Sony's Oculus Rift killer VR headset for PlayStation 4 to appear at the Tokyo Game Show? Game over for The Wonderful OVR? Battling Insurmountable Consumer Rift VR Demons + Rift TVRKING,tagging and trolling for your supper

Could Sony's Oculus Rift killer VR headset for PlayStation 4 mean curtains for Nateman and The Boy Virtual? Doom 4 the Rift? Captain Carmack left Quaking as Team Oculus face off against an army of seemingly insurmountable VR demons without a Consumer Rift to TVRK ..?

This is gonna be a long read as I collate all scuttlebutt re the state of VR and HMD gaming at the moment, so please be sure to have recovered from any Rift Nausea before you start. In the latest fashion of VR and HMD article writing I will be referencing various relevant sources in order to lend cred to my arguments ... After all VR and gaming is so grown up right ? 

Consider then, this the third part of my Oculus Rift Dev Kit  review..  in which I ponder the potential of competition evolving the HMD beyond the Rift's capabilities  ,  VR lifestyle choices of the Rift and famous :  TVRKING , the Professional Rift Trolling Circuit, Rift Taggers, the Hare Riftna movement and very very very  important: the VR demons  The Wonderful OVR are facing including  Rift Blur, Lag and Latency and of course the BFG requiring uber Demon from VR Hell that could spell ULTIMATE DOOM 4 the Rift as a consumer device : Rift Nausea... 

faced with any Demon or criticsm Oculus VR immediately  adopt the "it's only a prototype" or turning to Jello defense 

I will as you can see be referencing/channelling  Platinums' The Wonderful 101 [1] as a visual metaphor for the battles with various types of Rift VR demons our friends at Oculus are facing. Some of which I predicted they would face ...way back when I first backed  them ....MUHAAHAHHHH!!! and twice more ....MUHAAHAHHHH!!!....MUHAAHAHHHHH!!


Time then to look at this paradigm shifting moment in VR and HMD gaming and what it means for our friends over at Oculus.. whilst referencing and simultaneously reviewing(OK playing)  The Wonderful 101 .. the mechanics of which bare an uncanny relevance to the battles Team Oculus VR are engaged in ..The Wonderful OVR  have been going on a a bit lately about the demons the Rift faces.. note I said the Rift faces, because other commercially released HMDS do not face those issues.. for OVR to leave that fact out of their recent "lectures" and "articles" is  ....fascinating.....

The Wonderful OVR vs the demon of Competition 

New competition has emerged for OVR .. not the first or last that OVR will face, but the first from a brand with far more recognition in video gaming than OVR .....namely Sony.. And where Sony goes others tend to follow...where then does that leave OVR .. when later Microsoft and others join the VR fray..as if they haven't thought of doing so already...?

News of a Sony VR HMD, first broke through Eurogamer (that must have pleased Endgadget no end, who only got the relatively dull  HMZT 3  scoop). This  sleight of PR hand, had the Fantastic Media Friends of Oculus VR (FMFOVR) thinking the HMZT3 was it for Sony, cue Rift PR and friendly media talking down $1000 hmds a couple of days ago on one of the most prominent Media Friends of Oculus blogs. Completely unaware that a Sony Rift Killer also existed and is  ready to be shown at the Tokyo Game Show.. in fact it could have been shown at Gamescom .. Thus Sony deftly bypassed the Rift Taggers[**] and pro Rift Trolls[***]..But then Sony's no slouch when it comes to PR oneupmanship as I am sure a few Nintendo, Sega and  Microsoft heads of dept can confirm. And Oculus VR with all due respect are no Microsoft, Sega or Nintendo...Put that in your VR hype pipe and troll it..

** Rift Tagger : defn: A person or Internet entity that follows any and all Internet comment on social networks, forums,blogs and youtube videos with the words "Oculus Rift" +/- further comment which can be benign or malicious in nature. Can be employed by Oculus VR ..Can also be a Rift Troll..

***Rift Troll : defn:  A person or Internet entity that follows any review, comment made by any individual or entity around the Interweb across forums with an attempt to discredit said individual or entity commenting on a negative opinion or experience of the Oculus Rift +/- OVR. Unlike the Rift Tagger , comment is always malicious vs any one with a negative experience of the Oculus Rift or OVR .. Can also be employed by Oculus VR although it may take other Rift Trolls to inadvertently admit this ..DOH!!! And OVR have been known to OMIT this fact in privately written apologies..

Riftmaniacs everywhere have been sent into a tizzy far worse than that caused by the worst case of Rift Nausea[****] 

****Rift Nausea : defn: a state of severe malaise unique to use of Oculus Rift HMD series. Hx/Onset within seconds or minutes of using the Rift, during the use of the Rift and persisting for minutes to hours after using the Rift. Symptoms dizziness, eye strain nausea,syncope and in severe cases possible emesis . Rx : the only known solution is to prescribe a different form of Head Mounted Display one that is free from Rift Nausea ( by virtue of not being a Rift ). Currently this renders the RIft design as commercially not viable and further clinical studies with the Oculus Rift ..actually any clinical studies need to be completed before we can ascertain any acute or long term health impact..Cause: the hardware and software used by the Rift.. NB neither the user nor the game developer is responsible for the Rift Nausea sometimes mischievously referred to as VR Nausea .. Thousands of hours of testing on thousands of subjects using rival HMDs produces no similar nausea/malaise.. HMD nausea seems to be linked to and a unique function of wide field of view, above 180g weight, low cost , low quality optics and display HMDs..  

