GI.biz: Oculus' high PC specs are Sony's chance to shine

[theyarecomingforyou]

The PS4 can't hit 1080p @ 60fps in many games, especially not those with high graphical fidelity (The Witcher 3, Battlefield 4, Far Cry 4, The Evil Within, Watch_Dogs, Grand Theft Auto V, Destiny, etc). That means Morpheus will only be useful for graphically simple games, the type that wouldn't require a GTX 970 on the PC. The reason the Oculus Rift requires significant hardware specs is because that's what's necessary to run games at the resolution and framerate required.

 

It goes without saying that Morpheus will be much cheaper and have broader appeal than the Oculus Rift. However, the experience on offer won't be even close to what the Oculus Rift or Vive can offer. You get what you pay for. 

[HawkMan]

it's obvious that the graphical fidelity of PS4 morpheus games will be lower, but they'll still be able to push some pretty incredible graphics anyway. as I said before, rendering at 1080 stereoscopic isn't very much more taxing than 1080 full frame monoscopic. 

 

Personally would I rather fiddle around on my PC to get the graphics to work properly avoid tearing and frame drops, make sure there's nothing in the background that can use resources and interrupt graphics, dpc lag disrupting audio and so on and so on, or would I just want to start the game on the console and be playing at a graphical fidelity that's lower than what I can get on the PC but nothing that really matters or that you'll really care about...

 

well the answer is both. BUT when it comes to VR... it's actually almost universally in favor of the PC. Witcher 3 was an easy choice for console. but it's also not a game I would play in VR. that would be games Sim games like Elite Dangerous and that new wing commander game thing. games I wouldn't chose to play on the console anyway...not because they can't but I need my keyboard and joystick and well they're PC games... 

[+Zagadka Subscriber²]

I'm not really in a big rush to jump to VR headsets. We've been hearing this for 25 years now, and while we are technologically more capable, I would rather wait a bit and see how VR games and interactions turn out than dump several hundred dollars on a first gen system with limited selection. Even if it can be done technically, I'm not convinced it would actually be fun in many games - like Kinect turned out.

[chrisj1968]

The thing is, the goggles back then was like 320p or maaaybe 640p if you really paid a years worth. the tracking also wasn't very good and had significant delays.

 

consider how visible the pixels are on the 720p and even the 1080p goggles today and the seasickness of the delayed response and it's clear why it never got anywhere. add on the fact that the gamer public was a fraction of the size it is today, and the sim gamers that is the primary audience for these things are a very niche set of gamers, especially the sim gamers who can also afford them.

 

today the gaming market is so big you can afford to put money on the niche markets(unfortunately the flight sim market is still being neglected because they're so expensive to develop you can barely make money on it, if you're successful).

 

I'm sure you're right. techonolgy back in the day was a LOT less than today. It seems that the VR market doesn't seem as nearly as exciting as PC UI's to the likes of minority report. that's some real PC work

[President Devil]

The PS4 can't hit 1080p @ 60fps in many games, especially not those with high graphical fidelity (The Witcher 3, Battlefield 4, Far Cry 4, The Evil Within, Watch_Dogs, Grand Theft Auto V, Destiny, etc). That means Morpheus will only be useful for graphically simple games, the type that wouldn't require a GTX 970 on the PC. The reason the Oculus Rift requires significant hardware specs is because that's what's necessary to run games at the resolution and framerate required.

 

It goes without saying that Morpheus will be much cheaper and have broader appeal than the Oculus Rift. However, the experience on offer won't be even close to what the Oculus Rift or Vive can offer. You get what you pay for. 

 

Exactly, even Shuhei Yoshida himself said he tried DriveClub on the Morpheus and it made him sick. I don't expect Morpheus to go anywhere but the usual Sony peripheral abyss.

 

 

I'm not really in a big rush to jump to VR headsets. We've been hearing this for 25 years now, and while we are technologically more capable, I would rather wait a bit and see how VR games and interactions turn out than dump several hundred dollars on a first gen system with limited selection. Even if it can be done technically, I'm not convinced it would actually be fun in many games - like Kinect turned out.

 

Exactly, it's why the VR makers on PC keep pushing the specs until it's right. It's still in its inancy right now and investing in an inferior setup from the start is a foolish premise.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Exactly, even Shuhei Yoshida himself said he tried DriveClub on the Morpheus and it made him sick. I don't expect Morpheus to go anywhere but the usual Sony peripheral abyss.

 

What abyss? Sony's accessories are still supported and developed for on PS4, PS3 and Vita...

