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Valve Reveals Gaming Headset, Teases Big Picture

Posted by timothy on from the this-one-goes-on-your-head dept.

dotarray writes with a bit from Player Attack: "Gaming is big business, says Valve, as the developer takes the time to show off its brand new gaming headset and TV-based Big Picture. Rather than inviting the games media masses who have been clamouring for any details on the Seattle company's 'wearable computing' initiative, Gabe Newell and his team instead went right to the top, with an in-depth interview published in The New York Times." The New York Times article on which this report is based is worth reading, too: Valve's corporate non-structure sounds hard to believe. It seems Valve is also looking for hardware designers.

42 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Do I have to sign anything to use it? by firex726 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just FYI that clause is in pretty much every contract you have ever signed.

    Lease on Apt? Loan? Mortgage? Amazon, EA, Ebay, Newegg, etc...

  2. Re:ya know by deweyhewson · · Score: 2

    Proof of concepts always focus on capability, not aesthetics.

  3. Re:ya know by Compaqt · · Score: 2

    I don't even see how that (wired) monster is even relevant after Google Glasses.

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  4. No managers by Compaqt · · Score: 2

    While it seems tempting to saying "Just work on what you think you should work on", it also seems risky.

    The What Ifs. What if you hire somebody and tell him to work on whatever, and he just posts stuff like this to /. all day. Who would he be accountable to?

    Or would the management structure suddenly come into being at that time?

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
    1. Re:No managers by rasmusbr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It would take about 80 years to run a company with $2.5 billion in the bank to the ground with 300 employees, even if they never ever sold a single product from now on until 2092...

      Perhaps you should read less Ayn Rand and concern yourself more with reality.

    2. Re:No managers by pnot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Valve's structure seems like it's modeled after the 20th Century Motor Company from Atlas Shrugged. Everyone evaluated everyone else and decided who was productive and who wasn't It eventually imploded on itself as there was less and less incentive to actually work and more and more to just please your friends and groups to make sure you maintained a paycheck.

      I wish them luck, but just like every other socialist plan it works great for a shot while, perhaps even a few decades, but it always falls to ruin faster than a free market based on incentive to do great.

      So what you're saying is: this real company, which is doing great in reality, is doomed because it happens to remind you of a fictional company, which failed in a fictional universe.

    3. Re:No managers by Guppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It would take about 80 years to run a company with $2.5 billion in the bank to the ground with 300 employees, even if they never ever sold a single product from now on until 2092...

      That assumes the company management decides not to light huge piles of money on fire.*

      * And by "light on fire", I mean "make pointless and expensive acquisitions".

    4. Re:No managers by ChinggisK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What you're not accounting for is the fact that even though he chooses to run the company like there is no leader, in reality GabeN technically is still the owner and could change the management structure as he saw fit if things started going downhill. Considering his success I'm pretty confident that he'd be smart enough to realize that nobody was working anymore and that he needed a new plan.

    5. Re:No managers by LingNoi · · Score: 2

      Lots of new start ups are doing this type of management scheme. Github is another company that just lets people work on whatever, however they want.

    6. Re:No managers by humanrev · · Score: 2

      Would you stop that, please? I don't use Steam because I've been conditioned by Slashdot to disregard all forms of DRM (and no-one can deny that Steam is one of them). If Valve dies, Steam dies, and the resultant consequences of it for your 100+ game library.

      But when I read comments like yours, I get frustrated, because it's means I get conflicted. I don't want DRM, but how much pressure can one person have before they go "fuck it", and relent?

      --
      Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
    7. Re:No managers by Yvanhoe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The trick is probably to hire people who have proven that they do more interesting things than that during their free time.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    8. Re:No managers by Z34107 · · Score: 2

      You'll catch autism if you try to do everything /. tells you to. If you want to buy games on Steam ("how much pressure before one relents"), go buy them. They're cheap and the DRM is unobtrusive.

      If nothing else, they're doing the Lord's work by regularly kicking the other publishers in the sack.