Now faced with two not one Sony HMD announcements OVR comments are everywhere, Nateman and The Boy Virtual have been dispatched and are currently doing the rounds sporting one of two (semi)1080p prototypes. Engaging with friendly reviewers that form part of the  Fantastic Media Friends Of Oculus VR  (FMFOVR) desperately reaching deep into their sycophantic phrase books most recently used to reflate Double Fine Kickstarter backer confidence,  to try to quell the panic in The Wonderful OVR..and reflate the Rifts now deflating hype bubble..when  what should matter is solving the Rifts issues and creating a commercially viable HMD..before someone else comes along and beats you to it..  

I have picked up on other HMD manufacturers welcoming the entrance or validation of the HMD market by such a big player..Sony that is..not OVR.. Consumers and developers alike will be able to consider HMDs not as mere gimmicks for geeks or tech shows but actual common household objects that serve a purpose sitting next to their consoles, phones, tablets and PCs.. t'is the dawning of a new platform

Sony understands what Oculus VR do not that HMDs have diverse usage scenarios, from portable low FOV to wide FOV VR head sets ..there never needed to be only one device..or one way of accessing VR or even need to access VR ..the HMD that succeeds is the one that adapts to users expectations not the developers..

The new Sony device will be a VR wide field of view HMD not just competing with but surpassing the Rift. All those claims of every other HMD having a smaller FOV or  not being VR .. just got shut down.. period. And Sony's 10s of millions of PS4 owners by next year are going to be able to take to VR free of the Rift's issues or it's developers OVR..and the oft openly glib tech celeb puppeteers pulling their strings.. 

Further this is not likely to be  a thousand dollar HMD like Sony's HMZT series. And you know if it is, people will still buy it. You can sell anything at any price, if what you sell has actual value..actually works ..has actual use .. and a brand with a history of commercial success behind it.. just ask Apple..or..oh yes... Sony.. Most importantly though you have to have something to sell...in the first place.. 

The Sony PS4 VR HMD could also leverage the wireless video and audio transmission technology that comes with the HMZT3 .. now how cool is a wireless VR HMD that let's you play PS4 games and media.. to you ?

It could also leverage the battery tech of the HMZT3 , suddenly VR becomes eminently portable.

Put all the disparate Sony tech together and you have another way to mobilize VR:

Say I have my PSVita , streaming a full game using Gaikai . Let's say I am playing  the Metal Gear 5 demo this time next Christmas.. only I am doing this at the beach in Rio (it's raining so all the beautiful people have gone in doors) , wearing my  wireless Sony PS4 HMD ... .. There's no need for a PS4 even in this scenario , we could of course use remote play and stream a stream ..cloud gaming which I have been doing for a couple of years now..combined with HMD VR gaming thanks to the wireless and portable Sony PS4 HMD... there is nothing to stop you streaming the Last Of Us from your PS3 GAIKAI collection on your PS4 either in theory or Naughty Dog's VR follow up on PS4.... on your portable VR Sony PS4 headset ... everything everywhere ... whilst Rift TVRKers toil to make a living on Youtube... 

Exciting times.. 

  
And as we know where one console platform holder goes, so do the others ... 


The Wonderful OVR vs the demon of Over Exposure :Time for a Little Less Hype and Little More VR Action? 

Team Oculus as usual are in full promotion mode ..when they should be in commercial production mode.. frankly they left it too late... 

So then, is the era of crowd sourced and forum and media hyped prototype VR over? Yes it is .. Sony like other HMD manufacturers, have been developing their VR HMD without any of the Riftmania and the associated TVRKING* the The Wonderful OVR ...and the Oculus Rift are known for.. 

* TVRKING : definition : the act of rapidly shaking your head around with mouth agape whilst wearing a prototype HMD and youtubing it or taking a "selfie".. TVRKERS are commonly found on Youtube and appear magically in the background of prototype HMD "interviews" with varying degrees of facial hair , often behind closed doors...TVRKING in public spaces is considered distasteful by some more conservative VR fans..

With competition growing daily and many of the truths about the limitations of the Rift design getting past the Rift Troll,Tagger and Media Friends of Oculus VR promotion net,  we have to  consider ,have The Wonderful OVR over TVRKED themselves and waited too long.. not having a retail product..so far into the hype run for said future product...? And so serious doubts may be forming in both public and The Wonderful OVRs highly intelligent minds:

People have started to consider if there is  any point to the Rift anymore, indeed if there was any point in the first place, it was never designed to work optimally outside Rift SDK games and interface with any of the devices we actually will be using in 2014. Walled garden greed limited it's usage scenarios..with engine makers trying to dictate hardware use .. yeah like that is going to work, no one buys a Unity, or Steam or Unreal PC .. or console .. they buy a PC or Console on which they choose what to play or do..Steam Boxes are as likely to be successful as a Unity or Unreal Box..Neither Valve,Unity or Unreal should chose to limit access to VR or HMD development...through one pipe..they should be supporting EVERY HMD and VR leaning device.. and they WILL do ..THEY WILL DO...just like they support iOS and Android and of course NVIDIA and AMD...

So then The Wonderful OVRs time in the spotlight is going to be limited , no matter how many TVRKERs , Rift Taggers and Trolls or Fantastic Media Friends Of OVR they employ or lean on .. because this is all just hype .. You can bet the coders of Unreal are screaming for the opportunity to support the Sony VR HMD in Unreal Engine 4 on the PS4... as well as other HMDs and headtracker solutions.
.
And there is always a faster engine , one that is more profitable for developers.. The Rift price point is never going to allow the spec of components required to create VR without present and persistent physiological and clinical issues...it does not take a Phd or a Rocket Scientist to figure that out....and it takes someone with guts to point this out to the Phd/Rocket Scientists ..

So does this Sony announcement ( with Microsoft,Samsung and others perhaps yet to follow)  spell curtains for our heroes at Team Oculus? Will Nateman and The Boy Virtual's Protohype On the Road Show continue? 

The Wonderful OVR vs the Ego Demon from the iD... 

