the number of users of the PS5 game console in the competition with Microsoft Xbox, and then launch the PS VR 2 on the basis of these users. In this way, PS VR 2 can develop rapidly on the existing user base of Sony PS5, the volume of gamers can be guaranteed, the number of paid players is relatively increased, and manufacturers that produce high-quality VR games will be more motivated to play games.
All in all, it is basically impossible to see Sony launch the PS VR 2 this year, but so fans can still look forward to it from the official revealed words. Coupled with Sony's huge first-party / third-party game studio team, the game content can be based on the maximum degree of support, Sony's products, word of mouth and quality are basically guaranteed, after all, "Sony Dafa is good"!
Well, the story of Sony PS VR in this article ends here, the next issue of P will bring google Cardboard and the story of domestic VR glasses box, interested partners can continue to pay attention to Oh ~
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