Extended Reality (XR) - Page 43

Sony has finally launched its PlayStation VR headset, but how successful has it been so far? Quite successful according to Sony Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe President and Chief Executive, Jim Ryan, who recently spoke with CNBC about the launch of PSVR.

Ryan said that PSVR launch sales have been in the "many hundreds of thousands", but didn't provide any specific numbers. He did say that interest in PlayStation VR was "significant" based on pre-order data, with the PSVR headset sold out in countless places, with Amazon UK saying they won't have orders caught up until sometime in December.

He also said that protection for PSVR is going well, saying: "We have made decisions to further increase capacity at the back end of 2016 and into 2017, so there are going to be a lot of PlayStation VRs around the world, whether that's enough to satisfy the demands of the market, we'll see".

We've just reported that during Valve's recent Steam Dev Days event, cloud-based VR video company Pixvana announced their new solution for publishing and streaming 360-degree video at up to 10K resolution.

Pixvana's new 10K resolution goodness will be streaming up to 10K video from the cloud, directly to your VR headset, under something called Pixvana SPIN. Pixvana is aiming to make 360-degree videos much better quality, developing multiple new technologies since they emerged from nowhere last December.

Part of their 10K arsenal is a new Field Of View Adaptive Streaming (FOVAS) technology that will increase video quality while reducing the bandwidth required for super high-res 360-degree content. Pixvana claims that they can deliver up to 100 megapixels worth of image quality within your field of view while reducing the required data by up to 70%. Pixvana's co-founder and CEO Forest Key explains: "FOVAS is like swapping your old standard definition set for a 4K TV".

PAX Australia 2016 kicks off in Melbourne next month, and it will be the first time that hte gaming convention will have an entire dedicated VR freeplay area, so that gamers can play the latest games on VR on the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR headsets.

Australian retailer Harvey Norman and their Harvey Norman Games Hub are sponsoring the VR Freeplay Area, with VR headsets from the major HMD makers, and some green-screen VR setups and even Virtuix Omni treadmills. Jerry Holkins, co-founder of Penny Arcade and PAX: "VR dominates the headlines, yet most people have never had the chance to try it out. Trying that technology for the first time is a magical experience, and we're glad to offer that moment to the tens of thousands of attendees coming to PAX Aus".

PAX Australia is a great event, running for 3 days between November 4-6, with tickets still available. We'll be there (and with a team, this time!) so if you want to catch up and say hi - let me know in the comments below! I'll be doing FB Live video from the event, so feel free to come by and say hello IRL.

Valve is hedging its bets for 360-degree content, wanting to deliver even higher quality 360-degree video to consumers on VR headsets, just like their own HTC Vive headset.

During the recent Steam Dev Days event, Valve talked about its collaboration with video streaming services Pixvana and Akamai, where they'll be delivering adaptive 360-degree video streaming that will provide between 8K and 10K video quality using the same bandwidth as 1080p.

How will Valve cram up to 10K resolution content through the same bandwidth required for 1080p, but Pixvana's technology uses "adaptive bitrates for video delivery, depending on the user's direction of gaze. In other words, it drops the quality of the video stream for the angles you're not currently looking at" reports Road to VR, which is very similar if not identical to how NVIDIA does it with their new Multi-Res Shading technology, which just debuted for the first time in Shadow Warrior 2.

The gadget surgeons over at iFixit have wasted no time in delving in the guts of Sony's new PlayStation VR headset, slicing open every little nook and cranny to show off its high-tech innards.

Starting at $399, Sony's PSVR has successfully ushered accessible virtual reality hardware in the mainstream market. Now that the headset is out in the wild, it's time to crack it open and see how its internals fare, and how easy it is to repair.

According to iFixit's official PSVR teardown, headset repairs are actually pretty straightforward: the PSVR received a lofty 8 out of 10 in the ease of repairability scale.

Sony's new PlayStation VR headset is already making a profit for the Japanese console-maker, and could end up being a huge success for virtual reality accessibility and the PlayStation brand.

"We're making money on the VR console," President of Sony Interactive Entertainment America Shawn Layden told Polygon. Seeing as stock for the new PSVR headset has been flying off the shelves, with many retailers selling out both the limited $399 headset-only SKU and the $499 all-in-one bundle, it's not surprising that Sony is already raking in cash from their virtual reality gambit.

Sony president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Jim Ryan echoed this sentiment, saying that consumers are "significantly interested" in the PSVR headset, with launch sales projected to hit "many hundreds of thousands."

Plan on picking up a PlayStation VR headset? Don't use it around bright lights, shiny surfaces, or mirrors.

Sony has confirmed that basic household items like bright lights, mirrors, or anything with a "shiny surface" can interrupt PlayStation VR gameplay. According to Sony, the PlayStation Camera tracks the motion of the headset's LED lights to translate in-game head movements.