Back at Oculus VR HQ , will Captain  Carmack and the rest of The Wonderful OVR  be up to facing off this latest  twin pronged threat of  Sony's commercially releasing HMDs whilst simultaneously battling a  army of  Oculus Rift Consumer Release Demons ? And the inevitable upgrades to rival HMDs, as well as Googles AR push with GLASS?  Yes GLASS is relevant, because it creates in the end user the idea that a HMD can be lighter than your shades.. multi purpose .. and cost 1K ..because that is what quality HMDs cost baby..... 

A veritable double, nay tripple whammy blow to OVR ... especially since their fabled consumer version is still trapped in the Phantom HMD Zone.. and prototypes are currently more notable  for generating money for youtubers than investors..or indeed developers ...there are people making money on the Rift then.. you just have to TVRK for it...

Still Team Oculus would say  if this was  a Joss Whedon film "we have a Carmack" .. which is essentially what Nateman and The Boy Virtual are doing..

But could reputation and ego ( unstable: inflated or diminished) of this legend actually be detrimental to the Consumer Rift reaching retail..  Mayhaps this may be itself.. . one of the greatest VR demons The Wonderful OVR have to defeat ..?

And JC's yet to bring the "other guy" to  bare and banish the Rift's demons once and for all ....With all due respect to one of my game coding heroes you sir have been wrong on almost every major decision regarding the evolution of HMDs and I go right back to the Quakecon 2012 speech , the choice of game Doom 3 to launch the Rift , the choice of display, the headtracker , the endless hype disparaging the competition which OVR now allegedly welcomes ... I could go on but just check my prior articles (in which I did) or better still check your own...So it is one thing to have a "Carmack" in your Wonderful 101 VR Avengers line up , but you really need to know how best to and when to use him... for that you are going to need...well that would be telling..

The arrival of competition that OVR cannot afford to rubbish through it's MTBS3D and Reddit arms quoting the reputation and ego of it's celebrity name employees  is a VR game changer:Just go try to have an adult discussion on MTBS3D and wait for the Rift flies to settle and take over any discussion.. Fascinating especially when you learn they are actually Oculus employees too.. but when they control the debate it's not bias .. it's manna from Oculus!! Everyone else is biased but them...

This stifles the debate on VR .. it is meant to.. it is meant to keep the Nateman and The Boy Virtual Protohype  media friends of Oculus tour going ... But guys and I mean this as a day 1 backer of the Rift , this kind of sycophantic press and media reporting on the Rift is the the worst thing that can happen to a company that really needed to reach retail before the likes of Sony and the rest inevitably entered the arena.. 

Now you are going to have to compete not through past reputation and on ego through  forum trolls, trashing peoples blogs, or strapping dev units to grannies on you tube  .. this VR s**t just got Unreal 4 all y'all.... real competition...that has sacked people with bigger reputations and egos because they did not deliver... 

Hopefully OVR will compete in a mature way .. and perhaps OVR could start by hiring less promotion trolls to massage their celeb egos and retrain some to become feedback minions thus getting constructive feedback even when it is telling JC or Angel Eyes ..dude that's not going to work..never was and I told you so like last year....Who knows maybe MTBS3D could actually mature and  take a joke as well as make one out of VR.. that's my groove..

And it's high time The Wonderful OVR and their sometimes paid for following learnt to acknowledge and respect the fact there are people out there with better ideas, more relevant experience and gadzooks ...different opinions .. and more often than not those people have been right about the reality of VR and hmds .. where your industry and forum celeb Wonderful OVR have been and continue to be wrong...  and  as for your following ... I have to do it ..apologies to Mr Lucas in advance... 

After all VR Padawans ,,, "who is the most foolish ? the fool or the fool that follows him?"


Mental Kombat:

Meanwhile back at the Rift Cave  Team Oculus is engaged in Mental Kombat with a team of super villains that will be defeated by the time the consumer version releases that must be defeated if the commercial version is to release : And that won't be based on the present design ..or future design based on price constraints...

Witness then mere mortal, the timeless ( really no one has clue on the time line as no one knows when the Commercial unit hits ) battle betwixt Team Oculus/The Wonderful OVR and the VR demons known as  The evil  Blur,  Nausea and that most heinous of anti cheap VR headset demons the Lag and Latency twins.

Captain  Carmack vs The Evil Blur Oculus Rift Demon..

Our hero and someone who looks nothing like Beaker at all, ( so I am told by several thousand Rift trolls) is currently working secret miracles including if rumours be true hoping to strobe LEDs to counter the Blur / display of the Rift.  The Blur looks to have Captain Carmack on the ropes .. who having dropped his signature  Joe 90 spectacles, is rendered  unable to see the solution the fabled OLED crystal  ... the Blur's only weakness... there are of course many reasons for the Rift Demon of Blur being so present in the Rift... but none of which I can currently think of linking to The Wonderful 101 visual metaphor I am riffing off in this article . But fret not , for by the time the Consumer version of the Rift hits , I will have fixed my The Wonderful 101 visual metaphor  issues.. . Let's hope JC is as successful...

Steve "Maths of Steel " LaValle vs  the Lag and Latency Oculus Rift Demons 

Meanwhile in a secret location ( NDAs and all that jazz)  we find another Team Oculus hero Steve Maths of Steel LaValle is taking on not one , not three but two of Oculus demons Lag and Latency

Steve is using nothing ... really ...nothing ...he is using maths .... and charts.... and software .. That's one brave dude ... As every  VR  fan knows  Lag and Latency feed on lag and latency caused by lag and latency due to complex equations running through software that itself becomes another layer of lag and latency .... their only weakness being a headtracker that works in hardware from the moment you plug it in and of course like the Blur they vanish at the mere turning on of an OLED crystal.. Pity poor Steve ...who can predict what happens next..wait maybe one of those charts or quaternion equations.....and if you believe Oculus have equations that can predict the future....SHEEESSHH!!!!

