PlayStation VR 2 - Blog post announcements for specs and Horizon Call of the Mountain teaser

jiggles wrote:So Rez infinite with the eye track aiming is nuts. Not being able to shake the cursor from where you’re looking feels so alien, the way it twitches about to follow your gaze. But also, it feels like there *are* no controls. Like you aim just by thinking about it. strawberry floating wild...

Ah! I'd heard about this feature and wondered about the accuracy... it seems to work very well indeed!

I've tried out quite a few games on this now, some quick impressions below.

Call of the Mountain - Probably the best game visually, seeing the dinosaurs up close is very cool. I only have limited experience with PSVR and never had the Move controllers, so am enjoying messing around with the hand movements and picking up and throwing items etc. Probably less exciting for any veterans of VR.

Rez Infinite - I've never quite 'got' the hype over Rez and have only played it briefly a few times over the years and many re-releases. That said, the eye-tracking aiming is very cool and like Jiggles said it feels like you're essentially controlling things with your mind as the only button you're actually pressing is X.

No Man's Sky - Played this a fair bit at launch but haven't revisited since, it almost seems like a new game now with the all of the updates so looking forward to playing more. The VR implementation is very cool, with the menus etc. being linked to computers on your gloves. The first time taking off from a planet and flying into space was great.

Pavlov - I am rubbish at this but think it might be my favourite game. Manually reloading yourself just feels very good to do for some reason. I am struggling slightly with the aiming, I'm not sure the shape of the controllers suits aiming down the sights of a gun but I'm hoping to get used to that and looking forward to playing more.

Thumper - Just as fantastic as it always was.

Drums Rock - If you like Guitar Hero and Rock Band you'll like this. The haptics do a good job of giving feedback when you're hitting the sticks and drums, and throwing the sticks in the air while you play just feels fun.

Gran Turismo 7 - Pretty fantastic, driving games are not my favourite genre but I've been having a lot of fun with this over the last few weeks and VR just adds so much to the experience. I imagine this would be very immersive with a steering wheel and pedals etc. for the driving game enthusiasts.

Kayak VR Mirage - Very relaxing game with great visuals. Definitely a good showcase for newer players. My wife had a go last night and pushed a penguin over with a paddle, and she felt genuinely guilty about it for like an hour afterwards :lol:

True VR immersion!

I have read many owners complaining about the quality of the tracking. Apparently it’s very sensitive to lighting conditions and struggles with walls that lack contrast.

Have early adopters here found the same? Apparently it’s significantly worse than Quest tracking (but still much better than PSVR 1). If that’s the case I will definitely be holding on until this either gets fixed or PSVR 3 comes out. Poor tracking is something I have learnt is more immersion breaking than the fanciest graphics in the world.

I haven't had any issues with tracking myself.

I don't have PSVR 2 myself but I have stumbled across this option for improving the tracking functionality of PSVR 2. Could be worth trying out if your setup is having tracking issues.

This has gone quiet, folk still using it?

I haven’t used it since I last posted, but that’s because my son’s been ill and I don’t want to engage in an experience that shuts me off from the outside world while I’m supposed to be keeping a listen out for signs of distress. I’m getting pretty into Yakuza: Like a Dragon right now anyway, so I’ll probably not be straight back when he’s better.

Love playing Gran Turismo with it, but now I feel like I’m missing out by not having a racing cockpit, where I didn’t before playing on just the TV with a controller. It’s like it’s gone from the perfect version of that type of game, to now an imperfect version of something a million times better.

Rocsteady wrote:This has gone quiet, folk still using it?

I am a little surprised at how quiet the launch has been; I suspect that much of the mass market don't even know that the system has launched.

I want PSVR 2 to be a success and I would love to get the kit myself but, right now, it's had not to feel that the format could be very niche - perhaps more so than PSVR 1 was. Hopefully the manufacturing processes will speed up, availability will widen and the cost will drop a little.

The past few weeks I've been quite tempted to buy PSVR2. I enjoyed what limited time I had with the original PSVR, it was just the discomfort of using it and faff of setting up that stopped me from playing more.

I'm really keen to play RE8 and then RE4 using this and it's amazing they're just free updates from Capcom. I worry that after that I just won't use it though. There doesn't seem to be much talk of what's in the pipeline for PSVR a year or 2 years from now.