      --
      DATABASE WOW WOW
    9. Re:No managers by trout007 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've worked at companies that were structures this way by accident. It was a government contract design and machine shop. The manager was just a laid back guy that got an order and let us figure it out.. The engineers liked designing and the machinists liked building things. We were very successful because we did what we liked.

      The best part is that if you have an experienced group you can easily tell which projects are a waste of time and nobody worked on those. This allocated resources very efficiently.

      Then one day the contract was up and new management came in and tried to actually manage the place. Everyone with a brain left after 6 months.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    10. Re:No managers by Compaqt · · Score: 2

      I'll ignore the presentation of your argument, and just make a few points:

      Regarding the joy of creation, yeah, after I've made something (either tangible or software), I like to look at it, and I enjoy the fact that it's perfect.

      However, not every creation is also a product, ready to sell. Taking a general view (and not just of Valve specifically), there's all sorts of stuff you have to do, which you really wouldn't want to do for free. Tracking down weird bugs, creating install programs, testing on myriad different configurations (Vista, 7, XP?, Mac, etc.) with various hardware, etc. That's stuff's highly boring and soul-grinding. It has to be done, but I doubt anybody would choose to do it if they had a choice.

      So I'm not speaking up for "the man", but rather asking for practical advice on how he can be avoided.

      --
      I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
    11. Re:No managers by gman003 · · Score: 2

      Their solution to that?

      1) Hire the best people. The best people are always self-motivating: I know if *I* worked at Valve, I wouldn't have time to waste on /., I'd be too busy doing awesome things. And play-testing the new (Half-Life|Portal|Left 4 Dead|Team Fortress|Counter-Strike|Day of Defeat|Ricochet).

      2) Salaries are employee-decided. They periodically get a bunch of people together to review your salary. So that means if you waste the company's time, you don't get paid as much as the guy who won the company 50+ GOTY awards.

      From all reports, that results in a very competitive environment. When you hire the best, they all fight to become the best of the best.

  5. Re:ya know by _Shorty-dammit · · Score: 2

    And why do you care what you look like at that particular time? Same complaints about wearing 3D glasses at a 3D movie are just as senseless. Who cares what you look like? People are watching the movie, not you, weirdo.

  6. Re:ya know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    thanks, so how many decades does it take to prove that face mounted helmets are stupid?

    I'm certain the world will be lining up to try your arm-mounted helmets any day now.

  7. Gaming Headset Seem Too Strenous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Given how much you look around in first person games having to move your head would end up very strenuous and would likely result in some sort of RSI. I'd much rather look at a monitor in front of me and move the mouse a few centimetres when I want to look around.

    I also wonder how these headsets will work with movement/aim. With standard first person control where you're looking, the direction you're facing and the point you're aiming at are all the same. With a headset it would be ridiculous to set your movement direction/aim by turning your head, so the direction you're travelling/aiming will have to be separate from the direction you're looking. That will lead to a situation you often experience when controlling tanks in games where the turret ends up facing a different direction to where the tank is travelling, so you get confused and have to take a moment to re-align the turret with the tank direction. Having to do that in a fast paced FPS would become annoying, and it would be frustrating to die repeatedly because you were sorting yourself out while getting shot at.

    I see these headsets as being like 3D films - a fun novelty that you'd only want to use occasionally.

  8. I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Amazon

    Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court

    EA

    YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

    Ebay

    ...Agreement to Arbitrate, which will, with limited exception, require you to submit claims you have against us to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt-out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (see Legal Disputes, Section B ("Agreement to Arbitrate")). Unless you opt-out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against eBay on an individual basis....

    Newegg preferred account.

    THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES

    On top of all this I have found generic arbitration clauses and a plethora of companies that are too numerous to count.

    1. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Informative

      Which is exactly the same case for Steam as it is for these other services. That's not the argument being made here. The argument was that Steam was somehow so much worse and more evil than everybody else.

    2. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by Zuriel · · Score: 5, Funny

      EA

      YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.

