Hands On With Sony's PlayStation VR

Even for a VR avatar, standing onstage at a private concert with globe-renowned violinist Joshua Bell, blasting 500 feet into the air propelled only by a bouncy beach ball, and dogfighting similar there's no tomorrow in a pre-release version of Eve: Valkyrie is a lot for 1 afternoon.

Merely information technology was all possible at Sony's special outcome at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where the PlayStation maker unveiled the pricing and availability for its much-anticipated PlayStation VR.

We've already had a couple opportunities to endeavor out pre-release versions of Sony'southward VR headset, merely the scale of this effect was a scrap unlike. Dozens of the more 230 developers Sony has lined up to produce content for PlayStation VR were on hand to demo their games. At that place was fifty-fifty some non-game VR content, something Sony engineers admit they can practice meliorate to promote.

Up get-go was a private concert from Joshua Bell, a classical musician always eager to experiment. He once gave upward his $1,000-a-minute typical bacon to play for tips in a Washington, D.C. Metro station, and it turns out he is as well a VR fan.

"He approached us," said Ken Inagaki, director of production evolution at Sony Reckoner Entertainment. Venues were arranged, a pianist was sourced, a Hungarian trip the light fantastic was selected, cameras were prepare, and in July 2022 the concert was recorded.

Not merely did Sony film it in VR, simply it also captured 360-degree audio. The result is that you stand about between Bell and the pianist with your headset and headphones on, and when yous turn to face 1 musician, the other's music fades into your right or left ear. Information technology'due south truly an immersive experience.

The headset itself is very similar to the HTC Vive, with excellent (for VR) image quality and latency. The experience is leaps and premises over what you'd expect from Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, or other phone-powered headsets. In fact, you lot'd be forgiven for thinking y'all're looking at a behemothic Hard disk display in real life.

How comfortable it is volition obviously depend on how long your sessions are and how well you adapt it. In our easily-on demos of virtually five minutes each, nosotros didn't experience any discomfort, and certainly didn't feel as if nosotros'd been "raccooned" after taking the headset off.

Audio quality of the stereo headphones (which will come up included when PlayStation VR ships in October) is good. They're perfectly adequate for game soundtracks and realistic-sounding effects, though a true audiophile might have had some quibbles with their reproduction of the Joshua Bell performance.

Later the concert came a quirky demo of the Move controller'due south capabilities (PlayStation VR uses already-available Movement controllers also as the more conventional DualShock 4). The Move controllers are two white sticks with glowing color orbs fastened to i cease. They're equipped with thumb and trigger buttons, and of class are motility sensitive in a Wii-esque way.

A Sony employee led the states through the demo. First, we learned how to squeeze the controller's buttons then our avatar'southward easily and confront would react. Squeeze one controller and you get a thumbs upwards and a smirk. Squeeze both and you go two thumbs up and a broad grin. Repeat the procedure with the controllers flipped over and you get a thumbs downward and a scowl.

It'south gimmicky, just once more, very immersive. In fact, we spent more than than five minutes traipsing around the virtual playground, set on a tropical embankment, in awe. At one indicate, we were told to grab and agree a beach ball nether our avatar'due south anxiety. Afterwards a few seconds, the ball exploded, launching the avatar hundreds of feet to a higher place the beach.

Unfortunately, that nauseating experience left us with little desire to try out some of the existent video games Sony'due south programmer partners were eager to show. We did, however, spot demos of multiple upcoming titles, including Eve: Valkyrie, Megaton Rainfall, and Drive Club.

Sony also hinted at a special Star Wars feel called Star Wars: Battlefront VR, though in that location was no demo and details about its release were scarce.

The eagerness of the whole event belied Sony's credible anxiousness at entering the VR market place. Inagaki was quick to ask questions like "What exercise you think?" and "Should nosotros do more of this?"

Ultimately, Sony will have to do a lot more of this if it is to compete with the formidable Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and several other VR sets that will come to market in 2022. Only it already has a convict audition in the millions of PlayStation owners whose consoles will be compatible with the $399 PlayStation VR; no additional hardware needed.

For now, we're going to practice our thumbs-up skills in anticipation.