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10% Of 'Resident Evil 7' Players Are Wearing VR Headsets (digitaltrends.com)
Released five days ago, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard already has over 800,000 players -- and 84,036 of them are using a PlayStation VR headset. An anonymous reader quotes Digital Trends:
These numbers show that VR might have some real legs if compelling software is made... The numbers are also being updated live, so expect them to go up in the coming weeks. Earlier this week, numbers were in the 60-thousand range, meaning that positive buzz is driving gamers to pick up the game along with a VR headset.
Unfortunately for many gamers, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a PSVR exclusive, meaning PC gamers that own an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift are unable to experience the game in VR... Luckily, patient PC gamers will be able to experience the game in VR next year, when Sony and Capcom's PSVR exclusivity deal expires.
It's the first Resident Evil game using the first-person point-of-view. Are there any Slashdot readers who have already tried gaming with a VR headset?
It's the first Resident Evil game using the first-person point-of-view. Are there any Slashdot readers who have already tried gaming with a VR headset?
Nope.
Ask Paul Simon... I beleive he made a study of it
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
The big challenge for "alternative" ways of playing video games has always been "can you play a proper game that way". We've seen supposedly revolutionary new technologies come along before and then falter when it turns out that all they are good for is playing casual or party-games.
The Wii's motion control sold a hell of a lot of consoles on the basis of Wii Sports. However, before too long, it dawned on people that Wii Sports was pretty much the limit of the device's capabilities. Similarly the Kinect had a lot of early success on the basis of some party games, but every attempt to integrate it into a proper game was either irrelevant or disastrous (Steel Battalion says hi). It's becoming increasingly clear that if any of these new technologies are going to "stick", then they need to be something you could realistically use to play a major AAA title; a Dragon Age or a Call of Duty (not that I'm a big fan of either of those).
VR had looked like it was headed in the same direction as the Wii/Kinect; an initial burst of hype, then growing disillusionment. It generated a load of pretty but thin tech demos, a handful of novelty party games and, until recently, not much else. RE7 is interesting because it's an attempt to do a major release, from a well-known franchise, via VR, without diluting the thing beyond recognition. I've held off from buying a VR set myself so far; even if it takes off, the number of mutually-incompatible offerings on the market at the moment makes it a bit too likely I'd end up on the Betamax side of the divide. But I'd like to see it succeed and it's good that serious efforts are being made to adopt it in major games.
I also find it interesting that it seems to be Sony that is spearheading this effort via PSVR (RE7 isn't even their first attempt; there were some "proper" games, even if not of the same profile, among the PSVR launch titles). While technically superior, the Oculus and Vive still seem to be mostly pushing minigames and tech demos so far.
And we'll talk.
VR is mostly a novelty that wears off VERY fast.
--a VIVE owner of 3 months who didn't put it on for the past 2 months.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hey, remember the console wars, and how AMAZING those were for consumers? I do!
The headline got truncated. There should be " - and nothing else" at the end.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What VR parties games? A VR headset really gets in the way of any sort of group experience. It seems fundamentally incongruous. The only thing I see VR really kicking off with is the pornographic industry.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
We've seen supposedly revolutionary new technologies come along before and then falter when it turns out that all they are good for is playing casual or party-games.
The Wii's motion control sold a hell of a lot of consoles on the basis of Wii Sports. However, before too long, it dawned on people that Wii Sports was pretty much the limit of the device's capabilities. Similarly the Kinect had a lot of early success on the basis of some party games, but every attempt to integrate it into a proper game was either irrelevant or disastrous (Steel Battalion says hi). It's becoming increasingly clear that if any of these new technologies are going to "stick", then they need to be something you could realistically use to play a major AAA title; a Dragon Age or a Call of Duty (not that I'm a big fan of either of those).
VR had looked like it was headed in the same direction as the Wii/Kinect; an initial burst of hype, then growing disillusionment.
