DAILY MANIFESTO

A Tale of Two VR Headsets

Posted on Sunday, October 14 @ 02:09:25 Eastern by Heath_Hindman

Video games and fire weren't the only things we played with at the Tokyo Game Show. My wife and I also got to try out both versions of Sony's virtual reality headset. I took the Prototype-SR, while she tried out the more publicized HMZ. There are no plans to market the Prototype-SR, but the HMZ is the one being used with video games; it's therefore easy to see why the HMZ is the one getting all the hype.

The reason for Prototype-SR being the subject of no marketing plans probably has something to do with the massive overhead expense and implausibility of replicating the same experiences for everyone. It blends 3D video with what's actually going on, meaning what you see is a mixture of reality and recording. These videos, in order to work the way they do, need to be recorded in 360 degrees. Within the homes of the common folk, this could be a problem.

All of that notwithstanding, the experience was quite amazing for a one-time thing. I could see it being a pretty cool attraction at Epcot Center or something after some moderate tweaking. I said of it in my full impression:

[My guide was] fading in and out, transporting from one side of the room to the other. Was I watching a recording again? She seemed to know what I’d be thinking and challenged by thoughts. 'This is reality,' she said. She held her hand up and begged that I touch it. I slowly complied, half scared I might see my hand go right through hers. But it didn’t. I felt contact with her hand as I expected to. I half anticipated 'I’m here for you, James. You see? I’m real.' to follow. I could see my own hand in front of my face, and yet, there were teleportations going on all around me. I wanted to cling to that hand — to hold it, to cling to my reality as it was being turned upside down. What the hell was going on here?

Janelle's experience was different. Whereas I had a half an hour in a private room, Janelle was playing one of the more popular headsets that had a game hooked up to it. When Muse said, "I don't need another map of your head," perhaps the band should have continued to say, "But Sony does." We talked to several journalists at TGS who'd tried out the HMZ, and none of them claimed to have a good fit.

Is the Japanese version's nose piece a little bit smaller than those being demoed in North America? We can't be sure about that, but the pinch gave both my wife and another writer (whose website I won't name, but let me promise you, you've heard of it) headaches that lasted a couple of hours. She said:

The first, unexpected thing I noticed about the HMZ is that it’s heavy. If you don’t have the unit tightened properly on your head, it’s going to slip all the way down your face. Watching a booth attendant put the device on other people was like watching somebody suit up for a robot battle. It took a lot of fiddling and adjusting by another person to get the personal headset adjusted just right, which seems to defeat the purpose of a device you can only play alone.

You can read her whole writeup here.

Tags: Sony

Comments

Sourdeez
Joined: Feb 2012

Posted: Oct 14th, 2012 at 3:20 am
Dot hack here we come

0 2

nine_ball
Joined: Nov 2011

Posted: Oct 14th, 2012 at 8:37 am
We could be heading for Sword Art Online instead.

0 1

UpAndAtThem
Joined: Mar 2009

Posted: Oct 14th, 2012 at 9:19 am
VirtualBoy, is that you? I thought you were dead!

0 5

OdiousLupous
Joined: Jul 2011

Posted: Oct 14th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
The memory made me shudder and cringe.

0 0

UghRochester
Joined: Jun 2006

Posted: Oct 14th, 2012 at 9:57 am
I remember listening to about this on the podcast. Janelle made it quite humorous and sounding like she had a horrible experience with the headset. I guess it doesn't matter to me, because I won't spend that much money for a heavy headset anyways.

Also, I see what you did there.

0 2

BigTruckSeries
Joined: May 2006

Posted: Oct 14th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Virtual Reality will NEVER catch on.

#1 people don't like wearing things on their eyes and ears which obscures their view of the rest of the world for very long.

#2 when people view something, they want other people to be able to view it too with them in the way they see it - part of the reason 3D HDTV's won't catch on either.

#3 most developers don't want to have to develop for these things.

#4 The equipment is always too expensive.

sure there are enthusiasts who will buy them, but unless you sell roughly a million units, you don't break even.

0 0