[President Devil]

What abyss? Sony's accessories are still supported and developed for on PS4, PS3 and Vita...

 

Yeah, extremely poorly and funny mentioning the Vita when that entire platform is considered as dead by most of the gaming community because of poor support.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Yeah, extremely poorly and funny mentioning the Vita when that entire platform is considered as dead by most of the gaming community because of poor support.

 

Support is meh if you want PS3/PS4 AAA experiences on it, but great for indie/JRPG. A lot of the indie titles are cross buy which helps support the Vita. The memory card prices are what are a joke/poor support.

 

By the way Morpheus can still pull it's weight, even if on a PS4 compared to a PC.

 

But now Showdown can run flawlessly at 60 FPS on Sony

[President Devil]

The indie titles as well. People expected Sony to at least make some decent AAA efforts like they did with the PSP but NOPE! Those proprietary memory card prices only add insult to injury.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

The indie titles as well. People expected Sony to at least make some decent AAA efforts like they did with the PSP but NOPE! Those proprietary memory card prices only add insult to injury.

 

Uncharted was good. The thing is though, the Sony gamers who own a Vita will probably own a PS4, and most want to play the likes of Bloodborne/Uncharted 4/GoW4 on their PS4. Nintendo have a different ratio than Sony where the Wii U is selling pants and the 3DS is where most Nintendo gamers are playing. Considering the gulf in PS4 tech vs Vita, compared to Wii U vs 3DS, and you can see why a AAA title is going to look a lot better on the PS4. Whereas 3DS titles don't fare bad compared to the Wii U's capabilities.

 

The Vita will forever remain supplementary to owning a PS4, and that's not too bad a position for it to be in. Expectations have to be realistic, a Sony handheld is NEVER going to be more popular than one of their home consoles. At this point I'd almost say the Vita could be classed as a PS4 accessory, like Morpheus, rather than a standalone machine.

[President Devil]

Yeah 1 whole game that was good. People that bought it, bought it for being a handheld, expecting proper games support like on the PSP.

PS4 came after the fact and there's no spinning this to it being a proper PS4 accessory when it doesn't even properly map over its controls.

It's a dumb strategy not supporting your own platforms or peripherals properly, that's why third the large third parties abandoned the Vita. PSEye/Move was in the same boat and so will Morpheus.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Yeah 1 whole game that was good. People that bought it, bought it for being a handheld, expecting proper games support like on the PSP.

PS4 came after the fact and there's no spinning this to it being a proper PS4 accessory when it doesn't even properly map over its controls.

It's a dumb strategy not supporting your own platforms or peripherals properly, that's why third the large third parties abandoned the Vita. PSEye/Move was in the same boat and so will Morpheus.

 

What do you mean by that? With the recent FW updates you can completely reassign controls on both Vita and the PS4 as well.

 

As for PS4 coming later, it's the only console that really supports remote play. You can play any PS4 game on Vita. The PS3 couldn't do it due to RAM restrictions.

[theyarecomingforyou]

 

Support is meh if you want PS3/PS4 AAA experiences on it, but great for indie/JRPG. A lot of the indie titles are cross buy which helps support the Vita. The memory card prices are what are a joke/poor support.

 

By the way Morpheus can still pull it's weight, even if on a PS4 compared to a PC.

It's running at two-thirds the framerate and four-fifths the resolution, with absolutely no word on the visual fidelity (consoles are usually way behind the PC in that department). That's not 'pulling its weight'. People want VR for immersive experiences like Star Citizen, Destiny and Grand Theft Auto V, the sort of titles that are too demanding for Morpheus. Probably the most advanced graphics you're going to see will be a Call Of Duty game, as they already hit 1080p @ 60fps on PS4 - even then it will have to be scaled back a bit to handle the additional rendering, if it is actually possible at all. You're going to see a lot more games like Wii Sports.

 

I'm not really in a big rush to jump to VR headsets. We've been hearing this for 25 years now, and while we are technologically more capable, I would rather wait a bit and see how VR games and interactions turn out than dump several hundred dollars on a first gen system with limited selection. Even if it can be done technically, I'm not convinced it would actually be fun in many games - like Kinect turned out.

The technology didn't exist to make VR a reality twenty-five years ago. Now we have high resolution, high refresh race displays; laser tracking systems; advanced sensors; low latency graphics APIs; high fidelity graphical capabilities; high bandwidth communication buses like USB3, etc. Further, most of the people that have tried it have been extremely impressed. A lot of consumers have bought the developer version of the Oculus Rift.

