Somewhere OVR the rainbow..
Crazy savant that I am .. so others tell me ... I have been grinning smugly after some of my VR/HMD predictions came true .. with Sony's Yoshida san ( think Iwata San but packing more powerful hardware ) revealing the PS4s Oculus Rift Killer ..Project Morpheus.. confirming my affirmation that Sony and Microsoft will bring VR to console masses before OVR do for a PC minority....and earlier yesterday Palmer announcing Oculus VR selling/partnering to a name company ..Facebook without having a retail product .. leaving Riftmaniacs..
Within seconds of Palmer's Reddit.. yesterday the (once) loyal community and @notch barely over the oh so surprising Sony Project Morpheus reveal, were in uproar ..proverbially burning their OVR face bras ... or should that be roasting their OVR Brah...the end is nigh .. how could you ..cries of Brendan did it .. save us John Carmack you're our only hope.. and hug us GabeN we need it etc,etc .. Countries have been annexed, planes gone missing and the Internet is obsessed with one thing..Riftmania.. Sometimes you do have to consider ...what a total waste of time our favourite waste of time .. video games ultimately is..
Stop listen...what's that sound?
Suffice to say the "Commooonity" got it wrong .. and as usual doing what I do , I saw all this coming .. over a year ago when I backed the Rift, I had the same Reddit horde screaming at me for daring to consider that this was the inevitable conclusion to the Oculus Rift saga..season 1 ..they didn't like my JC Muppet reference either..
More than any other fortnight in HMD development history this is one to ponder, this is where it all begins.. to go mainstream ... but that's the promo line you read on a tech site right...
Here I am going to do what I do ..and look further ..to do this we have to...
Follow the money...
The first prediction re Project Morpheus is something I "sensed" last August talking to devs.. what it means is big money .. in this case Sony .. legitimising VR independently of Oculus VR .. VR is now a true competitive field with more than one player .. one focused on mass consumer gaming .. with at least one CEO who will have experienced wearing Bell Bottoms.. around the time Elvis did...
They smile in your face...
VR Dawn..
Both Sony's backing of the Morpheus and Facebook's backing of the RIft are as much enablers/endorsements of the whole HMD field as they are of their individual pieces of hardware...both as yet still stuck in prototype phases... note I said HMD ..not just VR ...
For every HMD developer VR, AR and MR from Atheer, Avegant, CastAR, Google, Meta, smd, Valve to Zeiss stands to benefit from this "affirmation" of the HMD as a legitimate mass consumer device...This fortnight's news should spur them onto innovate..and do so with increased confidence as the HMD and VR are on every news channel and medium.. You cannot buy this publicity .. well actually you can .. Mr Zuckerberg did for $2 billion..
With Sony and Facebook pushing VR albeit still at an embryonic stage this represents the greatest chance that HMDs will go mainstream. So called "expert" communities were always going to be kicking and screaming at the thought of what was their precious now being an every day consumer object .. that people use more than they discuss.. on forums and subReddits..
I am on record as having always seen it as absolutely vital that Oculus VR move beyond the MTBS3D, Reddit "enthusiast" "community" ... the same community that was slagging me off for predicting the above last year and now is slagging off Palmer and OVR .. for actually doing it .. what OVR did was way cool, they ensured the Rift will be better than it could have been and they did something very necessary .. move it out of the niche space it was getting locked into ..
For the longest time I have found it difficult to communicate feedback to OVR re developing the Rift and the benefits of other HMD designs .. this Reddit layer is now diminished .. collapsing in anger .. at the Founder .. hopefully the sycophantic promo layer will also diminish .. confused by having more than one HMD story to plug..or attack.. or plug...
Facebook WILL change the course of the Rift, the usage of the Rift and expectations of the Rift but the wiser heads at OVR will see the advantages of this .. I say again the greatest question re VR is not can we do it .. we will do it at a set point in time ... which OVR and Sony's actions show we are getting closer to.. but what is it for ...?
In the same way Sony have already changed the course of VR ..
immediate shock dealt with what exactly happened to HMD tech over this period..
For the Players ... Console VR has arrived ... or will do ...