If there's any other brighter light around the camera's front-facing tracking lens, the device will pick up the wrong light source and unravel the immersive experience. As for mirrors, Sony says these surfaces will "confuse the tracking" likely by reflecting light, and smaller shiny surfaces could do the same.

Valve has teased something rather epic at its Steam Dev Days, without a major hype train beginning or anything official at all - they were showing off their new prototype Steam VR controllers.

The new controllers are not so unconventional, that I don't think you would be able to judge it until you tried it, just like all VR games and experiences. Valve's new Steam VR controller prototype is much smaller than the current HTC Vive controller, as it is a multi-part device that straps to the back of your hand, and your palm.

RoadtoVR explains that the new controllers are "not so much held as they are (optionally) gripped; a band hooking over the side of the user's palm connects the core of the controller to a sort of backhand gripper which appears to keep the controller attached to the hand even while it isn't being held".

It was only last week during the Oculus Connect 3 conference that we were teased with a $499 gaming PC that would handle VR, thanks to changes Oculus are making to the PC requirements of the Rift.

HTC has teamed with HP on a new VR gaming PC bundle, something that will include a PC good enough to power Vive games, and the HTC Vive itself. The HP Envy desktop rocks an Intel Core i5-6400, 8GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card - and when you take into consideration the $799 cost of the HTC Vive, the HP Envy gaming PC is costing just $900 on its own.

For the $900, you're also getting a copy of Windows 10 Home, as well as a DVD drive, keyboard, and mouse. There are two bonus VR games thrown in, with The Lab from Valve, and theBlu:Encounter. The VR bundle doesn't include a monitor, so you'll need a monitor or TV to get it setup and going.

Oculus said in an official statement confirming they are removing support for all Note7 devices on the Gear VR. The Note7 won't work with GearVR "until further notice."

The statement comes after news about replacement Galaxy Note7 phones that have caught fire. Samsung's problems started shortly after the launch of the Note7, and although they reacted quickly and issued a global recall of the phones, their replacement phones appear to have the same battery issues.

Samsung and Oculus collaborated on the Gear VR, but it was Oculus' decision to disable support for the Galaxy Note7. Oculus, a Facebook-owned company, issued a statement on their official website saying:

Oculus CTO John Carmack has said some crazy things over the years, with a standout moment at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year where he said: "Minecraft for GearVR will be the biggest VR game of 2016". Well, yeah.

Carmack talked at the recent Oculus Connect 3 conference, where he said that the current VR development community "need to be harder on ourselves". He added: "We are coasting on novelty, and the initial wonder of being something people have never seen before. But we need to start judging ourselves. Not on a curve, but in an absolute sense. Can you do something in VR that has the same value, or more value, than what these other [non-VR] things have done?"

Carmack discussed "objective measurements of quality", specifically mentioning that VR developers need to improve UI design, with the Oculus CTO noting the absence of voice control in VR apps and games, reiterating the long loading times in some VR titles.

Oculus is now taking pre-orders for their Oculus Touch motion controllers, whose final design was revealed just four days ago. The price is, as stated before, $199.

The package includes Touch controllers, sensor, batteries and Rock Band VR connector. You will have to buy the Rift separately at a price of $599. Oculus also offers Oculus Rift Earphones for $49, which brings the price of the entire package to $847.

Of course, if you already own a Rift, you might want to consider getting the Oculus Touch cause the motion controllers enable a true VR experience.

A bit of mysterious code might indicate Valve is working on a Half-Life VR game for its Vive headset.

A few bits of code for "HLVR" were recently found in a new DOTA 2 update, and this could be Valve's way in communicating with its community without making any sort of official announcements. "HLVR" code has been found many times in the Destinations Steam VR app, and its believed the HLVR code is linked to Valve's experimental in-house VR prototype made of Half-Life assets that was used to test out the Source Engine's limits in VR.

"We've said, 'Let's take some existing art and see how it fits,'" Valve programmer Jeep Barnett told Kotaku in an interview back in 2015. "So yeah, we'll grab some headcrabs, we'll grab the machine guns from Half-Life, the rocket launcher-all those different fun things-and see how they play in VR. But right now, it's a tool for exploring the different kind of game designs we want to do."

This week at Oculus Connect 3, NVIDIA announced that VR Funhouse, an extremely fun virtual reality game, will support Oculus Touch. There are also two new levels coming to the VR Funhouse - HotShot Basketball and Wall Walker Toss.

More than 100,000 gamers have downloaded VR Funhouse since its release in July, and now, with the support for Oculus Touch, more developers and gamers can join in the fun.