I don't necessarily agree with your last statement.
Wii and Kinect (and countless other "revolutions in game play(tm)") share something that they don't have in common with VR.
They completely change the way game are played, and that's a problem for an industry that has perfected other different way to play.
That's not the case with VR.
When you boil down to the core concepts, Wii and Kinect are about completely throwing the input interface out of the window and trying something completely different : you do NOT use a classical controller, i.e.: you do not push button on a pad/joystick or use a keyboard/mouse pair.
Instead you use body motions (wave you hands around with wiimotes in them, jump around in front of Kinect's camera, etc.)
The industry has spend decades finding ways to get them most out of a joystick/gamepad or out of a keybaord/mouse pair. With have vast libraries of games optimized for them. We have complete *genre* of game which seem to be married to some type of input interface
(2D platformers are strongest on gamepads - optionally keyboard as a fall back. Whereas mouse/keyboard is the king for strategy games and FPS - with maybe analog sticks as a pale substiture for the second)
There's just not enough know-how and enough experience in how to successfully take advantage of new types of "motion"-controllers.
And you though that bringing FPS from the keyboard/mouse to the joypad was a difficult task ? That's why, except for a few very special games that were thaugh from the gound up, every other game feels like having the motion element show-horned into an unrelated and incompatible game.
When you boil down to the core concept, VR is just... a game seen from the perspective of the hero. That's it.
Like every single other FPS game since MidiMaze / Wolfenstein / Doom / Quake, etc.
There's no fundamentally different idea that hasn't existed for the past few decade.
That's why you've already seen tons of attempts of adding VR to games with first-person perspective.
The difference is only in details.
There are VAST amounts of details making VR much better as an output interface for first-person perspective, and also making the current crop of VR devices better than past attempts - but these are only details.
But again you don't need to revolutionize the gaming industry to at least make attempts at using the technology.
To make things short :
- in 2017 you can simply decide to play Doom with a VR helmet instead of a computer screen. Beside the quality of the experience (immersion, etc.) no big deal, game design isn't profoundly affected by the choice.
- in 2017 you cannot simply decide to play Doom by dancing in front of a Kinect instead of using a controller. You'd need a totally different type of game.
The limiting factor of Wii/Kinect/etc. are :
- can we suddenly now invent completely new way to play game to leverage these weird interfaces ?
(hard problem)
The limiting factor of VR :
- will the quality be good enough so that people won't automa
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It needed a killer app that made it desirable for things other than gaming.
They should have made an animation studio that would let you draw characters & then attach them to your own body movements & make your own cartoons. Kinect wouldve been a huge hit if itd just had something cool & creative like that you could do with it. But no, all we got instead was dance-dance-revolution.
I've been playing it in VR and would recommend it it anyone with the cash to burn on the hardware. The game itself is masterfully done, and the constraints of the haunted house theme actually help mask the constraints of the PSVR hardware somewhat - very little screen-door noticeable and the lowish res graphics are ignored once you leave the outside at the start of the game.
For me, at 40, it was worth the cash to enjoy a genuinely new life experience but I don't think the hardware is quite at the "must buy" level yet. VR 2.0 is going to be insane though, that's when I think it will crack the mass market. But if you have the PSVR gathering dust on the shelf right now, or the cash weighing down your wallet, then get this game and scare yourself shitless - you have played nothing like this before and it is truly awesome!
What the fuck are they smoking? They think PC gamers will buy a damn console because of that? That's the same as asking someone driving a pick-up truck to also buy a damn car just to listen to exclusive radio content. It's not going to happen.
#DeleteFacebook
I have an Oculus Rift and had a DK2, and to be honest I was skeptical of gaming in VR at the current iteration of the technology as it gets tiring in the long run and a lot of the games are more tech demos than real games.