Naturally we don't get to see the outcome ( it's totally unpredictable much like a lagging  headtracker  trying to predict where you are going to look ) 

The Wonderful OVR vs the Oculus Rift Nausea Demon

And then we come to the most intense battle of all , the mightiest anti consumer Rift Demon of all , the one that terrifies Rift tots to grannies and pays for food to be put on the table for many a Rift Troll and Rift Tagger ... Rift Nausea... 

Witness then how after valiantly defeating the Consumer Oculus Rift Demons of Blur,Ego,Lag and Latency ..what may happenstance when The Wonderful OVR face off against the mighty Rift Nausea Demon

But wait what is going on here , Team Oculus is throwing developers to the Nausea demon ...they must fight and defeat it themselves... with software... what? In fact Oculus are resorting the calling the Nausea demon names... that's weak dude ...even Steve had equations .. and Carmack was strobing stuff , seriously they are standing around calling it names ... like " VR Nausea"  Rift Nausea is not amused and unflinching , for as every VR demon knows  names cannot hurt you and  no amount of developer/software input can tackle issues that are inherent in the flawed hardware design of the Rift.. 

It is completely disingenuous to claim that all VR involves nausea , just like it is completely incorrect to claim all VR involves lag and latency .

These are experiences and flaws that are inherent to the Rift design and software and it's experience of VR. They are NOT present in ALL HMDs or headtrackers .. and Oculus VR with so many Phds and alleged super brains .. are perfectly aware of that.. this is what gets my goat about OVR .. why the nonsense hype.. ? 

When I have a go at luminaries like JC or Angel Eyes himself , it is because I have factual evidence to contrary of what they are espousing , whether JC commenting on other HMDs at Quakecon 2012 , or Mr Luckey talking about drift with mouse emulation based headtracking making use of mouse emulation irrelevant ..when the Rift is now 8 months later trying to do mouse emulation with TriDef... 

What concerns me about OVR ,quite apart from the attention and money it seems is  paid out for Rift Tagging , Trolling and promotion ..is that almost a year on they can at times mislead the public as authority figures. On HMD issues like lag,latency , nausea and blur .. without clearly stating others solved these issues sometimes years ago.. 

And thus we leave Team Oculus/The Wonderful OVR .. the  Nateman and The Boy Virtual and Media Friends Of Oculus tour, Captain  Carmack, Steve Maths of Steel LaValle engaged in single eye brow raising mental  VR combat against the mighty Oculus Consumer Rift demons of Blur, Lag, Latency and Nausea .. that as the Hare Riftnas[******] like to chant " will be fixed in the consumer version"...with a legion of Rift Trolls , Taggers , TVRKERS and the Fantastic Media Friends of Oculus VR... along for the ride..

Welcome to the wonderful fantasy VR world of The Wonderful OVR 

***** Hare Riftna(s) : defn: a  sect of strict Oculus Rift devotees known for their constant chanting of the Rift Consumer Sutra " this will be fixed in the consumer version " May also be a Rift Tagger and or a professional  Rift Troll .. Hare Riftnas can also belong to the Fantastic Media Friends of Oculus VR. And are adept at devotional Rift TVRKING at  Rift media devotee meeetings + of course on Youtube 

If you have any interest or working knowledge or more importantly extensive experience of using HMDS you can see through the obvious nonsense.. you could see the flaws in the Rift design back at the Kickstarter phase ..

The problems/consumer release demons faced by the Oculus Rift , from nausea, lag latency , drift in the headtracker , to the same in the display, optics and software are all inherent in the design. Talking, stressing , hypothesising or trying to prepare your hyped up audience for a less than satisfactory VR experience because reality has dawned on you now X million dollars later, just doesn't wash..  Developers do not have time or money for this nonsense.. 

You need final hardware and software and time and space without hype to release product , what happened in the 80s and 90s is that companies often talked up Interactive movies with the arrival of CDROM.. the experiences from Rebel Assault which launched the CDROM on PC to the many so called Interactive movie adventure games was always less than expected or hyped..And this type of game died out.. ( although Tim  come on man keep calm and carry on) .If you are now an Oculus developer like me , consider the pressure on you to deliver a VR experience that matches the hype of an expected end user experience the hardware cannot physically deliver.. In essence I see no sign at present that this will be anything other than a gimmick for geeks .. yeah I will be first in the queue but how do you take something that has so many issues to the next consumer level and how will it compete with Sony's VR headset that will be on every console holding households wish list...  

Any number of HMDS will let you interface with so called VR without nausea .. developers need to do nothing to alter their code with rival HMDS ... or waste time and money mitigating issues inherent with the RIft.

Oculus VR's great flaw is that they want the world to adapt to their HMD design ... when it is the job of an engineer , the mark of a great engineer or designer to design an object that requires 0 effort on a users part.... does your iPhone make you dizzy? what if it did? What would Apple do..promote those who cannot see the problems ? More relevantly the smd ST1080, Cinemizer OLED hmds are nausea free , over in AR Google GLASS is nausea free. What all these have in common is quality components that cost.. you cannot do VR on the cheap ..not until mass quantities of units sell , you start selling high and then reduce the price once the device goes mainstream..Oculus always intended to do this the other way round ..there is already talk of going over the $300 by at least $100.How much south of an iPad do you think a functional Rift will cost ..?

And now it faces competition in it's exclusive VR space ..listen very carefully you can hear the sound of thousands of Rift trolls tapping touch screens ..