For VR to happen in a mass consumer space it is essential that console gamers are brought into the fold and not excluded. The Rift of course excludes this vast audience...Step in Sony and what can we glean from the reveal? Morpheus like the Wachkowski's Morpheus is able to kick Neos butt and teach him a thing or two about the Matrix .. which is exactly what Sony did to OVR in it's reveal
Sony VR
Project Morpheus allows for total body tracking, without treadmills or non standard hardware .. that's what the PS4 Camera's 4 ...To "be"in VR you need to have 0 controls in your hands, 0 feeling that you are on a treadmill. Made up words like "presence" mean nothing when you are conscious of holding or standing on a controller which approximates or abstracts a real world action ..That is why I refer to some controls as VR leaning .. That a console can do this when most PC tech (at significant cost) cannot is again something I would urge OVR to wake up to. Morpheus has been in development for as long as or longer than most of us have been playing with or involved in the current generation of HMDs.
Whilst Sony's Project Morpheus may be named after the Greek god of dreams (the most Googled/Wikipediead term at this years GDC by attending journos), the technology and clear mission statement from Sony that VR is coming to your console is firmly rooted in reality ... And it follows that Microsoft and Nintendo will also move this way ... Oculus VR no longer maintains a singular "presence" in VR .. tech or promotion..and VR is coming to the 2nd largest market for VR... consoles.. the largest market will be... phones...more on that next time..
Sony have one of the most experienced in house 3D development teams and a history of original content .... the skills these people have far outdo those of the indie devs on Rift .. and that's before you start waking up the name coders that made PlayStation a verb as well as a noun..
Morpheus is a game changer, with existing standard controller inputs ... PS Moves , PS4 Camera .. an example of how simple it is to bring VR to the masses at very little cost .. even if the HMD cost 1K ( I reckon it will cost around £250 with a game) factoring in the cost of your PS4, this would still be one third to half the cost of PC VR .. and already more functional .. and VR Last Of Us, or GTA .. or Metal Gear or Final Fantasy .. or Dark Souls .. need I type proper sentences?
Comparing it to the Rift .. based just on screen resolution or display panel choice ... really just shows you the depth of what passes as/for HMD journalism today...
I note though even at this stage, the unit has sound ergonomics and none of the pain of the HMZT series .. as well as no reports of Rift nausea..
All in all Sony seem to already be ahead in total body tracking ( I did tell you JC that Kinect 2.0 and PS4 Camera are viable VR control inputs), cost, display,sound and have a larger existing user and developer base of significance..that is avidly awaiting a console VR head set largely thanks to OVRs most excellent promotion...of VR
Project Morpheus and Rift Dev Kit 1 and 2 are prototype dev units and it is hardly a great leap for Sony who have major interests in display tech to drop in a higher res OLED or AMOLED panel into the next iteration of Morpheus .. it will be interesting to see the competition evolve both companies HMD designs and that of others .. oh you did not think it was just console an d PC developers creating VR head sets did you?
The announcement that Sony have a VR headset for the PS4, also means Microsoft will have a VR headset for the Xbox One .. and it has been confirmed the Redmond massive .. has been working on VR for some time .. very cruelly or wisely not telling Molyneux they were at it ...
And this is killer, the Xbox One has the current leading retail low cost (i.e. free) total body tracking solution ..Kinect 2.0 .. This would and will allow total body tracking without the need for lights or studs or additional USB cameras..
Kinect 2 is more powerful they say than the PS4 Camera .. I intend to use it with my Rift Dev Kit 2 as soon as I get it .. but for Microsoft this means they have a standard , ready VR control input device.. one that does speech as well as motion...one that allegedly can detect the speed of your beating heart... now how could we weave that into VR game design .. perhaps Mr Molyneux can elucidate....
Nintendo VR
If Sony and Microsoft are moving into VR then so is Nintendo ..
Let's not forget that Nintendo attempted VR or HMD gaming .. with mirrors,Mario,very badly..but they did it .. long before anyone else. Nintendo have the savvy to create user control tech that engages gamers of all ages, casual to core in a way that no other company does, what happens when the guys and girls that created the motion controls that captivated generations .. start to evolve VR leaning motion controls .
But console developer led VR tech is only one path that HMD is evolving along:
Facebook VR Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2
Sony's Project Morpheus reveal stole the GDC show. It was almost simultaneously followed by the release of Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 ...total coincidence I am sure ... As the website went up, tweets went out , I found myself ordering around 10 dev kits by mistake as the payment system was faulty ... as the nice OVR support team rep told me .. two days later ..