I tried VR Funhouse at this year's Computex in Taiwan, using the HTC Vive, and loved it. You get to bounce around between mini games, like archery and Whack A Gnome, in a virtual carnival. It reminded me of the Darkmoon Faire in World of Warcraft. Of course, emerging into virtual reality is a totally different experience, and after testing many games in VR, I have to say that VR Funhouse is one of the most addictive games I tried.

The Order: 1886 was one of the better-looking games on the PS4, even with its extreme letterboxing use to mask the underperforming PS4 hardware. Well, Ready at Dawn has announced their latest game, a VR-focused title exclusive to Oculus, and made for the upcoming Oculus Touch controllers.

Lone Echo features a highly-interactive single player story, but also combines this with an online competitive virtual sport, all set in a beautiful, highly-detailed 23rd-century world.

Ready at Dawn has prepared quite the experience with the Touch-powered game, where you can grab, push, and glide your way through the first-person 360-degree science fiction experience. Not only can you reach out and touch interactive elements of the environment, but you can fly towards them with 1:1 hand-based zero-gravity movement.

Oculus has announced that its Touch controller will be $199, launching in December and includes a second sensor for VR controller goodness on the Rift - but you can buy a third sensor for $79, giving you the ability of room-scale VR gaming - just like the HTC Vive has enjoyed since day one.

With the $199 price on Oculus Touch, the third sensor is still required for room-scale at a cost of $79 - this on top of the $599 cost of the Rift CV1 itself, we're looking at a total of $878 for room-scale VR gaming on Rift. Comparing this to the constant $799 price of the HTC Vive since it was released, the Vive represents even better value for money when it comes to room-scale VR content.

Game developers have also been building every single game and experience for the HTC Vive with both controllers in mind, where as Rift developers have been making games for the included Xbox One controller, and will now have to shift development to the Touch - and/or make games work for both controller designs from the start.

Oculus had plenty to share at their annual Oculus Connect 3 developer conference, with the push of Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW) allowing for lower-end GPUs to get in the VR game with $499 gaming PCs that are VR-ready powered by the AMD Radeon RX 470.

The more exciting news that Oculus had for the future was a tease that they're working on a new VR headset codenamed Santa Cruz, which is a completely untethered VR experience. Oculus CEO and co-founder Brendan Iribe said during the conference that wireless VR is something that Oculus is working on, and that Santa Cruz is the first step towards wireless VR.

The video does a really poor job of showing what Santa Cruz is all about, apart from the rear of the Rift having something inside hardware-wise, but we don't know what exactly just yet. The head movement wasn't matched with the game they were playing from what I saw, and an out-of-focus camera doesn't provide a professional feel from a company acquired for $2 billion.

One of the best VR experiences I've had was from Epic Games in the form of Bullet Train, but now it seems Epic has put all of that VR work into their "action-packed virtual first-person shooter" known as Robo Recall, which teases "gratifying gameplay and an in-depth scoring system".

Robo Recall is an exclusive to the Oculus platform, which will work on the Oculus Rift and the upcoming Oculus Touch controllers which have been announced with a price of $199, and will ship in quantity in December. As you can see from the trailer, Robo Recall has "immersive environments" where rogue robots are trying to kill you, with Epic Games teasing you can unlock a massive arsenal of weapons and challenges along the way.

One of the best bits I'm looking forward to is the ability of ripping robots limb from limb, and then using those limbs to bash other robots. Bring it on... a reason to take my Oculus Rift CV1 unit for a spin, finally.

During the Oculus Connect 3 conference, CyberPowerPC and Oculus announced a new collaboration that really does change everything for VR: a new AMD Radeon-powered, VR-ready PC priced at just $499.

At the beginning of the year, the bare minimum cost to hit the right hardware specifications to run VR games on the Oculus Rift was $949 or so. So when the announcement of the new PC from Brendan Iribe, CEO and co-founder of Oculus, surprise hit. The new limited edition CyberPowerPC is just $499 when purchased with an Oculus Rift, and packs an AMD FX-4350 processor and Radeon RX 470 graphics card.

Included in its $499 price is the keyboard, mouse, DVD drive, and even Windows 10... a totally complete, VR-ready gaming PC that will also handle 1080p 60FPS gaming without a problem thanks to the Polaris-based Radeon RX 470 graphics card.

For 34 years, audiences have collectively feared the dystopian future portrayed in Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner', but Oculus have jumped at the rights to snap up the universe for an upcoming VR adventure.

According to Variety, the company announced at its Oculus Connect developer conference that they've signed up to develop a 'Blade Runner 2047' experience, with Oculus head of experiences Colum Slevin saying "'Blade Runner' has always pushed the boundaries of cinema, visionary art, design and story and bringing the sequel to this beloved sci-fi property to VR gives us an opportunity to push those boundaries further".

But in potential even more exciting news, the company also announced their intention to develop properties based on Disney franchises. Can anyone say a 'Tron' VR experience?