 

it's obvious that the graphical fidelity of PS4 morpheus games will be lower, but they'll still be able to push some pretty incredible graphics anyway. as I said before, rendering at 1080 stereoscopic isn't very much more taxing than 1080 full frame monoscopic.

You and I have a different definition of 'incredible'. I intend to get VR for Star Citizen, which really does have incredible graphics. As for rendering, each scene is being rendered from a different perspective which makes it more demanding than traditional rendering. Further, framerate drops are much more noticeable with VR - you can't have drops to 20fps like with The Witcher 3 and even drops to 45-50fps will be too much, meaning graphics will be lowered to maintain the framerate. The visual fidelity will be significantly below that of AAA titles like Grand Theft Auto V or Battlefield 4, which is already much lower than the respective PC versions.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for Morpheus as it will help usher in the VR-era. For non-PC gamers it will be the only credible solution in the short-term. But the idea that it will in any way compete with the Oculus Rift or Vive in terms of experience or fidelity is not credible.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

It's running at two-thirds the framerate and four-fifths the resolution, with absolutely no word on the visual fidelity (consoles are usually way behind the PC in that department). That's not 'pulling its weight'. People want VR for immersive experiences like Star Citizen, Destiny and Grand Theft Auto V, the sort of titles that are too demanding for Morpheus. Probably the most advanced graphics you're going to see will be a Call Of Duty game, as they already hit 1080p @ 60fps on PS4 - even then it will have to be scaled back a bit to handle the additional rendering, if it is actually possible at all. You're going to see a lot more games like Wii Sports.

 

 

The technology didn't exist to make VR a reality twenty-five years ago. Now we have high resolution, high refresh race displays; laser tracking systems; advanced sensors; low latency graphics APIs; high fidelity graphical capabilities; high bandwidth communication buses like USB3, etc. Further, most of the people that have tried it have been extremely impressed. A lot of consumers have bought the developer version of the Oculus Rift.

 

 

You and I have a different definition of 'incredible'. I intend to get VR for Star Citizen, which really does have incredible graphics. As for rendering, each scene is being rendered from a different perspective which makes it more demanding than traditional rendering. Further, framerate drops are much more noticeable with VR - you can't have drops to 20fps like with The Witcher 3 and even drops to 45-50fps will be too much, meaning graphics will be lowered to maintain the framerate. The visual fidelity will be significantly below that of AAA titles like Grand Theft Auto V or Battlefield 4, which is already much lower than the respective PC versions.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for Morpheus as it will help usher in the VR-era. For non-PC gamers it will be the only credible solution in the short-term. But the idea that it will in any way compete with the Oculus Rift or Vive in terms of experience or fidelity is not credible.

 

Expectations for the pricing. It's all well to say my car can't drive as fast as a Ferrari so it sucks, but I didn't spend a lot of money on it. Pulling it's weight within the confines it has to, not in comparison to the PC. We know how important FPS is with VR, so we need decent news coming out of Morpheus development on that front.

[President Devil]

Hahaha, yeah, recent. How long has the Vita been out?

 

Great for it being able to remote play PS4 games with all its laggy "benefits", it doesn't change the fact that it's a poorly supported platform that many wished they had never bought in the first place.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Hahaha, yeah recent. How long has the Vita been out?

 

Great for it being able to remote play PS4 games with all its laggy "benefits", it doesn't change the facts that it's a poorly supported platform that many wished they had never bought in the first place.

 

Lag is a weak argument against it, as there really isn't any, and now there is 60FPS support. No need for you to speculate on it, I've actually used it. PS4 wired, Vita wireless, and it's fine.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Topic Cleaned

 

Cut the personal attacks now.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Expectations for the pricing. It's all well to say my car can't drive as fast as a Ferrari so it sucks, but I didn't spend a lot of money on it. Pulling it's weight within the confines it has to, not in comparison to the PC. We know how important FPS is with VR, so we need decent news coming out of Morpheus development on that front.

Yeah. As I said, I'm excited for what Morpheus will do for VR - unless it's a disaster it will help increase consumer awareness of it.

[ichi]

I'd love a VR headset, but only once it's technically feasible to go completely wireless.

Having cables all across the living room from the couch to the console would be a mess.

[+Asmodai MVC]

Historically peripherals for consoles have not done well that is why I don't expect the Morpheus to do well at all.

Again it all depends on what you consider "doing well". Clearly camera peripherals for consoles have done well enough for Sony to make one for every generation since the PS2 and so again, if that's the bar Morpheus has to rise to then I think it will do just fine.

On the other hand despite the fact that cameras have existed for consoles since the PS2 most console games still don't use them so if that to you means camera peripherals don't "do well" then by that measure Morpheus probably won't either.

