The making of PlayStation VR | Hacker News Reader

The making of PlayStation VR

polygon.com

48 pointsevo_912 comments

In my mind, the PSVR will undoubtedly be the first VR experience that achieves critical mass this generation.

Working in their favour:

- A massive hardware share in living rooms already with the PS4

- The ability to sell VR hardware as a loss leader and make money back on software, undercutting the competition

- The already announced games look great and have large fanbases, for example Gran Turismo Sport, Tekken 6, Ace Combat 7, Until Dawn, and Psychonauts. If the rumoured No Man's Sky VR comes true, that is a massive boost to the PSVR library.

No doubt about it, I haven't thought of buying any other VR seriously. The PS4 version is the only one I would consider right now and I don't even know the price. I'm most hopeful of a two VR one console setup at some point.

> PlayStation VR features a smaller field of view and lower-resolution screen than the Rift and Vive, for example (though Sony staff tout their unit's 120 Hz refresh rate as an advantage).

The 120Hz refresh rate is not an advantage, because they use a frame doubling technique to accomplish it. They worded that carefully to tout the refresh rate vs FPS to obfuscate that difference. The games will run at 60fps but the headset will "upscale" to 120Hz. I've read and watched reviews saying this works out surprisingly well, but still doesn't hold up to 90+ real frames per second.

Actually the system supports "real" 120 Hz as well. Some of their demos have been using it. It's a tradeoff each developer can make for themselves.

That's just one option. It also supports native 90 and 120 Hz.

Anybody else thinks that the future depicted in "Ready Player One" is probably going to be our real future???

I was kind of ambivalent about the whole VR deal and Sony's attempt in particular.

And then... Rez Infinite.

Then I was like SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.

I really think Vive has a really interesting niche market at hand by focusing on tracking the player in a fixed box in a room and two sticks to manipulate hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWproPHhHd0

Rift is falling behind new upcoming players and the space is definitely heating up...but I just don't think Facebook players are going to be playing Animal Farm or whatever it is they play now on Rift...more likely that Steam and console gamers stands to gain from this competition.

I think that Oculus Rift was the first to start but Sony, HTC, Valve, all these companies with direct access to gamer markets will be poised to grab the torchlight from Rift.

I just have a hard time visualizing Luckey getting lucky twice when VR hardware is vastly improving at speeds that are now starting to outpace the Rift.

I wonder how long until we begin to see haptic devices for all of our senses not just visual but olfactory, tactile, sense of gravity.

Then it's only a matter of time before all these human experiences are digitized and serialized into separate haptic channels and replayed in synchronous format.

Imagine a future where you can experience anything anywhere anytime as if you did these things yourself. Will it be augumented reality with holograms being beamed into a room with ultrasound wave generators simulating tactile sensation?

The race for virtual reality sex is on.

> sense of gravity

and inertia. Any idea how they could do that?

High end sim racing setups use actuated seats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jPCs-Odlwc&t=32s

yeah I actually thought about this and what I came up was like a circular cage with the person strapped in. It's digitally controlled unlike noisy hydraulics I don't know how but maybe lots of dry ice and superconductor they use for hoverboard.

Then you could generate inertia and g-forces by creating a centrifugal effect. For instance, to simulate a negative g maneuver in an airplane, you'd flip the user upside down and then rapidly spin the occupant towards the direction that creates the g-force due to centrifugal effect. Since you are constantly spinning at a very fast rate of speed, and wearing a helmet and headset you are unaware of this fact.

I'm not quite sure how safe this setup would be (spinning people for hours and hours at very high speeds)

I'm sure cardiovascular issues would arise from spinning people for extended periods of time with high g-force. It would probably be acceptable in niche applications (i.e. flight training), but I can't imagine using this method as a daily driver at all healthy. xD

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