Similarly Steve's math heavy pamphlet (ok a couple of equations and a chart) talks of lag and latency , predictive head tracking , using maths etc to solve these issues. But those issues he is aware exist in the Rift and are absent when people including himself experience  rival HMDs 

Then we come to JC working miracles with blur . The blur is partly a function of the low cost LCD panel  that is totally unsuitable as a display panel for a HMD. This is HMD design 101. Go OLED or LCOS if you need hi res.. Choosing an LCD panel  that is to be used lets say for FPS gaming was the first fundamental flaw I pointed out a very long time ago , you would think with JCs pedigree in FPS gaming and alleged super brain plus the time he has spent around DOOM, he would have picked up on this you know about the time he was criticising all rival HMDs at Quakecon 2012 when he was not "officially" on board Team Oculus.. but plugging it on Kickstarter.

The Rift is meant to be a  device we use for long periods of time ,releasing in it's present state any time soon with their  rigid price constraints and frankly a lot of very talented and very cool people wasting time on problems that were solved by other HMD manufacturers years ago is a recipe for disaster. 

The Rift should keep to its original open source ideals and frankly stay out of the commercial arena till hardware solves it's problems. There needs to be an immediate anti promotion drive to stem the  hype and expectations they are generating. 

There is going to be no miracle breakthrough that solves all OVRs problems in time for a 2014 release. And if rivals move the HMD field forward we will see wide fov hmds for VR from Sony and others , as well as smaller FOV hmds for the portable HMD crowd or work applications . 1:1 Head tracking with both mouse and dof axes in hardware is pwned by the Zeiss headtracker. Now what happens when that gets updated? Where does OVRs $300 to $500 hmd constraint fit in all that..? 

It is also completely disingenuous for Nateman and The Boy Virtual to run around claiming HMDs are going to stay at $1000.  There will always be a $1000 plus prestige HMD, but the market becoming a true mass market will drive the price of quality HMDs down. So just like the PC ,phone, tablet and every other market.. that's economics 101...or it could go the other way like the Apple iPad market , people pay $1000 easy for  Apple gear . And this is a real threat to Oculus VR. $1000 devices can sell out and be as mass market as cheaper low quality items... even if the tag is connected to a hand bag or piece of clothing.. 

So let us be clear I access VR and use HMD  on a daily basis as do thousands without Nausea, or blur . I use headtracking without perceived lag,latency or drift as I told Palmer before the Rift left the design board to be 3D printed in it's prototype form. 

If you were unaware of this , that is in part down to the Rift Hype bubble , which was always going to burst ..

After all the design demons are defeated, if they are defeated before competition deservedly steals the VR market,  there is one most powerful demon to bring round ... the customer you and I .. after all as the cliche goes ..good against remotes is one thing ..good against the living.. and that bite back or backlash is what  The Wonderful OVR and Fantastic Media Friends Of Oculus VR (FMFOVR) should consider every time they try to set the course of VR or dominate all competition by disparaging others opinions or attempt to discredit them... and all this still  without a commercially viable product..for sale or review.

Perhaps others being able to learn from this example is going to be Oculus VRs lasting legacy... seems like my money backing them all that time ago on day 1 of the Kickstarter run wasn't wasted after all and I got a nice T Shirt out of it .... signed too by young Angel Eyes himself..there i go baiting trolls again..

next time  ... the relevance of REVERSE TVRKING YOUR OCULUS RIFT... 

References,sincere apologies and epilogue :

[1] Sincerest apologies to Platinum Games , you guys rock and so does The Wonderful 101 which I haven't stopped playing even as you can see whilst writing this article... and has inspired me to look for a way to get headtracking working with the Wii U..Metroid Prime here I come.. 
[2] Eurogamer .. for grading games really well and breaking the Sony PS4 VR Headset story
[3] Steve "Maths of Steel" Lavelle Principal Scientist OVR discourse on predictive lag and latency .. do some comparative studies with rival tech , see if that helps 
[4] The Fantastic Media Friends of Oculus VR [FMFOVR]  including MTBS3D and Penny Arcade .. I look forwards to jesting with you more .. you guys ...you guys crack me up.. a $300 VR device.. seriously.. it reminds of the time that guy that got up on a stage and said he had a magical device for surfing the web without Flash....
[5] Palmer, you know the solutions to solving these Rift problems .. go to it ..less talk more action,  release before E3 2014 or even having a Carmack on your team won't help
[6] Nate Mitchell , grab hold of Balmer asap  and sell high .. I know it will make you happy 
[7] J C .. John Carmack . ...fix it ..just fix it... 

Right I am off to play some more of The Wonderful 101 and some more Metal Gear Solid 4 with Zeiss head tracking on the Cinemizer OLED ,smd ST1080 and mayhaps even the Rift .. I just figured out how to use head tracking in Metroid Prime Trilogy ...MUHHHHAHHHHHH!!!!

Happy Rift TVRKING...VR Pilgrims...

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Sony HMZ-T 3W up for pre order at £1299 now

I have this theory when it comes to HMDs ... that they will sell irrespective of price .. Sony seem to agree with me ...  the Sony HMZ-T 3W at £1299, a price for which I could actually purchase a smd ST1080 and have change for a Cinemizer OLED HMD .. and have done ... is going to test that theory... 

If you want to help test my theory the HMZ-T 3W is up for pre order for £1299 for delivery towards the end of October 2013 .. here 

The more astute among you may note that this is not the Sony VR HMD for PS4.... so don't panic VR fans.. this one is for personal viewing ...read stationary use ...

If the madness takes me...again.. and I find funds for this a real world usage review will follow ...