Morpheus isn't going to cause all or even most console games to suddenly be VR and if you expect it to then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. It doesn't NEED to do that well though. It just needs to do well enough to make it profitable for Sony and create a nice little niche of games for people who do buy it.

I don't think it will have much trouble achieving that much.

 

Even the Kinect was a smaller blip then people think.

I don't think Kinect was a big deal at all. Both Kinect and PlayStation Move were attempts by MS and Sony to cash in on the market the Wii developed and took by storm.

While Kinect did way better then Move it didn't do great overall (Move is a very low bar.) If most Xbox fans were excited about it they wouldn't have been so upset it was bundled with the Xbox One.

If you look at Kinect as just an evolution of the camera/mic array though and not a motion gaming platform then it does quite well.

The Morpheus simple does not have any big title like Star Citizen to showcase.

That's a horrible example. VR is just an afterthought for Star Citizen. I'm a backer for Star Citizen so I'm a fan of the game in general but Star Citizen isn't going to drive VR sales. You can play Star Citizen just fine without VR and it remains to be seen how well VR will even work in the final game.  VR is just a neat extra to have not a defining feature.

Again most VR software right now is either tech demos or non-VR games that just have VR tacked on after the fact. The only game that comes to mind that is even close to AAA quality and is designed from the ground up for VR is EVE: Valkyrie and that IS for BOTH Oculus and Morpheus.

[theyarecomingforyou]

That's a horrible example. VR is just an afterthought for Star Citizen. I'm a backer for Star Citizen so I'm a fan of the game in general but Star Citizen isn't going to drive VR sales. You can play Star Citizen just fine without VR and it remains to be seen how well VR will even work in the final game.  VR is just a neat extra to have not a defining feature.

By 'afterthought' you mean 'designed with VR in mind', right? Because Star Citizen already supports the Oculus Rift and is something that Chris Roberts has expressed a lot of interest in. Is VR the defining feature? No, because it's not a tech demo. That's what makes it so exciting - it's a high-fidelity, AAA PC-game with support for VR. It's not being used as a gimmick but to improve immersion.

 

I'm far more interested in the Star Citizen implementation than I am a bunch of tech demos on the PS4.

[+Asmodai MVC]

By 'afterthought' you mean 'designed with VR in mind', right? Because Star Citizen already supports the Oculus Rift and is something that Chris Roberts has expressed a lot of interest in. Is VR the defining feature? No, because it's not a tech demo. That's what makes it so exciting - it's a high-fidelity, AAA PC-game with support for VR. It's not being used as a gimmick but to improve immersion.

 

I'm far more interested in the Star Citizen implementation than I am a bunch of tech demos on the PS4.

By "afterthought" I mean the game doesn't require it.  It's tacked on and the game is entirely playable without ever touching VR.

Games designed for VR vs ones that "support" it are VERY different things.  A game that just "supports" it has to be completely playable by people without VR and so is limited in how much it can depend on VR capabilities.

 

As for supporting it today so does Half-Life 2, it's an afterthought there as well.  A lot of devs are excited about VR they are taking it onto a lot of games.  Who knows how well it will work in Star Citizen.  Will you be able to fly your fighter around, get out, fight a FPS battle inside your carrier (repel a boarding action) then get into your trader ship and conduct some trade runs seamlessly while wearing a VR headset?  Is that working today?  Of course not because Star Citizen as it exists today is just a tech demo or series of them.  Again I'm confident the game will be great, I'm a Star Citizen backer myself, but it's really odd to hold up a game that isn't even close to being out in it's release form, is often being debated by others as being vapor ware, and just has optional support for a given tech as the hallmark game for that tech.

[theyarecomingforyou]

By "afterthought" I mean the game doesn't require it.  It's tacked on and the game is entirely playable without ever touching VR.

Games designed for VR vs ones that "support" it are VERY different things.  A game that just "supports" it has to be completely playable by people without VR and so is limited in how much it can depend on VR capabilities.

 

As for supporting it today so does Half-Life 2, it's an afterthought there as well.  A lot of devs are excited about VR they are taking it onto a lot of games.  Who knows how well it will work in Star Citizen.  Will you be able to fly your fighter around, get out, fight a FPS battle inside your carrier (repel a boarding action) then get into your trader ship and conduct some trade runs seamlessly while wearing a VR headset?  Is that working today?  Of course not because Star Citizen as it exists today is just a tech demo or series of them.  Again I'm confident the game will be great, I'm a Star Citizen backer myself, but it's really odd to hold up a game that isn't even close to being out in it's release form, is often being debated by others as being vapor ware, and just has optional support for a given tech as the hallmark game for that tech.