Still I got two real orders in and then I noticed the OVR site change, following the Sony Project Morpheus announcement OVR have re branded the Rift as A NEXT GEN VR device, interesting as Project Morpheus is a next gen console VR HMD.
Dev Kit 2 comes with that OLED panel I have screamed (in my head) at JC for, so we should see a significant reduction in blur and nausea.. It is still a 1080p panel, when we really need a 4K panel . These will come ... phones are nearing 4K right now .. I for one would pay $699 for a 4K panel retail Rift ... in fact I would launch with two models ..the 1080p $300 and the 4K $699..this is viable ..this year ..
Order your Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 here
Releasing Dev Kit 2 is vital to OVR, as I joked to JC for 40000 or so Rift users experience of OVR is with lag,visible pixels and random drift in the tracker on dev kit one which we know is not an accurate representation of where OVR are at today....and it is incredibly frustrating to be TVRKING dev kit 1 when journos tout Crystal Cove experiences..
What to do with $2 billion facebook dollars
It matters not who supplies the money .. what matters is one of the key hurdles for making VR happen has been passed.. and I mean VR in a holistic manner .. not just for games ..
VR operating systems, VR social networks, VR gaming within that VR operating system all can be funded .. it was always going to take billions to do VR justice ...now OVR are in a position to do this ...
This is where they can separate themselves from what Sony and later Microsoft and Nintendo will do ..PC VR has far more wide ranging applications than console VR
VR's Gates-ensian Moment
This is the moment young Master Gates /Luckey walks up to the boss at Big Blue/Zuckerberg with a sheet of copied CPM/dev kit 2 and sells it to him for royalties..
Palmer you did go for the royalties option didn't you?
OVR have the potential to outgrow Facebook the same way Microsoft did to IBM back in the day .. the same way PIXAR did to/for Disney..if they evolve VR in the right way..
VR is something more than a closed off game level or corridor in 3D.. VR is supposed to replace not only your real world but include within that world the Internet and all your computer/tablet/console activities ..
That facebook are involved or at the very least available should not only give JC more time to fly Rockets and mayhaps sneak off to finish Doom 4 in said Rockets .. but also evolve the concept of VR from being limited to niche gaming to something everyone uses or "experiences" as much as their phone.
OVR can also support real clinical research and study into the issues that plague HMD use in a way no one has been able to do to date..
So all in all great news ..competition has arrived, OVR is evolving beyond it's kickstarter/community phase and it's not like these people are going to turn down a $300 VR head set after waiting for it .. so Palmer keep calm and carry on!
Remember this FOV2GO based VR that both Sony and OVR use is only one subset of HMD development.. this year alone I am waiting for/involved with Atheer One, Avegant Glyph, Cast AR, Google Glass, smd and Zeiss HMD updates and the Meta Pro .. covering AR, VR and MR ...
2014 is going to be the greatest year for HMD developers and fans yet .... you just have to learn to evolve with the tech..
$2 billion is going to be chump change compared to the amount of money that is invested in creating a VR backbone, user interface , OS and head sets ..as this field grows..
Congratulations to Sony and OVR ..
And don't expect these to be the only VR headsets you get to TVRK in 2014 .. wait.. there I go again on my own..
It's 2014 and there still is no RETAIL ready VR head set, though the events of the last two weeks bring this closer to becoming a reality ..
We who use and develop HMD devices daily know the limits of current and potential future HMD designs, user interfaces , display and functions..And this long ago was why I backed the Rift on Kickstarter .. so JC a torrent of critical feedback for Dev Kit 2 will be forthcoming from me.. as it will be for Project Morpheus Yoshida san..
Epilogue and Thanks
Sony+Yoshida San .. Project Morpheus is everything and more than I expected
Palmer Luckey,JC and and Oculus VR .. for keeping it real .. cannot wait to TVRK Dev Kit 2
Oculus Rift Reddit hordes... wow ... like this is what we call Karma/business.. dudes ..
Facebook .. this acquisition obviously was made to enable David Fincher to make a Social Network sequel .. The VR Social Network .. as the first VR movie filmed in VR .. for OVR..appearing on a retail Facebook Oculus Rift in 2015.. think about the ads within ads possibilities ... it would be crazy not to..
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