But then I played Elite:Dangerous (space sim) and later The Unspoken (fireball-tossing wizard duels in multiplayer). These are games where that sense of presence that VR offers is used to mind-blowing effect. Especially in E:D, as VR allows a real sense of *scale*. I never thought about this before I tried E:D, but flying into a space station that is over a km long really gives you a "holy crap that this is huge"-feeling. And you really feel that you are sitting *inside* of your ship, which is oddly pleasing.
The same for The Unspoken. Using Oculus touch controllers you really feel that the hands you see in-game are your own, and the first time I saw my right hand burst into flame as I was charging up a fireball was another of those "holy crap" moments.
Once developers get a better handle on how to make VR games it's going to become a serious segment of gaming. We see early signs of this already, as E:D and Unspoken demonstrates, but there is still some way to go (and possible a couple of HW iterations) before it becomes a serious platform in terms of users and revenue. And I'm not ruling out another short-term crash/flop if the next iteration takes too long, or developers can't come up with better experiences before users' patience runs out. We're not there yet, but VR is just too much fun to go away permanently.
Come on. That is a teeny percent. It means the overwhelming majority are NOT using headsets. That tells me that the sets are not an instant no brainer, which is what they will have to be to gain mass adoption. It is still too big a pain to strap what is essentially a helmet to your head, it has nothing to do with gameplay being 'normal' or not. That level of VR may or may not never come. I officially declare it the new 3D tv.
There's 'Keep talking and nobody explodes' when the player wearing the headset needs to cooperate with the ''outstsiders'' to solve problems or stuff like PSVR Playroom when people without headsets play on TV while the guy wearing the headset chases them / runs away from them. There's plenty of ways to make this work.
the game is already cracked :P
The best way is just do it over the internet. You don't need to be in the same room, that's one point of vr is being able to be in the "same space" without having to physically be in the same room. Just use Voip and it's all set and done. It's no different than grouping up online to play an mmo or other team game.
The problem is people aren't willing to expand the definition of "social interaction" to anything besides face to face in the same physical room. Really is silly since so many people give exceptions to things like texting or group chats.
I'm more interested in what percent of VR owners are playing RE7. This looks to be the the first AAA VR game.
Anyone know how many PS-VRs have sold?
It brings the horror shooter genre to new heights. It s a bit like Outcast but with better production value. They should have done more daytime scenes to show off the engine a bit more cause running around in the dark for 10 hours was a bit much but the game play is just great. That's my only complaint. It was still $60 well spent for the 10 hours or so I killed yesterday running through the whole thing.
Be warned that like all games it this genre is does have basically zero replay value once you beat it.
The only recent numbers I could find had a revised estimate of 750k sold at the end of 2016. I think the number may be a bit higher than that, probably not much... I have a PSVR unit myself, but don't have the RE game so it is interesting to wonder what the percent of VR owners will play RE7. I had not heard that it worked with the VR unit though, so as word spreads that the experience is good, the numbers will probably climb.
Sony still seems like the best bet to me to make VR work for the mainstream, but I have to say the PS4 Pro is kind of a requirement. Not just for better graphics but because it solves a lot of cable issues that make attaching a PSVR unit to the old PS4 kind of a mess.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have a PSVR. Seriously this will become a massive revolution in gaming. VR is a complete overhaul of the space, racing and flight sim genres. If people haven't tried it yet I highly recommend playing the Star Wars Battlefront VR mission. This thing is insane, you're in an X-Wing cockpit, all the controls/buttons activate. You can even turn the targetting computer on/off just like in the movies! Turn around and your R2 is in the back working away. There is no gaming experience like it. In my 25 years of space gaming nothing comes close to it. 6 months ago I would have said that VR is a nice to have and that Star Citizen shouldn't focus on it too much. Now I'd argue that it's 100% essential. VR should be a core design component of any game where you sit for extended periods inside a vehicle.The realism is completely unmatched by any other medium.
Just logged in to respond to this, I usually just graze on comments.