Captain Kinopio wrote:The past few weeks I've been quite tempted to buy PSVR2... I worry that after that I just won't use it though. There doesn't seem to be much talk of what's in the pipeline for PSVR a year or 2 years from now.

It's a tricky thing, CK. The userbase need to grow for developers to get coding on games... but the userbase will only grow if the games are there! I'd suggest that if anyone is keen on the tech and they have the dough available, then dive right in and get things moving on increasing the userbase. Then more games will arrive :-).

I do feel that this process could take a while longer than with PSVR, though, purely due to the economic situation for many folk.

I presume no sales figures are out yet?

Rocsteady wrote:I presume no sales figures are out yet?

Yeah, nothing mentioned so far, Roc. Early days, tbh, and I'd imagine that we won't hear too much for a while.

Rocsteady wrote:I presume no sales figures are out yet?

Patience my young padewan, as soon as Photek gathers the data we'll get an update on it.

Victor Mildew wrote:
Rocsteady wrote:I presume no sales figures are out yet?

Patience my young padewan, as soon as Photek gathers the data we'll get an update on it.

twitter.com/6d6f636869/status/1641282270035320834

It did seem like a bit of a bold move to launch an expensive (for the average consumer) add-on for an expensive console during a time of wide economic difficulty; especially when the device is only available direct from Sony and there appears to be few (any?) "must have" games available.

And I'm someone who leans towards the "VR is fantastic!" end of the scale.

The difficulty will be persuading developers to produce costly, in-depth titles for the kit when the userbase is relatively small. Sony would need to bankroll the development... should they do that or concentrate on lowering the hardware cost? Maybe both are needed but I dunno if that would be possible financially. It's early days but it does feel to be a rough start.

Photek wrote:
Victor Mildew wrote:
Rocsteady wrote:I presume no sales figures are out yet?

Patience my young padewan, as soon as Photek gathers the data we'll get an update on it.

twitter.com/6d6f636869/status/1641282270035320834

That's a bit disappointing.

I'm going to be massively tempted by this once I've had the PS5 for a while but I'll need some AAA games to get me in. Even some back compatibility so I could play HL Alyx would prob have me biting.

Problem is, if it’s selling poorly it will give devs less incentive to produce games for it. Depending how much Sony drop the device by (That’s if they do) and how quickly they might end up missing the chance to save PSVR2.

Personally, I won’t pick one up until it’s under £200 and has a quality line up of games that make it worth while.

ITSMILNER wrote:Problem is, if it’s selling poorly it will give devs less incentive to produce games for it. Depending how much Sony drop the device by (That’s if they do) and how quickly they might end up missing the chance to save PSVR2.

Personally, I won’t pick one up until it’s under £200 and has a quality line up of games that make it worth while.

£200 would be a massively tough target to hit; I doubt that manufacturing costs would allow this, let alone factoring in any profit.

With the current cost being £570 (main unit at £530 plus the charger at £40) it's hard to see how the price could get to a generally more attractive point of, say, just under £350. As I think about it, I can't imagine a huge cut anytime soon; even though it might be needed.

I guess it"s possible! I picked up PSVR 1 (the revised model) in late 2018 from Amazon for £199 and that included five games; an absolutely excellent deal. Even so, right now I don't see such a price cut for this newer tech.

I lost a lot of interest when I started seeing numerous people on forums finding they were having to mess around with lighting etc to get the tracking working well. And these were the people who desperately wanted the experience to be good and 100% committed to the product. People having to switch on controllers after the headset, performing factory resets, opening / closing curtains, switching the TV on to use as an "anchor point".

This sort of stuff killed PSVR1 for me, and I don't experience any of these issues ever with Quest 2. Plus the controller batteries last about 80 hours and I don't need to put headphones on to enjoy it for a 30 minute session (which I have learnt is all I can really tolerate VR for).

If there was a big price cut I would still go for it, but all my real interest has evaporated for now. It has got me playing VR in general again though.

Yeah, I haven't tried the new kit myself, but I do have an impression that PSVR 2 isn't really any easier to setup for gameplay than PSVR 1 was. Fewer cables but still plenty of things to adjust. In my opinion the VR experience makes it all worthwhile but maybe the newer model isn't quite as smooth to get going as was suggested?

PlayStation VR 2 - Blog post announcements for specs and Horizon Call of the Mountain teaser

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