      Newegg preferred account.

      THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES

      You know it's legal because they use capitals.

    3. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by PTBarnum · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, yes, the capitals do make it more likely to be legally binding. IANAL, but I was recently reviewing my employment contract with a lawyer, and she explained that it is important to draw attention to arbitration clauses, and caps are one way to do that.

    4. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by ericloewe · · Score: 4, Informative

      Writing some illegal clause in caps does not magically make it legal.

    5. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by kungfugleek · · Score: 5, Funny

      YES IT DOES.

    6. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by geminidomino · · Score: 2

      Except that, as of a few weeks ago (give or take), it's explicitly been given the OK by the highest court in the US. So repeating "it's illegal" doesn't make it so, either, without specifying jurisdiction.

      And the big difference between Steam and Amazon is that, if I decided I didn't want to agree with Amazon's EULA, I don't have to give back everything I've ever paid them for. So in that respect, yes, Steam is worse.

    7. Re:I got 99 problems but citing aint one. by ericloewe · · Score: 2

      Of course, the US is probably the only first world country where something like this is considered business as usual by the supreme court. "Consumer protection" is probably a vague, mysterious concept in the US.

  9. The headmounted display by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 4, Informative

    The headmounted display (HMD) the NYT article leads off with wasn't created by Valve though. It was created by Palmer Luckey. Gabe helped him assemble a tiny little 8 person corporation to commercialize the design (and probably offered private financing to help make sure it gets off the ground in style, though that has never been publically reported). He may not need the financing though. The Oculus Rift Kickstarter ended a little over a week ago and was phenomenally successful. They're calling it one of the top 10 Kickstarters so far. That same HMD has been credited to John Carmack too, so it's not too surprising the NYT got it wrong.

    As for the people complaining about how clunky the pictures look, ever heard of prototyping? That's what that was. Check the Kickstarter page for what the Rift 1.0 kits will look like when they ship this December. You can bet the Rift 2.0, likely to be available commercially next year, will look even slicker.

    As for the people complaining about getting sick or eyestrain from it, it may come as a shock, but the past 20 years haven't been completely useless in determining what was wrong with '80s VR. Human vision is now so well understood that a layman can explain the basic issues with VR. It doesn't take an optometrist anymore. More to the point, Carmack has done some real science using the Rift prototype he has and determined that the biggest driver for making VR work (or not) is latency, in both headtracking and the display. Get that roundtrip loop down to less than 20 milliseconds, and human vision (and brain) buys it. It looks like looking at a world, after that, and no longer induces vertigo. The hardware is finally at a point where getting under that limit is feasible.

    The biggest reason VR can succeed this time is display technology. Smart phones have driven the costs of conveniently small conveniently high resolution LCD panels into the ground. What was once a ridiculously custom built $50,000 piece of gear is now a $300 piece of gear made of off the shelf parts originally intended for phones. Right down to the sensors. Trackers on a chip have also gotten both very sophisticated and astonishingly cheap. It ain't the '80s anymore, kids.

    What does all this have to do with Valve? Valve in general and Gabe Newell in particular believes that this time, VR WILL work, and that the platform of choice to get it off the ground is the PC. PCs tolerate new peripherals better than any other platform, especially since many platforms don't tolerate 3rd party peripherals in any form at all. Good luck creating a 3rd party peripheral for the PS3, for instance. Of course, if Microsoft succeeds in killing the PC as we know it with their own app store, then Valve needs their own platform. Hence, the hardware design interest. If their platform includes ready-to-run Virtual Reality that actually lives up to sci fi dreams, so much the better. The results may ultimately become Yet Another Walled Garden (YAWG. Catchy, eh?), but so it goes.

    1. Re:The headmounted display by Osgeld · · Score: 2

      yea, I had a 300$ one in the 90's and another 300$ one with high resolution TFT's in the early 2000's, delay was well below 20ms and it still boils down that a flickering screen less than an inch from your eye, in stereo will make most peoples heads split in a matter of moments. not to mention even the lightest one I had at only a handful of ounces was still flat out uncomfortable.

      your right its not the 80's anymore, but just cause they reduced the issues, doesnt mean the issues are gone.

