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Valve To Reveal Virtual Reality Dev Kit Next Week At GDC
An anonymous reader writes Gaming giant Valve has been researching augmented and virtual reality for some time. Early on, the company worked closely with Oculus, sharing research findings and even adding support for TF2 to Oculus' first VR headset, the DK1, back in 2013. After demonstrating their own prototype VR headset at Steam Dev Days in early 2014, and then a modified version later in the year, Valve is now ready to take the wraps off a 'previously unannounced ... SteamVR Dev Kit,' which will make its debut at GDC next week. SteamVR is the name of the software adaptation of Steam's 'Big Picture' mode that the company revealed early last year, allowing players to browse their Steam library and play supported games all in virtual reality.
SteamOS is still under active development and works quite well. I anticipate we'll see some dedicated hardware halfway through 2015.
You can roll your own Steam Box today if you like. I ran it dual-boot on my gaming PC for a little while, but I got rid of it in favor of Slackware and a Steam on Linux installation.
When I want to feel nausea, I volunteer for a chemo drug trial.
I was hoping the big announcement was gonna be HL3
Rise and shine Mr Freeman.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
It is exciting to see Valve putting effort into VR, but I hope that their implementation does not contribute to fragmentation of this nascent technology.
Ever since the early stages of Oculus awakened the tech community's interest in VR again, suggesting that the economic and technological necessities have converged to provide "good enough, cheap enough" consumer VR, there have been many "also-rans" putting forth their own, similar plans. From Sony's Playstation visor project to tons of indie developers, there are tons of interested parties trying to make their VR product into a market leader. Considering that overall many of these projects are proprietary in nature, it could ultimately lead to fragmentation - a major threat as the consumer VR landscape unfolds. Tons of different, often incompatible hardware and software offerings each trying to lock down their little niche could ultimately threaten the widespread adoption of the technology.
With this in mind, I hope Valve is going forward as not just another (admittedly, well heeled) company making their own paradigm, but are planning an open, compatible implementation. I'll certainly give them the chance to prove it, as I think many others will - Valve has been willing to strike a blow for openness and long term growth in ways that others in the industry wouldn't dream of (ie SteamOS, Steam for Linux etc...), so it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction for Valve to a SteamVR platform in an open manner. Allowing developers who want to integrate with or launch products on Steam to be able to freely implement seamless VR support sounds like a great benefit.
However, there are still questions of licensing and how SteamVR hardware and software will fit in the larger picture. For instance, Valve is launching a SteamVR dev kit that includes hardware. That's great. However, we don't yet know if the SDK will play nice with third party hardware, such as the Oculus Rift itself. Likewise, on the software side, will the majority of it be FLOSS licensed and platform independent? The best case scenario comes to Valve joining with those like OSVR (www.osvr.com), for instance, who have already seen the threat of fragmentation and are acting against it.. Logically, joining with this sort of industry group would seem to be a win for Valve, as it would mean SteamVR being poised for adoption well beyond its own sphere. However, Valve could certainly have reasons for wanting to go it alone, worrisome as they may be from an outside perspective.
We're on the cusp of bringing affordable, enjoyable VR tech to developers and consumers alike, but this adoption could be threatened without enough openness. This is not a development that is going to give way into a clear market leader who then gets the entire ecosystem to themselves and we should not put up with those who try to make it so. Users and developers should ideally be able to use any hardware of sufficient specs with compatible, FLOSS drivers and software. Hopefully Valve is aware of this and will make SteamVR as open as possible.
That was stated last year. In fact, there were plenty of prototype Steam Machines last year.
The problem is no the idea, but the sales pitch. When people considered the Xbone expensive at $500, and the best machine that was out was an i3 with dedicated graphics, you really start to wonder about its viability. Sure there were competent boxes out there, if you're willing to pay for it (say over $1000), which buys a LOT of PSN or Xbox Live Gold cards (practicaly 10 year's worth).
Then there's the upgrade path - considering the Xbox360 and PS3 are last gen, they still lasted 7-8 years. Will a $500 steam machine running an i3 last 7-8 years or will it require constant upgrading? Will your $1000 one last? You can argue that "you can turn down the graphics!" but will that just cause users to think the graphics are crappy because they have to run it in a virtual VGA upscaled to 1080p graphics mode?
