Sony's Dr. Richard Marks On PlayStation VR At Immersed 2015 (Video)
At the Immersed VR/AR conference this week in Toronto, our own Kevin Carbotte sat down with Dr. Richard Marks, who heads up Sony's PlayStation R&D, to talk about the company's recently-renamed VR HMD.
In his role as the director of the superbly named "PlayStation Magic Lab," Dr. Marks gets to tinker with the sort of tech that results in a VR HMD. He told us that work on PlayStation VR began in earnest in 2010, and that it was inspired by Sony's engineers exploring possibilities with the PlayStation Move controllers. For example, they stuck them on their heads to see about head tracking. (Put a group of curious minds in a room with amazing toys, you get creative stuff.)
Have a look at the video above to hear more about how the PlayStation VR handles the considerable rendering requirements of VR, how it splits video to a headset and a TV, and how they reworked the Move technology to track its VR HMD.
Dr. Marks also stated that Sony will have a number of titles available at launch, from simpler puzzle games to shooters. He also explained how Sony's use of sub-pixels, frame rate, and optics delivers a 1080p experience that looks superior to other 1080p HMDs, which Kevin noticed when he undertook Sony's London Heist demo.
Seth Colaner is the News Director at Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
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Dai10zin "That makes sense."Reply
All kidding aside -- glad to hear they'll have the Playstation VR at the Playstation Experience in December; it's one of the reasons I signed up to go. Hoping to see that and 'No Man's Sky'. -
Oldbutstillatit Sony is being smart about it, I'll give them that. Looks like they might just be the sleeper VR hit the industry needs to boost exposure while capturing the console VR market in it's entirety (whatever that will be). I'm rooting for them. I love my DK2, I play games on it everyday (both 2D and fukk DK2 support) so, anything that helps this newly reborn industry get cooking is ok im my book.Reply -
jrrdmchls My prediction VR will go the way of 3D. Pretty Cool, But who want to wear that stuff on your head? Anybody remember the Virtual boy from Nintendo?? lolReply -
kcarbotte "That makes sense."
All kidding aside -- glad to hear they'll have the Playstation VR at the Playstation Experience in December; it's one of the reasons I signed up to go. Hoping to see that and 'No Man's Sky'.
I had no idea I said it so many times. I'm going to have to make a conscious note to avoid the phrase. -
kcarbotte My prediction VR will go the way of 3D. Pretty Cool, But who want to wear that stuff on your head? Anybody remember the Virtual boy from Nintendo?? lol
You've obviously not tried any modern VR headset.
3DTV's offered nothing compelling. even the 3D effect isn't very good. You can get the same experience without the glasses and be far more comfortable doing it. You can't match VR with any other experience. There's a very compelling reason to have the headset on. Once you try it, you won't care how silly you look to others.
Virtual reality is getting massive support from all forms of industries.
Gaming is the obvious starting point, but there are so many other things coming for virtual realty HMDs.
360 cameras are popping up all over the place - you will be able to make your own content just as easily as recording with a go-pro.
YouTube, Facebook and other video services already support 360-degree videos that can be viewed with Oculus, GearVR or Google Cardboard.
Virtual tours of tourist attractions are already happening
virtual tours of real estate (rental and sales)
Virtual concert experiences (as if you were sitting in the crowd, when you can't possibly have been there.
Phobia treatment and other therapy
Medetation and relaxation
the list goes on.
You may not know this, but virtual reality has been a thing for over 100 years. There have been people working on the science behind all of this for generations and we're finally at the point where the technology had caught up to the idea.
Trust me when I say, VR is hear to stay this time.
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eodeo I'm finding it hard to believe that they don't notice or care how much better PC graphics is today. They're both like- yeah in 5-10 years ps4 will totally be relevant and would be able to match PCs... Are they deluded like the cult of Mac or just disingenuous? I can't tell.Reply -
kcarbotte 16756829 said:I'm finding it hard to believe that they don't notice or care how much better PC graphics is today. They're both like- yeah in 5-10 years ps4 will totally be relevant and would be able to match PCs... Are they deluded like the cult of Mac or just disingenuous? I can't tell.
I don't think its either. They don't have to keep up with PC graphics. Look at what happened in the last generation.
Games will be made for the platforms that exist. plain and simple. PS4 has a massive install base for a 2 year old console, and it will continue to sell more and more. The PSVR headset only has to match the performance of the console.
PC's will surpass the consoles in power and performance (a good gaming rig already does) but that won't stop the PS4 from continuing on for years to come.