Resident Evil 7 in VR is jaw dropping - Capcom have made a lot of effort with the options for VR, and the effort really shows. This isn't a small bolt on extra mission - its the real deal.
Moving round the house, the feeling of presence is immense - the graphics and 3d audio, coupled with the ability to quickly glance round a corner, or behind you. It is just brilliant.
Check out the reddit comments on various threads including this one.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/...
Also, if you like Star Wars - the free battlefront X-Wing VR mission is a great 10 minutes.
is for the developers to realize that deciding to make a game an exclusive for particular hardware is a bad idea in the long run.
I have a VR unit ( a Vive ) and it was a rather expensive add on. I see plenty of games I would pay for in a moment, if only they were not Oculus or PSVR exclusives.
No, I am NOT going to buy two or three different VR setups just to play a certain game. In the end, they'll just lose a lot of sales because of it, then declare that VR isn't worth developing for because of the poor sales figures, oblivious to the why behind it.
End of VR.
So!
Quit trying to be the hardware standard.
Make your games cross platform ( is a bonus for multiplayer games ) and let the consumers decide whose hardware is the better choice instead of trying to influence it with exclusive titles.
I'm a Vive owner and I must say it's absolutely incredible. I've owned it for months and still play it almost every day.
I would say that for me, the room-scale integration and motion tracking is key to enjoyment. Having the headset is a nice novelty, but being able to really "be" there, standing in a virtual space, is what's incredible.
I play a lot of Minecraft (there's a free Vive VR plugin for it) and during the nighttime (in-game) I'll climb up on top of my little virtual house, sit down on the "roof" (i.e. my office floor) and just simply enjoy the view while I have a little snack, both in game and in real life. Not to mention actually looking around and mining/placing blocks that are as big as you are, and actually swinging your sword and actually shooting your bow at mobs. I've never had a comparable game experience in my life. And I can play in the same game as people using non-VR minecraft, so there's no restrictions.
Onward, which is sort of VR Counter Strike, is another game that is incredible (but I suck really, really bad). You can peek around corners, duck behind things, crouch, go prone, and "really" reload your gun and throw grenades.
Content is a bit of an issue, but there are plenty more great room-scale games other than Minecraft and Onward... Legend of Luca is one of my favorites, it's like VR meets classic NES Legend of Zelda. Holoball is VR pong and great fun, and you can really get a workout playing it. 5089 and Vanishing Realms are both excellent, immersive RPGs, Arizona Sunshine is the best zombie shooter I've ever played, Anyland is a unique building and community game that is a really different kind of experience, Out of Ammo is a fun FPS with a lot of RTS elements, and there are a few others. Perhaps it's just because Steam's catalog of Vive games lines up with my preferences, but I'm not disappointed in the selection.
Besides content, there are other cons of the Vive that are, unfortunately, pretty bad The huge cable and the bulkiness are the biggest. I do know there is a wireless kit available that has been getting good reviews, but that's another $200 bucks for first-gen hardware. The cable is strange because although it never really gets in your way, you *feel* like it's going to get in your way, which is almost as bad. The headset being wireless would solve a lot of problems, however it's still very bulky and not easy to wear for long sessions (more than 45 minutes, say). It's sweaty, and it feels, for a lack of a better word, claustrophobic. Having two monitors about half an inch from your eyes is not comfortable either, and after long play sessions I feel... unusual. Not nauseous or sick or fatigued, exactly, but unusual. And keep in mind you need a really beefy PC to be able to run this stuff, so that drives up the price tag even more. Also, local multiplayer is basically non-existent because each person needs their own computer and their own 5 x 6 meter space to play in, although the games that have internet play function as good as you'd want them to be.
It bears mentioning that I got a touch of motion sickness with some of the games that don't use teleportation, but you get used to it after about a half hour (and forevermore after that). And that's saying a lot, because I get motion sickness in vehicles very easily. But, your mileage may vary.
