How Sony is using PlayStation to make a play for VR dominance
SETTING PLAYSTATION VR APART
PlayStation VR is unique from other VR options being readied in that it’s the only platform that tethers to a console. This means PlayStation 4 owners won’t constantly be asking themselves if their system is powerful enough to enjoy the newest games.
As of November, Sony has sold 30.2 million PS4s. This could help Sony market PlayStation VR to its already large player base, as the plug-andplay nature of consoles could help make it a more attractive option early on for the mainstream audience. Of course, a large number of PC owners – a much larger install base – already own rigs capable of running the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. Because of this, Sony must put an emphasis on its accessibility, its plug-and-play ability, and its name recognition with the mainstream audience.
When talking to Shuhei Yoshida, Sony’s president of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, it’s apparent that the company is aware of its advantages. “You don’t need any technical knowledge to use it,” he says. “We want people to just buy PS VR and connect it to a PS4 and enjoy VR experiences.”
LURING DEVELOPERS TO VR
The allure of this new technology has brought developers of different sizes into the fray. We already know some of the games that will arrive on PlayStation VR, and with several months to go prior to launch during the fi rst half of 2016, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more big-name studios get on board. Despite this, Sony may need to grease the wheels by investing more in third-party developer projects.
Ben Throop, creator of the dystopian soccer-school simulator Headmaster, was concerned about the fi nancial viability until he started noticing a trend, starting at Game Developers Conference in 2015 when Oculus, HTC, and Sony all focused heavily on virtual reality. “When I started work on Headmaster in the fall of 2014 there was no market and no timeline,” he says. “Despite that uncertainty the potential for the technology was very, very compelling.”
Another studio that is developing a PlayStation VR game is Supermassive, the developer behind one of the biggest surprise hits of 2015, Until Dawn. With Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, the studio plans to deliver an on-rails arcade shooter experience in the fright-fi lled universe of Until Dawn. “I think we are just at the beginning of really exploring what VR is going to bring to gaming,” says Rush of Blood executive producer Simon Harris. “[A] VR experience is truly unlike any gaming experience players have had before. The feeling of being ‘in’ a world and having the simple action of moving and looking around is incredible and will deliver a level of gaming and interactivity we haven’t had previously.”
Tom Jones of Guerrilla Cambridge, which is working on a mech-based sports shooter called Rigs, is excited at the prospects of being one of the trailblazers of VR development. “It's great to see so many games and experiences being developed, because the boundaries of what is possible are being pushed all the time,” he says. “As a developer, it's brilliant to be involved in helping to push the technology.”
At this point many of the studios with announced PlayStation VR projects have back grounds working with Vita or PlayStation Move. Most of Sony’s most well-known internal studios like SCE Santa Monica, Sucker Punch, and Naughty Dog have remained on the sidelines to this point.
According to Yoshida, the viability and progression of VR as a whole will be crucial to attracting those triple-A experiences. “We are such a big fan of small, new novelties and creative games coming from indie communities,” he says. “Of course, we’d like to see our major triple-A publishers to start working on PS VR content as well, and you have seen some efforts and demos released, especially from Japanese publishers like Bandai Namco, Capcom, Sega, and Square Enix. That’s great, and I hope more will be done; like Ubisoft was showing Trackmania on PS VR during E3 already. The larger publishers, because of their enormous resources, tend to wait for the market to mature before they can justify investing on a larger scale, but I’m very optimistic that this will come.”
EXPERIENCING PLAYSTATION VR
Several PlayStation VR developers visited us recently to show off their latest demos for projects that could be coming to the platform when it launches this year. The PS VR headset is comfortable, reasonably light, and easy to put on and take off once you know how to do it. The headset feels like just the right weight, where it has some mass to it while not feeling too heavy when I turn my head to look at something.
The headset feels almost like an extension of my body once it’s on. When I fi rst put the PS VR on, the screen was too close to my face, giving me some slight discomfort with my eyelashes. By pressing in one button and pulling the face of the headset away from my head, I calibrated the distance of the screen from my eyes in a matter of seconds. Using a separate knob, I tightened the headset to secure it to my head.