I would love to see how that wireless transmitter actually works on a plane or how the 320g weight of this HMD compares to the 180g smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED hmds ..

more to follow when I get my hands on one..

this content is © and originated from thegameveda http://the-games-veda.blogspot.com/  if you are reading it from any other site that has not provided a link back it has been leached 

Battlefield 4 PS3 and PC : Cinemizer OLED HMD and head tracking play test 1

At Eurogamer 2013  DICE had four and sixty Xbox Ones playing Battlefield 4 ... all dev kits ... perhaps the entire dev kit contingent in Europe in one place ... Come the release though most people will be engaging in Battlefield 4 on a variety of platforms ...  Two of which I tested over the weekend

Whilst I did not get to try head tracking or the Cinemizer HMD with Battlefield  at the  Eurogamer Expo... I have done so over the course of the  Beta ... the release of which was nicely timed as Eurogamer 2013 came to an end ... 

First impressions, on PS3 and PC (64bit) , most importantly that little annoying browser launcher on PC is a lot less annoying than it used to be when launching Battlefield 3 on PC. 

Even at this Beta stage the launcher works...yes it still takes time to load levels , but it is significantly improved over the days of Battlefield 2 ... 

Traditionally DICE ( with all due respect) games launch on PC and are updated and patched as time goes by , not just fixes for faults but real improvements to the game ... this has happened with every Battlefield game on PC and does not detract from the greatness of the series... In fact I think it is cool the developers keep adjusting and fine tuning the game during the course of it's existence... 

This is vastly important to a game which models battles between 64 players ... because the game has to be in tune with how a herd of players play the game .. so the developers get to watch how we play and adjust how we play , allowing a DICE game like Battlefield to improve over time and age like a fine wine ....

The Beta then is just the beginning of the process of how DICE will mold and refine Battlefield 4 in response to how 64 player combat in a sandbox MMOFPS pans out .. like they learnt to long,long ago with Codename Eagle.. 

Here then is my first play with the PS3 version using the Cinemizer OLED HMD and Zeiss head tracker all FOV movement in the game is via use of the Zeiss head tracker alone on the PS3 ...You can see my ghost in the left hand top corner playing with the Cinemizer OLED HMD and head tracker.. 

the PS3 version is a world away in detail from the PC version , as far removed as Battlefield 2 is to Battlefield 3 :

This is the PC Open Beta of Battlefield 4 which is exclusively 64 bit only atm : Again all FOV movement is through use of the Zeiss head tracker alone and you can see my ghost over the video playing the game on the Cinemizer OLED HMD 

more to follow over the coming days when I have time to upload the footage...

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RIDGE RACER Driftopia free to play Early Access on Steam

A sign of the times when NAMCO Bandai launch a Ridge Racer game on PC, free to play and ask for feedback ... I wonder if they still have Reiko strutting her stuff in the intros... time to download Ridge Racer Driftopia and find out .. Roll on ACE COMBAT Infinity ... 

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Sony's HMZT 3 reveal: the more the HMZT series changes the more it stays the same

What is interesting about the Sony HMZT3 is the ways in which Sony is slowly evolving it's consumer HMD . And where it fits in the consumer arena.

The HMZT 3 will release in limited quantities later this year , I first learnt of it's coming in July at the New York Sony building whilst discussing HMDs with the staff , there was a total lack of HMZT 2s .. I was told they had been withdrawn and they were waiting for the next one... the  HMZT 3 .. 

The HMZT 1 was my first HMD , I mark it's coming as the beginning of the modern consumer HMD revolution.  I owned 3 , nay 4 counting a replacement for one unit. As we all know comfort , sweetspot ,optical and lack of portability issues really tempered the wow of the 750 inch cinema screen.

The HMZT 2 took a little weight off , but did not really improve on the original to the point where people were posting youtube videos of their granny allegedly using it ( like some prototype VR units I could mention) .

The OLED colours and black reproduction were gorgeous and ideal for light gaming as well as 3D film viewing. It was just that you could not see the whole screen or use the device for long, or indeed move your head like you need to when you wear a HMD or indeed  with a headtracker and have that image maintain fidelity corner pixel to corner pixel.

The first HMD to approach that was the LCOS based smd ST1080 . With a 100 inch 1080p res screen. That amount of detail made the pictures it produced look far more detailed than the HMZT series. 

The first HMD to achieve a clear corner pixel to corner pixel experience was the Cinemizer OLED HMD.. with a 40 inch display. 

Optically a wide field of view hmd , with a high magnification even when it is an OLED display throws up sweetspot issues .

Further 720p native seems to be the limit of  Sony's OLED technology . At this level of magnification through the optics you will see some visible pixels , nothing like that on the Rift though.

With the HMZT3 Sony have learned lessons of wide field of view hmds causing nausea and sweetspot issues . The HMZT3 will offer the ability to reduce the "screen size" . 

In practice we do this with software on the Rift all the time , it is completely untrue to think all Rift games are displayed using the entire FOV. Using the Tridef Beta can for instance give a "screen size" or FOV that looks like a distant flat screen , in cases less than other hmds..

Further innovations include a battery pack and wireless streaming. and you can connect your phones and tablets through MHL to HDMI .. which silly Endgadget journalists you can do with the previous versions too .. as well as the Rift , Cinemizer OLED , smd ST1080 and every other HMD that uses HDMI...

However far from being the Sony HMD equivalent of a Walkman , i.e. truly compact , the HMZT 3 is around the same size or in the same league of bulkiness as it's predecessor. 

Headphone tech continues to improve with each HMZT HMD. 

What you see is that Sony see the market for HMDs as experimental and limited , thus the changes are iterative , a tiny 10g shaved off the weight allegedly.. 

And most fascinating of all this latest consumer HMD from Sony shows the designers not even batting an eyelid over the hype regarding so called consumer versions of prototype VR displays. 

Sony then like other HMD manufacturers is going to gently move the HMD forward , without inflating the VR hype bubble ... after all that's what Oculus is for...