With all that being said, do I think it's worth the roughly $900 (if you already have a nice PC)? Absolutely! And I'd buy another one if mine broke. Although the cons are easiest to put into words, the pros are not - it's an experience like no other. VR is not gimmicky like I thought it was going to be. However, I probably wouldn't be saying this if I didn't have the Vive with its motion tracking. Simply having the headset alone would be a bit of a novelty that would wear off fast.
I'd recommend that if you've already got the money and the desire to buy something like a new TV or a surround-sound system or something, spend it on the Vive instead. Way more bang for your buck. It's a professional product and doesn't feel like a prototype, although if you want to wait for the 2nd generation I can only imagine how much better that will be.
I like my women how I like my sugar.. granulated.
How many of these people used it once and then never again? The statistics are sure to be embellished.
This isn't exactly true... Any artificial locomotion (any camera movement disconnected from your physical movement) in VR is still a big problem for many people (myself included) because it makes them sick.
Yes, there are a lot of *small details* that are getting refined. (and more so : most of them are subjective. I happen to be lucky enough not to suffer from kinetosis (sea-sickness). So I don't give such a big damn fuck about some of those details)
But still you don't need to invent a whole new genre to be able to exploit them.
- back at the time when Forte's VFX1 headset was available for testing at a local computer shop, I could simply load up Descent and play test it.
(Though some of my fried had spacial orientations problems, it was still *just quirks* that needed working out).
- back when I managed to get an indecently good price on eBay for eMagine's Z800 Visor, I could still pop in Quake3 and enjoy it.
(apparently someone did buy it during the launch promotions, and was disappointed and looking to get rid of it for an even lower price. Totally worth it, even if I needed to swap an upgraded ROM. Got even some hacks to get Bino to play 3D movies on it).
- nowadays, there exist games that in addition of a normal computer screen + mouse setup can be played with VR headsets like Occulus or Vive. I've mentioned Doom above.
Nobody needed to invent Doom or RE7 as a new genre just to be able to actually use these headsets. Yes, you would need to iron a few quirks out, just to be able to increase the quality of the users' experience.
But a genre suitable for first person perspective had existed for quite a lot of time before that could be directly tapped into.
First person perspective already makes sense for tons of games which already exists (FPS, but also 3D puzzle games, etc.)
Well of course, if you take some poor schmuck who suffers from seasickness, they'll be rather happy about the new development in VR-headset.
And if the poor schmuck is REALLY affected A LOT by it, they'll still need more quirks to get ironed out.
But nobody needs to wait for new type of games to get invented, the currently available genre are already good enough.
(In fact, back in the days of Z800 3d visor and such, there was a small cottage industry of special custom drivers designed to enable stereo 3D in games that weren't designed for it. Just a proof that you don't need to invent news games for VR).
Whereas, as I've stated above, motion games are an entirely new type of user input that needs new type of games to be adapted to it.
That goes beyond the simple quirks to iron out (needing a way to avoid nintendo's equivalent of a tennis elbow).
You need to invent new games where the whole concept of "dancing in front of a webcam" or "flailing your arms around" makes sense.
There are some attempts : party games, sport games, DDR-like games (which seem to be the only tiny niche genre that already used motions before it was "a thing").
So I stand by my above comment:
VR headsets are in a much easier places (quirks that you mention)
than motions games (actually find a interesting way to integrate the technology into some AAA games, in a way that doesn't feel tackled on).
So VR headsets are definitely not the same kind of "passing fad" that motions controllers are currently, as the top poster implied.
It's more a question of market size and profitability : ...and work around the quirks (motion sickness) ...so that the technology gets accessible to a big enough mass of people ...to be actually worth the resource spent on developing AAA games for it ?
- Can you bring it's owning costs...
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And if you look into it :
1. costs
- modern headsets try to offset the cost of device by using of-the-shelf parts (the price of high resolution small OLED screens has dramatically dropped, thanks to smartphone and tablets. Same for high rest cameras and accelerome
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]