Unlike the consumer model of the Rift, the PlayStation VR headset does not include builtin headphones, meaning that once you’re strapped in to the headset, you must still put on a pair of headphones. This could be less than ideal for the retail model since you aren’t aware of your surroundings once you are wearing the headset, so grabbing your controller and headset could prove tricky.
During my PlayStation VR demos, the in-experience view is often calibrated within the software. If the camera fails to track where you’re looking you can press a dedicated button to reset the calibration.
The fi rst tech demo I tried, a Capcom-developed seated experience called The Kitchen, uses a DualShock 4 controller. As the demo begins, I’m sitting in a dilapidated apartment kitchen. Dust fl oats in the dim light. The electric eye of a tripod camera glares at me as I helplessly sit in a chair in the center of the room. I look down to see my hands bound. A man lays motionless on the fl oor to the left of me, combining with the environment to give it a similar feel to that of a Saw movie. As I turn my head, the in-game camera tracks precisely what I do. It feels natural and I can’t perceive any input latency in the head-tracking. I look around for anything that could free me, but I’m helpless. All I can do is lift my hands to knock over the camera. This does little to improve my situation, but it further immerses me in the experience by creating that feeling of presence.
The man on the fl oor lets out a groan and struggles to his feet. He grasps a machete, which he brings dangerously close to my lap, causing me to wince. His intentions are unclear at fi rst. Is he going to attack me? Thankfully, he begins trying to cut me free – I might be out of the woods soon. Before he can get my hands loose, however, a demonic woman that looks straight out of a Japanese horror movie like Ju-On attacks him. He does his best to resist, but she pulls him around the corner. I have no idea what she’s doing to him, but it doesn’t sound pleasant. My fears are confi rmed as the screams stop and the man’s severed head comes hurling around the corner in my direction.
I’m still helplessly seated with no idea what to do, so I continue looking around the environment. I begin hearing noises all around me as I keep my head on a swivel. The room goes eerily quiet, but before long, the creature’s bony, decrepit hands are wrapped around my face. I look up and see the monster staring back at me. I know it’s not real, but the close proximity of this creature on top of me is enough to make me feel uncomfortable. She licks the machete and drives it into my leg, making my leg move ever so slightly as I instinctually try to avoid the blade. The screen fades to black and the demo ends.
While The Kitchen demo is not so much of a game as it is a horror experience, it aptly demonstrates the base abilities of PlayStation VR. I understand how the headset can fool my brain by transporting me to a new world, as well as how the head-tracking works.
My understanding of PlayStation VR’s capabilities is further deepened with my next demo, London Heist from SCE London Studio. The shooter uses two PlayStation Move wands, which are represented by my hands on the screen. This gives me a point of reference and allows me to interact with objects in the environment.
The fi rst scene is the same one we experienced at this year’s GDC. A large, intimidating man interrogates me before fl ashing back to a scene where I must duck in real life to put my character into cover and return fi re using the Move controllers in order to clear a room. Using my left hand I grab new clips and load them into the gun I’m holding in my right hand as it runs out of bullets. There is a slight disconnect in the motion and the objects feel a little fl oaty, much like Move games. If they can improve the fi delity of the Move controllers with PlayStation VR, the tech is a great fi t for fi rst-person shooting. Soon enough, the room is clear and I move on to the next scene.
The fi nal scene of the London Heist demo places me in the passenger seat of an SUV with the large man who was interrogating me just two scenes prior. I don’t know if this takes place before or after that scene within the story, but the relationship is clearly on better terms in this moment. He drives us at blistering speeds down the highway as our enemies chase us. He tells me to look in the glovebox, so I use the Move controllers to pop it open. I fi nd an SMG and several magazines for it. Things are about to get fun.
In typical getaway fashion, enemies pull up alongside our SUV and I’m tasked with removing them from the chase. With a standard game, this would be as simple as swinging my right thumb back and forth, but with this being a VR game, I need to keep my head moving left and right constantly. As the enemies enter into my periphery, my instincts play perfectly as I swing my arm up and aim down the sights of my SMG.