The problem with games built entirely around things like VR is that they tend to be gimmicky. They put showing off the technology above gameplay, acting as little more than glorified tech demos. Something like Star Citizen is perfect for VR as it adds to what is already an immersive experience. The game is still in development

[+Asmodai MVC]

The problem with games built entirely around things like VR is that they tend to be gimmicky. They put showing off the technology above gameplay, acting as little more than glorified tech demos.

Games NEED to be designed entirely around VR. It's not just an add-on that enhances the experience. It entirely replaces your screen, UIs need to be designed different to be optimized for VR. What you see, how you interact with it, etc. is all different. If the game has to work for people who don't VR then one experience is going to suffer. Clearly Star Citizen is going to prioritize non-VR over VR when confilicts arise because most Star Citizen players aren't going to have VR.

Something like Star Citizen is perfect for VR as it adds to what is already an immersive experience. The game is still in development

[theyarecomingforyou]

Games NEED to be designed entirely around VR. It's not just an add-on that enhances the experience. It entirely replaces your screen, UIs need to be designed different to be optimized for VR. What you see, how you interact with it, etc. is all different.

The problem is the market simply doesn't exist for something like that. No publisher is going to spend over $100m developing a game when the potential sales may only be a few million. That means we're going to see low-budget, more casually-orientated games. Further, dedicated VR titles need dedicated VR control schemes - using a controller or mouse/keyboard isn't going to cut it. You also need to be able to move about, which is something the HTC Vive supports but that we haven't seen from the Morpheus.

 

You an enormous amount of blind faith. VR doesn't work well at all in first person running around. Star Citizen is going to have huge problems getting FPS gameplay to work with VR in the same game where people are doing the same FPS action without VR. Flying around in a ship DOES lead itself to VR but Star Citizen is MUCH more than just that. Star Citizen is going to be an amazing game but I have little doubt that Eve: Valkyrie will be a far superior VR ship combat experience because it's designed from the ground up for VR. No sacrifices are made to make sure non-VR players can play too. Star Citizen has A LOT of strengths but VR is not one of them. VR is just a neat extra for Star Citizen.

Star Citizen is a first-person universe and VR will work for every aspect of the game. The way it's being built the ships are simply objects in the first-person universe, meaning there isn't a distinction between the two environments. It's not about faith, it's about what the developers have promised. As for Eve: Valkyrie, it doesn't look even close to the quality of Star Citizen and it won't because it's being built around the limitations of consoles.

 

As I said, I'm much more interested in cutting edge AAA games designed for VR then games where it's just tacked on as an optional tack-on. I agree though that what has currently been shown is mostly tech demos and not AAA titles. In fact THAT WAS MY POINT. The other guy was claiming there was a bunch of great games ready for oculus and I pointed out that there are few if any right now because almost everything is just tech demos.

VR is going to be best implemented in existing AAA games until the market is able to support dedicated VR titles. There simply can't be any dedicated AAA games on VR until the install base is comparable to that of next-gen consoles, which isn't going to happen. I'd rather have a great game that supports VR than a VR tech demo.

 

That's a horrible example. Kinect didn't do so well in mass sales.

Are you kidding? That's the perfect example, as we're talking about an expensive add-on for an existing console. Only a small percentage of users bought it and the titles that were released were glorified tech demos. Even though the XB1 shipped with the Kinect we haven't seen any meaningful implementations. The Wii is different because the console was built around that control input. Do you really think the Morpheus is going to outsell the Kinect? It's going to be substantially more expensive and there hasn't been much support from developers.

 

VR IS something entirely different. It's not a new control scheme it's an entirely different output. It entirely replaces the monitor/tv... the primary output device of a computer/console. It's not just a simple add-on that you can easily ignore. Games have to be designed to support it well and in doing so it makes it so they don't work well without it. VR games will be entirely new genres not just slight modifications to existing genres. There will be some overlaps. Driving/flying/piloting games are a good example of the overlap but FPS games or not. Maybe someone will crack the FPS nut for VR but I have no doubt the solution will make it so it won't work for people without VR. You won't have VR players running around in FPS games with non-VR players as peers. Heck you rarely even get mouse/keyboard FPS games with controller FPS games and the differences there are FAR, FAR, smaller.

It's not entirely new. It allows you to look around independently of the controls but that doesn't have a huge impact in terms of gameplay - it's about immersion. TrackIR is a similar technology. I'm really not sure what it is you're expecting from VR but your expectations seem to be unrealistic.