    2. Re:The headmounted display by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 2

      You whine too much. A handful of ounces is not uncomfortable. I've worn prescription glasses since I was a child, and before high refraction index plastics were available, my glasses weighed a handful of ounces. It's trivial to become accustomed to that weight, to the point it's unnoticeable. Nor is the design of prescription glasses so marvelous that the weight is especially well distributed. Eyeglasses are fashion items, so comfort is very much a secondary consideration. The designers of the Rift won't have to work very hard to design better weight distribution.

      Nor do I believe for a moment that any HMD available a decade ago had latency less than 20ms. Certainly not at that price. Even current commercial HMDs exceed that limit, at three times the price.

      Nor were any HMDs available a decade ago even remotely high resolution. I remember. I looked into them, repeatedly. 320x200 was the best you could hope for.

      Nor does a TFT flicker. There's no such thing as phosphor fade or vertical blanking or phosphor refresh in an LCD panel.

      Now if your content flickers, that's your problem. Short answer, VR is not for movies. Don't try to watch a jumpy flickery flashy action movie on VR. It's a waste of the capability of the headset anyway, since movies have no use for headtracking. Don't watch ANY movie on VR and you'll be fine. That's not what it's for, and Sony (and many other manufacturers) are perpetually stupid for thinking it is.

      I'm with the other responder. I think you talk out your ass a lot.

    3. Re:The headmounted display by jeti · · Score: 2

      The Rift has three advantages over existing affordable headsets:
          1. Large field of view
          2. Low lag when rotating the head
          3. Optics that concentrate the pixel density in the center, where vision is best

      However, if you move your viewpoint without moving yourself, there still is a disconnect between what you see and what your inner ear reports. This can cause nausea. Palmer has done some experiments with galvanic stimulation of the inner ear. But this is still far away from being safe enough for public consumption.

      Furthermore, your eyes remain focused at infinity, even if you look at closer objects. This might cause eyestrain or headache or just look wrong.

      I'm excited about the Rift myself and it seems to be far better than what has been affordable so far. While the immersion will be great, some basic problems remain. Whether VR headsets will appeal to a large enough market outside the military remains to be seen.

    4. Re:The headmounted display by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The refreshing of LCDs does not impact the back light (the screen does not dim between frames.)

      I thought this was a tech site?

  10. Re:5-10 year plan by pellik · · Score: 2

    I remember early VR systems. One big problem they had was that virtual worlds were of such poor quality that having it all around your head really didn't provide any benefit. With this problem unsolved it never surprised me that VR technology hadn't progressed much in the last two decades.

    Now we are starting to see virtual worlds reaching levels of detail that are almost passable as real. It makes a lot of sense to start looking at VR now, if you believe that real level of detail is achievable in 5-10 years, and you hope to innovate in the VR field in a similar time-frame.

    I'm really impressed with Valve right now.

  11. Quaintly Ignorant by paleo2002 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Interesting article, cool that Valve went right to the mainstream traditional media with their announcement. But, it was kinda cute reading the author's descriptions of Portal and TF2. I guess the Times simply doesn't have anyone under 40 working for them. Apparently Team Fortress is a game about an evil company that sells its customers faulty products.

    Imagine an article covering a sporting event written by someone similarly oblivious to what's going on:
    "Members of the Yankees team run to and capture 'bases' as part of an elaborate reenactment focused on battlefield strategies deployed during the Civil War . . ."

    1. Re:Quaintly Ignorant by game+kid · · Score: 2

      Yup, I read it whenever the mood strikes but the NYT and its obliviousness is...legendary.

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  12. Re:ya know by Osgeld · · Score: 2

    apparently you have never worn one of these things, they are heavy, and hurt your eyes, face, nose, and the back of your head, genius? if they are so grand why have they never become popular?