Will I buy a HMZT 3 .. considering it will be around £999 here and arrive late in November in the UK ,if before Christmas .. I don't know .. it will be interesting to try out at shows 

But the ergonomics really kill it for me , your HMD should be a pair of shades ..  

So then the HMZT 3 reveals the real world limitations of current OLED HMD tech. At 720p Sony is still mitigating optical , sweetspot ,fitting and weight issues.. 

At this stage we should expect native 1080p and true portability requires a weight of around 180g ... the smd ST1080 and Cinemizer OLED more than have this covered and with Zeiss headtracking... there are so many applications...


More when I get hold of one ...

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Google GLASS invites listed for up to $2000 on eBay : Original units sell for over 4K ..welcome to the cult of Augmented Reality

Google GLASS has issues that old Sergey really should take note of. 

Happy with all the plane jumping ,cake baking , super model adorning 720p videos storming Youtube over the last year or so , Google is getting ready to release the next GLASS ..updating all the old timer explorer devices in the process, part of which is sending out three invites to each explorer for their friends ..prompting the philosophical question do Geeks have friends ?

Well Geeks do have smarts which is why many of them are selling their invites on eBay for up to $2000 , whilst the old GLASS is can be had for a measly $4000 here 

Although this fits in nicely with my theory that people will pay anything for a HMD .. It should sound warning alarms at Google ..

GLASS is another prototype HMD, trying to wall garden HMD use ... By largely using bling and a very successful promotional explorer phase ...  For mass uptake GLASS has to reach real people too ..

As other HMD makers are learning, promotion does not equate with creating a market .. and having your prototypes being hawked , nay having the invitations for those prototypes being hawked for vast sums is not really something Google whose famous motto has something to do with staying away from negative vibes ... should ignore 

So Sergey Brin. ...over to you ..is this acceptable?

 International HMD fans can register interest for GLASS here 

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Star Conflict ...Free to Play Space Opera from GAIJIN ... manna for the combat starved Star Citizen?

Whilst we wait for the return of the multiple branching story line epic space opera genre to emerge from the black hole of development hell .. come on Chris where's the combat module? ... we can take solace in the fact that the awesomeness of the space opera genre or MMO space opera genre has not escaped the talents of other game developers ... and here is just one example Star Conflict , from Gaijin,yes the War Thunder guys ... and it looks stunning : 

Here are some 5120 by 1600 stretched screen shots, the game has a nifty stretched window option, so if you do not have a display or hardware that can render raw pixel resolutions you can at least stretch a lower res across multiple monitors...yes I was too lazy to up the resolution .. I will do though when I have more time for now check out how gorgeous the game is whilst you download the free to play game from Steam here

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LEAP Motion : playing Blue Estate Prologue (FREE) and Gone Home

LEAP Motion had the finest independent hardware launch of recent times, bypassing all the kickstarter and celeb hype treadmills and reaching out to developers and users alike directly. As as result I have been LEAPing for free, far in advance of getting my hands on the retail units I now use... 0 stress ... if only more products launched this way outside of kickstarter.. 

Any how ...the LEAP is real, retail and it's usage is  evolving all the time ... by this I mean I find new uses for it every day along with developers ... who are beginning to point (sorry) out how LEAP is different to all the other so called motion controllers...

For a limited time, Blue Estate Prologue ( no it is not a car simulator but a comedy LEAP Motion controlled shooter based on the Eisner Awards nominated Blue Estate comic books from Viktor Kalvachev ..) is free on the Airspace App Store. This is how it plays using a siliconmicrodisplay ST1080 hmd at 1080p native res ...

For several months I have used Dangermouse and the LEAP to interface with my desktop/game ..lately though I have been taking to Touchless ... another free AIRSPACE app . How useful something like Touchless is going to depend on your skill with it ..

Touchless is work in progress, which holds true for many LEAP apps...but we can already use it in retail PC games and combine it with other VR leaning control UIs like head tracking :

    

The retail LEAP does not heat up the way the dev unit did, has a funky new USB lead and can and does show it's potential to  revolutionise the way we interface with cyberspace ... 

There are a couple of nagging issues though.... first and foremost user fatigue ... that is the major limiting factor at present in mass uptake of the LEAP Motion ...

Tom Cruise could wave his hands around for a minute or two in Minority report, but what  happens when you have to do that all day, or in a 6 hour game of League of Legends ...?

In practise you can start to feel fatigue within a few minutes of use. Hence the "rest your hands" notices in the Blue Estate Prologue video above ... 

Solving the fatigue issue, whether through training bad habits out of the user or using minimal hand or finger movement in game and doing without wild Kinect like gestures is the challenge ... 

But this is not the only barrier...

You can see me having to re "learn" to use Touchless in the above videos... for each of the different applications..whether an on rails native app like Blue Estate, or a legacy non LEAP optimised game like Gone Home.. 

The LEAP then is not the universal  "mouse" of our generation .. any one can pick up a mouse, every one will move it in the same way to achieve the same result  and expect to achieve that result every time.. your mouse  is a standard UI control technique...with a far more certain almost digital 0 1 outcome , you click that left mouse button and you get the same result every time ...  the LEAP depending on what app you use can be very different .. with Dangermouse I am just using one finger and thumb as a very fast mouse replacement , with Touchless I am using 5 fingers , with Google Earth we are using " fly to " gestures and hand positions ... each app then can have it's own learning curve....and depending on your skill you may or may not achieve that mouse click ...by touching the air ..it is not always 100% as it takes time to learn how to use it..and your hundredth click/LEAP gesture or your second or third click may not be perfect through fatigue or "imperfect" finger or hand movements ..  you can never physically move your hands or fingers exactly same way in repetition.. even getting them to approximate the same movement twice can be an issue ..and this is further compounded by the fatigue issue ..

