‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ Lead Next Wave in Virtual Reality
When it comes to virtual reality, things like visual fidelity and screen resolution matter only so much. It’s all about the immersion factor – the way a well-wrought VR experience rings effortlessly true to our reptile brains. At E3 this year, game critics bailed out during demos of Everest‘s high, narrow ledges. The new Resident Evil 7 on VR caused at least one terrified player to freak out, clawing at the headset to get it off, to escape the horrifying world around her. Fortunately, most VR game experiences involve less terror and more fun.
The PlayStation VR’s game lineup and price tag might finally put one of these funky headsets within the reach of the non-connoisseur. Though it’s not quite as sophisticated, technically speaking, as either the Oculus Rift or HTC’s Vive headset, the barrier to entry isn’t as steep (a PS4 is way cheaper than a high-end PC), and the level of publisher support already evident inspires hope that your favorite games might one day be adapted to the medium.
Sony’s announcement at E3 that the PSVR would go on sale October 13 wasn’t a huge surprise, but the price was a relief. Although $399 isn’t cheap, it’s less than any other VR platform on the market, and well within the realm of the reasonable for anyone who’s purchased a game console in the last 10 years. (Compare that to the $600 Rift and the $800 Vive, both of which require a hefty PC to run.)
Sony can offer the lower price point partially because it owns some of the hardware production. You may recall when the PlayStation 3 launched in 2006, it was actually cheaper to buy the console to watch your Blu-Ray movies than a standalone player. That was the strength of Sony’s supply chain at work.
But the PSVR also comes with a compromise: while the optics are upgraded, offering a crisp picture, the whole system has less horsepower than its PC-based competitors, in part because of the console it’s attached to.
One key thing that the Vive and Rift have going for them are the controllers. The level of fidelity they provide is unmatched at this point by PSVR’s reliance on a sensor camera and dual PlayStation Move controllers. The Vive offers nearly perfect positional tracking and a multitude of buttons; the Rift’s Touch system, the ability to capture complex motions like reaching out and grabbing things.
“There are many technical bars that must be reached to give a user that true feeling of ‘presence,’ where a person believes at a fundamental level that they are in an alternate reality,” says Jason Rubin, head of content for Oculus VR. “An example of presence would be standing at the edge of a virtual building, looking over the edge, feeling your heart pounding and finding yourself incapable of taking a perfectly safe – in the real world – step forward off the virtually visible edge.