  13. Re:ya know by collet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's a significant difference between augmented reality (Project Glass) and virtual reality. Augmented reality has a lot more practical uses - You know, in the REAL world - while virtual reality seeks to create an entirely new world from scratch. Sure, some things are relevant to both kinds of headset, but ultimately, augmented reality is to help you with your shopping - while virtual reality will let you slaughter you friends.

    There was an hour long video at QuakeCon which is very interesting to listen to, they briefly explain the difference.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gaqQdyfAz8

  14. Re:ya know by LingNoi · · Score: 2

    The state of the art at the moment seems to be this device if you're interested on the subject.

  15. Re:Cool, but... by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Portal 2 wasnt that long ago, and it was (IMHO) one of the most polished games every released in the history of PC gaming. That there was no management hierarchy directing the games development is a testament to exactly how wrong the factory mindset is in creative industries.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  16. So, its a hat. by bjorniac · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well played, Gaben, well played.

  17. Re:5-10 year plan by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm really impressed with Valve right now.

    While the Valve model is a part of it, you should be directing your praises specifically at Michael Abrash.

    Abrash is a long-time graphics and optimization guru (author of Zen of Assembly Language, Zen of Graphics Programming, and two legendary Dr Dobbs series of articles, one titled Ramblings In Realtime and the other Graphics Programming Black Book) that Valve has been trying to hire for a very long time.

    This is the guy who single-handedly made the Quake rendering engine, with its software-based perspective-correct texture mapping and lighting, a possibility at the time that it was released. Valve finally succeeded in landing him about a year ago, and he has been investigating the practicality of Virtual and Augmented Reality ever since.

    He even writes about some of his findings in his blog, Ramblings in Valve Time

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  18. Re:ya know by Ash+Vince · · Score: 4, Interesting

    apparently you have never worn one of these things, they are heavy, and hurt your eyes, face, nose, and the back of your head, genius? if they are so grand why have they never become popular?

    The reason they never became popular the first time around was that the Virtuality sets were so expensive. They cost tens of thousands of dollars each and were only good if you had a few so several of you could play together as they had no single player games available.

    If you happened to get access to an arcade where you could play for free though (Like I did) you could still get seriously addicted to playing them. Whenever someone came in to the arcade and wanted to play but they were the only person I would have to don the other headset. I never remember the helmet being that uncomfortable to wear but I probably would not have cared if it was to be honest. The only thing that pissed me off was how expensive it was to play, I thought we should drop the price but when I found out how much it cost to rent it I understood.

    Ultimately we gave it back as to just didn't generate the revenue for the floor space it took up. If you could have got the price down to a level where it could cost more like 50 cents or a dollar I think it might have been more profitable. As it was I think the minimum you could charge to cover the rent of one was about $5 per go and that barely covered the rental even if it was busy every night and all weekend (It wasn't at that price).

    The problem with anything like this though is that once one company tries it and fails it poisons the idea and prevents anyone else from trying it for a while afterwards. The other problem is that most arcades started closing during this period as the consoles you could buy at home caught up in terms of technology.

    The killer product that has made the idea of these things popular again though is the Microsoft Kinect. Once you take 2 or 3 Kinect style gizmos and throw them around you in a living room it will make it possible to track something like a brightly coloured gun to figure out where you are aiming it. Then a headset to control the visual movement and a simple joystick on the side of the gun to make you walk (so you can stay still in the middle of the room). Nobody previously would have predicted that microsoft could have produced the Kinect and released it for the price they did, that changed a whole lot of things.

    Another amazing use for one of these devices now is in racing games. Currently even playing with a nice steering wheel setup the way you look at cars around you (such as when they are overtaking and in your mirror blindspot) is quirky or non existent. A device like this could make driving games seem far more natural.

    --
    I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
  19. Re:Do I have to sign anything to use it? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We live in a world where a woman sued and won against spilling hot coffee on herself, because the company didn't put a warning that their hot coffee is hot.

    Troll detected. Remainder of comment invalidated.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"