For the enemies on motorcycles, it’s as easy as aiming at the tires, but some of the larger vehicles require me to shoot the vehicle until it’s too damaged to keep in the action. This continues for several minutes until the highway empties. Just when we think we’re in the clear, a large fortifi ed vehicle pulls up in front of us and the back door opens. Inside, a heavily armored man holding a minigun greets us. Even though the character before me is hardly photorealistic, it feels more ominous in a way standard console experiences rarely can. Panicked, I point my gun right at him, but the screen cuts to black and the demo ends. The London Heist demo is intense, diverse, and puts on full display how this technology can work for the big action games we’ve come to know outside of virtual reality.
After starting out on the more intense end of the spectrum, I moved on to a more lighthearted demo. Playroom VR, from SCE Japan, offers two multiplayer minigames that let me play with up to four people who are using DualShock 4 controllers and the television instead of the VR headset. Monster Escape puts me in the shoes of an armless, Loch Ness Monster- like serpent as I move through an on-rails segment in a city. I don’t have any controller, but by leaning, I can destroy buildings, attack the hovering helicopters like Godzilla and dodge the incoming fi re. Through the headset, I see from the perspective of the monster as it chases the other players down the narrow path. On the TV, the rest of the players see from their perspective so they can better dodge my attacks and try and counter with their own.
As I reach the end of the city peninsula, the players using the controllers and TV can have their revenge. Using those same movements, I must dodge their attacks for long enough that the platform they’re on collapses. Sadly, my dodges fail and my monster loses the battle, which ends with me being hurled into outer space.
Another minigame in the Playroom VR suite is Cat and Mouse, where the players using the TV screen control mice trying to collect all of the food items on the fl oor. The player with the VR headset controls a cat, which is hiding behind the see-through curtain ready to pounce on its prey. By leaning forward, the player with the VR headset pokes the cat’s head through the curtain. Any mouse still moving when the cat pokes its head out is captured by the cat and removed from the kitch en, giving it the familiarity of the children’s game “Red Light, Green Light.”
Neither of the Playroom demos show off any great depth of gameplay, but they demonstrate how one VR headset can spell fun for more than just the person wearing it.
While those demos all touched on the experiential aspect of VR, and examples of asynchronous multiplayer and PS Move implementation, developers are also working on a number of controller-based games for PlayStation VR. One such game is Super Hypercube, which is being developed by Kokoromi and published by Polytron, the studio behind the hit game Fez.
Super Hypercube gives you a shape that you must rotate to fi t through a hole in a rapidly approaching wall. The default perspective blocks your view of the hole, and that’s where PlayStation VR comes into play. Using the head-tracking, I peer around the shape to spy the confi guration of the hole. I use the shoulder buttons to rotate the block to fi t in the opening and I move on to the next round.
With each passing round, another cube is added to the growing structure. Before I know it, my puzzle piece has 18 cubes forming an odd shape. I peek around the side of the piece to see the hole, but I just can’t fi gure it out before my hulk ing structure crashes into the wall, shedding much of what I had built up over the course of the game. It’s a not the most involved title when it comes to showing of the headset’s capabilities, but it highlights how motion doesn’t necessarily have to be the centermost mechanic of a VR experience.
AVOIDING PREVIOUS PITFALLS
Sony has been burned in the past by investing too heavily in reemerging technology. Most notably, Sony CEO Howard Stringer tried to make 3D technology a centerpiece across its television and PlayStation brands. Ultimately, tepid consumer and developer interest cost him his job. With con sum ers wary of VR being another gimmick, Sony must reassure its potential user base that it is not just a passing fad like 3D.
Yoshida says there is one major difference between SCE’s past investment in 3D televisions and its current venture into VR. “[3D stereoscopic games] was actually the consumer electronics industry initiative, not Sony Computer Entertainment’s initiative,” he says. “It was becoming a large thing from the TV manufacturer’s industry, and of course Sony has the Bravia team. We were like, ‘Yeah, we could do it for PS3, so why not?’ They have moved on to other things like 4K or now some Smart TV or the ‘in thing’ of the day. So that’s why we are like, ‘Oh, they have moved on. Why do we have to keep trying?’ But VR is defi nitely our initiative.”
