The required parts to make a 60Hz 1080p headset are entering the $100 cell phone market and that segment of components are more or less what Nintendo traditionally uses in its handhelds.
Nintendo also has a long history of "blue ocean" products that tweak existing technologies to make them more mainstream.
That one? That company lacks innovation?
In a similar vein to phone based VR that we’ve had since Google Cardboard. Modern headsets fuse gyro, accelerometer and camera feature tracking together to stably track the position of the headset and hands/controllers.
They also complained about discomfort when resetting center on the gyro control. Something else Splatoon 2 nailed gracefully.
And finally, you example (splatoon 2) only needs to compute 2 degrees of freedom in movement (rotation left-right - or yawing, rotation down-up - or pitching, since rolling isn't relevant with a dot target), while VR systems depend on 6 degrees of freedom (yawing, pitching, rolling, elevating, strafing and surging - all of these for at least 3 devices at the same time: your head, left hand and right hand). Unfortunately controls in VR are quite complicated, and accelerometers, gyroscopes (and magnetometers which are also used in VR systems to know the reference to the floor) are simply insufficient (but necessary since the positional sensors can't keep track all time with occasional occlusion, such as having one hand passing over the other or leaving the tracking area), which is why the same sensors on the switch are used in every VR headset and controls in addition with even more sensors and algorithms.
EDIT: the camera system also helps a lot with defining gaming boundaries in the room and being able to quickly see if I accidentally leave it, I already punched my monitor once and that's with a barrier that always get visible when I approach something in my room.
Adding 3 additional axises change nothing. Nintendo didn’t do it because it’s very niche to require that. It costs pennie’s more to get a 6DOF gyro vs a 3DOF. The question is the need. Do you need to rotate the yaw of your hand? Nope.
So my statements stand. The VR folks seem to be on a “we’re more superior than thou” kick with gyro controls.
A gyroscope is used to detect orientation/angular velocity (spinning), the sensor to add the other degrees of freedom is already there in most modern controllers and smartphones (the accelerometer). The issue is still accuracy I'm afraid.
>Do you need to rotate the yaw of your hand? Nope.
I'd certainly enjoy to open doors and make a simple goodbye gesture in VR.
The idea that it's refresh rate or resolution that's keeping VR from becoming mainstream seems ridiculous when even a relatively friendly platform like PSVR ships with this bundle of cables: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/So...
Occulus seems to realize this but their software side still needs work.
Nintendo is the only major player in the handheld category: of course they're a "leader". The success of the Switch supports my prior point: it's a warmed-over Nvidia Shield that has very mediocre hardware (Tegra X1 - Maxwell arch), but has amazing first-party games on it. BoTW is one of the best games I have played.
A 480p game on the Wii is still a playable game. An art style that leans into the low resolution will also look fine. While it might not have looked as good as a PS3 it's still playable.
A VR headset with imprecise orientation sensors and a slow refresh rate will make you sick. Your visual input won't match what your proprioception says about your body's positioning. Even if you manage not to get sick such a system isn't usable for non-trivial durations. A low end VR system is not worth any amount of money because it's not practically usable.
Yes, cables are also something that lowers immersion.
1080p: I disagree, that can either be good or bad depending on the content. E.g. original iPhone was only 320x480, but Apple made it feel good.
Yes, you can see the pixels. But it’s easy enough to ignore that if the content is compelling.
The difference is pixels per degree.
Not sure whether the appeal of Quest 2 is in the standalone-ness and the app platform - or whether it's about being around half the price of comparable headsets before it, perhaps even being sold at a loss