That's the fundamental problem. Valve sees Steam Machines as specialized PCs that sit in the PC section of Best Buy alongside the gaming PCs. Yet the public is likely to see it as a game console that sits beside the PS4 and Xbone with expectations of such.
VR, I see as having other problems. Oculus has had how long to release their VR stuff? It's gotten long enough that the only product is the Galaxy Gear, while plenty of people are using it for development and research. Either the technology will end up dying out as "pie in the sky" - it's out there, but there's nothing for the public to buy so they end up forgetting about it like much vaporware, or low cost ripoffs will come out and people's impressions of the Rift will be from those things that barely work. There's a vacuum in the market and competitors that don't work as well are likely to spoil the market.
> Just because manufacturers haven't provided many affordable solutions doesn't mean that Steam in the living room is a pointless concept
It strongly suggests it.
> and in-fact it's a rather welcome one
Another console that doesn't play any console games, but does play all the ones I already have on my PC. How is this welcome?
> Patience is a virtue.
Lolz. Out-of-the-gate momentum tells you a lot.
As I recall, Valve decided that VR hardware was not in their road map and decided to let go of the entire team, including female engineer extraordinaire Jeri Ellsworth. They also asked if they could take what they have done with them, and Valve gave them the Greenlight.
So, it appears that was shortsighted and they are now again pursuing VR hardware again? That is one company that just doesn't want to make sense, at least to me anyway.
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WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!
They are probably thinking something along the lines of "I make decisions for a multi billion dollar company. I probably know better than some dude on the Internet."
And they are probably wrong.
I believe that was a different project devoted to AR (augmented reality) not VR.
SteamBoxen are contingent on them figuring out the controller, which as I recall they've poured a lot of resources into. The draw of the SteamBox is that you can play PC games designed for PCs in the living room as well as the typical console games. Ever try to play an RTS on a TV with a controller? It is flat-out torture. That's why they are trying to work the touchpad into one of the d-pads on their controller, so you could play games like Dota 2 or Civ5 or any RTS in the living room. If they don't get that aspect of the SteamBox working, then its simply another console and has no defining draw that separates it from the others.
I agree, the dude on the Internet is probably wrong.
The real unsolvable challenge will be making a controller that doesn't end up with the players getting their asses handed to them by keyboard and mouse players.
Unless they can solve this (Sony and Microsoft have failed) they will need to segregate controller 'tards from the gamers. Just to keep the butthurt to minimum level.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
VR, I see as having other problems. Oculus has had how long to release their VR stuff? It's gotten long enough that the only product is the Galaxy Gear, while plenty of people are using it for development and research.
The problem is the simulator sickness effect that people get when the messages from your eyes don't match what your inner ear is telling your brain. Oculus have been working on this for a long time and even warned Sony not to release a Playstation VR accessory until this has been resolved lest it taint the VR experience for the public.
The Oculus Rift is brilliant and I'm sure these others will be equally good but they still aren't practical in the market until the simulator sickness problem is resolved.
The Rift team talks a lot about simulator sickness.
In my experience my DK2 is about as pukey as my old VFX1 was (once I got the VFX1 running on a 1+ GHz machine to max out the old games frame rates).
The thing with working the simulator sickness problem. You build resistance to the nausea. So whatever you think you are working on, works for you.
The really strange thing about my DK2 is Alien Isolation. Normal 3d shooter type games aren't that pukey (because up generally stays up). But for some reason that one is terrible.
Asseto Corsa is awesome.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
To be, or not to be, that is the question— Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them? system erp Microsoft Dynamics ERP Navision Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 To die, to sleep— No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.
It's a great metaphor, as long as the context is dice gaming rather than leaf burning - you pick a bunch of components (or a complete machine where someone else picked a bunch of components), install SteamOS*, and hope that they all work well and work together well
*and a second machine with Windows installed on it so you can play windows games.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm not sure that that 20% is accurate. At least a few of them are really just wrapped in Wine, rather than actually made to run natively under Linux or OS X. This does, however, suggest some potential options that they could take when a vendor can't or won't offer a native version of their game:
Can you be Even More Awesome?!