The PlayStation 3 also possessed a stable of failed peripherals that at one point seemed like they could be game changing. From PlayStation Eye to the Wonderbook peripheral, the PS3 didn’t have a great track record with keeping its peripherals alive over the long-term. Even the PlayStation Move, which attempted to capitalize on the motion-control craze of last-gen, failed to fi nd a real audience and saw its support fl ounder in relatively short order.
Richard Marks, the director of PlayStation’s Magic Labs research division and one of the key people in creating Sony’s headset, looks at PlayStation VR in a different light than he does the underperforming peripherals of Sony’s past. “This one is less like a peripheral and more like a platform of its own,” he says. “You pretty much have to make the content to match it, so it is a really different experience, because the content is made for it. So it's like a new platform. In a lot of the cases of peripherals, either they're tied to one game or they're tied to one company and they aren't really com pat ible with anything else, so you have one company trying to get a bunch of content made for this one device and that's asking quite a bit of a game developer for that to hap pen.”
Marks argues that making a game for PlayStation VR or virtual reality in general is more fi nancially viable thanks to the multifaceted nature of the platforms that will be available. “We've tried, and in some cases have been successful, in some cases not,” he says. “Kinect or the Wii Fit Board, you could argue on those, whether those were successful or not. They have some level of success. But in this case, there are multiple platforms for VR that are occurring simultaneously, so a content developer can make things and potentially see it go across multiple platforms. And that helps them out a lot. It helps them be able to make it economically viable to make a game for it.”
THE WILDCARD
Despite Sony’s pledged support, several questions still remain for PlayStation VR. Can Sony communicate the advantages of a technology that must be used to fully understand it? Can it convince developers to make enough great games and experiences for PlayStation VR to lure consumers who are wary of another high-priced peripheral platform? And will being tied to a fi xed amount of hardware power hamper the platform as the Rift and Vive eagerly adapt to whatever new power chipset manufacturers can throw at VR? It will be a while before virtual reality sees widespread adoption, and Sony has previously abandoned technology when it doesn’t see im mediate returns.
Sony does have a number of advantages in its court, however. The fact that it’s the most plug-and-play option gives it a huge boost when compared to the more complicated set-ups of the Oculus and HTC headsets. After playing games using all three of the major headsets, I would also argue that the PlayStation VR headset is the most comfortable to wear, as well as the most accommodating for people who wear glasses.
Perhaps the biggest advantage that Sony has in this race is in its history with gaming. Not only does it have a wide array of fi rst-party and exclusive developers to pull from with future VR development, but Sony has developed several powerful relationships with some of gaming’s biggest publishers thanks to the strength of the PlayStation brand. If Sony can capi tal ize on those relationships, it’s possible that PlayStation VR’s library of games – both exclusive and not – could be solid. Of course, Valve also has strong relationships with many of those same publishers and more thanks to Steam, which could help bolster the Vive’s lineup, and Oculus has already given us a list of exclusive titles from big-name developers.
It remains to be seen how PlayStation VR will compete with the likes of Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, its connection to a successful console could be a great start for Sony’s new venture. Sony is focusing heavily on its virtual-reality headset, and by dipping its toes into an untapped market, it could have a major advantage over other consoles who are hesitant at this early stage. If virtual reality does take off to become one of the defi ning trends of this generation, Sony could have a leg up on Microsoft and Nintendo if or when they decide to fol low suit.
WHAT KIND OF ROOM DO YOU NEED?
Though a part of our time with SCE London Studio’s London Heist demo had us walking a few steps in different directions, Sony’s Magic Labs director and PlayStation VR creator Richard Marks says that the team designed PS VR to be a largely stationary experience. “If you're seated, you don't really need much space. You're not moving so much,” he says. “If you're standing, you need just as much space as you need to swing your arms and lean a little bit. So it tends to be that you need your arm’s length reach around you open. If you're seated it's pretty easy usually. It is using the PlayStation Camera to do this, so it needs to be about six to eight feet away.”
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
When asked how much PlayStation VR will cost, Sony’s president of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment Shuhei Yoshida says the team is still finalizing a lot of informtation regarding the launch. “We’re working on the price-point and what’s in the box and the launch lineup and, of course, launch day, and we have yet to be ready to announce them,” he says. “We are still saying the first half of 2016 and the price of PS VR might be similar to the cost of a new console.”