There is also no standard, your fingers moving into and out of the screen may represent touch in one app, zooming in another and a right mouse click grab in yet another ...

To use the LEAP then, you have to train casual users .. or wait for them to "learn"  and to fully exploit LEAP Motion in your app as a developer you are going to have to counter user fatigue ..as well as adjust gestures to suit all skill levels..including less "digital" and more "analogue" or chaotic mapping of hand and finger gestures replacing traditional digital mouse/keyboard/joypad and on screen actions..

Altogether though the LEAP is the real deal, if you have any passing interest at all in VR or AR leaning UI control you should not hesitate in getting hold of one ...  or two as I have plans to replace all my WSAD and mouse duties with LEAP..more on that later...and yes there are ways to play with two LEAPs! 

Mass uptake and usage will require users and developers to re learn how they interface with all things digital ...exciting times as  you can see from the videos above we are not already getting closer to the scifi Hollywood prediction of motion control but we already done gone and passed it ...

There is far more substance to the LEAP Motion brand than certain other celeb and Kicstarter hyped products this is thanks to the way LEAP Motion have gone about engaging users and developers directly throughout the inception, testing and retail release of the product. The LEAP is a device that frequently surpasses my expectations and there are few if any other products these days I can say that about..

Oh and it works great with current head mounted displays like the smd ST1080 and head tracking solutions...

More to follow..  

  

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Augmenting David Cage's Beyond Two Souls with Cinemizer OLED head tracking and head mounted display

Video games like every form of entertainment  ...entertain ..thrill ...some though strive to  illicit emotion ....

a few ...even leave you thinking ...about the consequences of your actions ...

For when a great game is played, it both brings the best of literature,music and cinema  and lets  you direct YOUR experience of it all .. transcending legacy media altogether ...

You can BE in a game, whereas you GO to a movie or imagine getting lost in a book... only in the video game medium can you combine all this ..at your own pace ..experience it over and over again go back and experience it differently..

And that's the groove David Cage and Quantic Dreams ride so well..

In 2013 we can go further, even further than a great developer like Quantic Dreams envisaged ..through playing using HMDs and head tracking .. so here I am playing this swan song for the PS3 .. probably the most unique video game to come out this last generation of consoles ..using the Zeiss head tracker and Cinemizer OLED HMD ..  I am Aiden .. I move him, not through a joystick but I look through his "souls"eyes, all through head tracking  .. as Jodie I look to where I want her to look, or use a  head movement to initiate in game actions, looking down at an object is far more impressive than simply moving a thumbstick down or swiping a touch screen ... and when you actually pull off moves like ducking through head tracking .. that's where you start to feel the game.. like you are there .. head tracking is here now in PS3 games even those that have 0 lines of code dedicated to it ... that's the magic of the Zeiss head tracker ... 

The Cinemizer OLED HMD weighs just 180g, what this means is I can play in nausea free OLED colours, feel the dark and move the fov/play the game with my head ..without fatigue .. stream this game to PSVITA TV and we don't even need a console ... 

 I am playing through the entire game with head tracking and the Cinemizer OLED HMD .. as you can see from the videos here  ..  this is a learning experience of course ... and  I am going to go back and play Nomad Soul this way... and Messiah too .. possess em ups rule! 

Beyond Two Souls refines the quick time control scheme of Heavy Rain, with far less finger knot tying required, what this means is I can use my head to control the game, from being Aiden to initiating actions or combat, all with the flick or movement of my head ... as I am wearing a HMD the view follows me.

Quantic Dreams are unique in that every game they create manages to transcend being classified as a mere "game" . Reviewers go out of their way to try to classify their games , but they defy classification .. Quantic Dream games somehow always manage to be more than the sum of their parts ...

I would venture to say the last thing approaching a traditional video game they were responsible for was the Nomad Soul, a game so ambitious it gave you multiple cities, realms, politics, music ...not just a sound track by the the Thin White Duke but his in game avatar and that of his missus as part of the game itself. The scope of the The Nomad Soul with cities you walk, ride, fly around and walk into the buildings of, has not been matched to date.. Even today the GTAs ,Crackdowns, or anything by Bethesda ..just do not come close to the ambition of Quantic Dreams Nomad Soul .. go pick it up on GOG or STEAM ... 

Following this game, Quantic Dreams started moving games beyond what we traditionally thought of them achieving .. none of the games they design could ever be considered in the same vein as the run of the mill cookie cutter corridor based FPS or MMORPGs that the rest of the "Engine" obsessed gaming developer community bores us with E3 after E3... one of which I will be playing later tonight...

Beyond Two Souls is as much Ellen Page's baby as it is David Cage's or Quantic Dreams .. you can finally see an actor act in a game .. not just in the cut scenes or quick time events .. but throughout .. she is there with you .. she is you...

Games like this should terrify Hollywood, currently having actors falling through space in falling space stations and out the other end falling to Earth in cross talk ridden 3D CGI to thrill an audience for just over an hour ... it's not a long story ... In 2013 cinema that is headed down the CGI thrill route does not take you anywhere near the fear, thrill , emotion and level of thought that a great video game like Beyond Two Souls .. 

Omikron The Nomad Soul showed ambition, Fahrenheit and then the seminal Heavy Rain carried on  Quantic Dreams unique style ...Beyond Two Souls just crowns it .. what a wonderful way to say good bye to your PS3 .. 

Right now the most unique form of video gaming entertainment is on an old gen console, not your monster PC Rig... in a few years time when we are bidding adieu to the PS4 we will be lucky to have a title that moves you the way  Beyond Two Souls can ..and does .. 

I played the game with the Cinemizer OLED HMD and head tracker to find out how .. check out how simple it is here  more to follow when I have time...

Oh and Quantic Dreams .. keep up the good work.. 

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