Microsoft pulls back on plans for VR support on Xbox One

[HEXUS]

Refers those who aspire to enjoy great VR experiences to PCs instead.

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[spacein_vader]

I imagine the proclaimed support and then backing down on VR largely follows the same process as that for 3D screens around 5 years ago.

[outwar6010]

On the pc side and playstation its constantly expanding.... I really don't think it is a fad.

[Saracen]

I imagine the proclaimed support and then backing down on VR largely follows the same process as that for 3D screens around 5 years ago.

That would surprise me.

I'm not a huge VR fan as I have had issues with kit I have tried but that may well be me rather than the tech itself. And I certainly am a cynic regarding 3D, partly because of tech but partly, decent 3D material and I put the latter down to lack of belief by content producers that it actually adds much to most programs.

However .... my view is that good VR could be hugely beneficial to the immersiveness of a good proportion of games and, done well, would be superb.

I'm more inclined to suspect that the issue may be what's required to meet the "done well" criteria, and whether (current gen) XBox hardware is truly up to it. After all, PCs are a bit like the old Two Ronnies " Four Candles" sketch - a never-ending upgrade, and upgradability cycle.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The XBox One has faster hardware than the PS4,but the PS4 VR kit has additional processing built into it.

[Saracen]

The XBox One has faster hardware than the PS4,but the PS4 VR kit has additional processing built into it.

Noted. It may be that distinction that's making the difference.

Or it may not. It's just gut-feel on my part. IANAE(xpert).

[spacein_vader]

My view is that VR for gaming in particular is a fad, motion sickness and not having full freedom of movement without walking into things will be deal breakers.

AR (augmented reality,) where graphics are overlaid onto the real world on the other hand could be the future of (some,) gaming. It mitigates the motion sickness and freedom of movement arguements. Microsoft with Hololens and others are heading down that road but I can't see the current gen of consoles having the grunt.

[shaithis]

I personally think that current gen isn't good enough for a decent VR experience but looking at PSVR sales, it seems many people are content with cheap and cheerful VR.

and lets face it, next gen is going to be here pretty soon anyway.

[DanceswithUnix]

My view is that VR for gaming in particular is a fad, motion sickness and not having full freedom of movement without walking into things will be deal breakers.

AR (augmented reality,) where graphics are overlaid onto the real world on the other hand could be the future of (some,) gaming. It mitigates the motion sickness and freedom of movement arguements. Microsoft with Hololens and others are heading down that road but I can't see the current gen of consoles having the grunt.

Depends on the game. Driving and flying games where you are sat down are pretty awesome. Everyone who has tried my Rift has been impressed, and all that play computer games have wanted to get one but basically not at that price.

[Nifl]

The problem is that PSVR is actually targeted at the average person that owns a PS4. It's cheap, most games work while sitting and there is no room-scale crap. Now if we look at Rift and Vive: You need a decently sized room free of clutter for it to work and the headsets are expensive. That works for PC because there are plenty of enthusiasts. But why would one of those enthusiasts connect his Rift to an Xbox that will be inferior to his high-end gaming PC? It just makes no sense. They would have to create their own solution that targets their biggest consumer groups. It's just not worth it at this point.

[DanceswithUnix]

The problem is that PSVR is actually targeted at the average person that owns a PS4. It's cheap, most games work while sitting and there is no room-scale crap. Now if we look at Rift and Vive: You need a decently sized room free of clutter for it to work and the headsets are expensive. That works for PC because there are plenty of enthusiasts. But why would one of those enthusiasts connect his Rift to an Xbox that will be inferior to his high-end gaming PC? It just makes no sense. They would have to create their own solution that targets their biggest consumer groups. It's just not worth it at this point.

My gaming PC is in what is supposed to be the spare bedroom but in our case is an office. There isn't much room, but I can play Elite and Dirt Rally just fine. Some games, like Robo Recall, there just isn't enough space. That means I need a second VR capable PC downstairs with Windows license if I want to play such games. If I could use an Xbox with my existing headset, that would be tempting. OTOH, if my son's XB One-S could drive the rift I might find it keeps disappearing

Edit: A quick tally says a "cheap" Ryzen 2600 + RX580 PC isn't going to leave me much change from £700, so I can't see that happening.

[dannyboy75]

good VR already is hugely beneficial to the immersiveness of a good proportion of games and, done well, is superb.

I agree with your sentiments - just a couple of minor amendments though

There are already stacks of games out there which are stunning in VR, predominantly those which have been geared for VR from their inception (e.g. Elite Dangerous being my personal favourite). It's hard to describe the difference in immersion, other than comparing being sat in a room looking at a flat image of a spaceship's cockpit, to actually being sat in the cockpit and feeling like you're really piloting said ship. It's a completely different experience. Apollo 11 VR is fantastic too, though not strictly a game.

My only gripe with VR is I can't do driving games without feeling queasy. For some reason I'm fine with flying games and FPS's, but 5-10 minutes of a driving game and I start to get pretty green around the gills. I'm sure the boffins will find ways to reduce this in newer iterations of headsets though.

[Saracen]

I agree with your sentiments - just a couple of minor amendments though

There are already stacks of games out there which are stunning in VR, predominantly those which have been geared for VR from their inception (e.g. Elite Dangerous being my personal favourite). It's hard to describe the difference in immersion, other than comparing being sat in a room looking at a flat image of a spaceship's cockpit, to actually being sat in the cockpit and feeling like you're really piloting said ship. It's a completely different experience. Apollo 11 VR is fantastic too, though not strictly a game.

My only gripe with VR is I can't do driving games without feeling queasy. For some reason I'm fine with flying games and FPS's, but 5-10 minutes of a driving game and I start to get pretty green around the gills. I'm sure the boffins will find ways to reduce this in newer iterations of headsets though.

I don't disagree with any of that.

As for queasiness, I think you'll find that may be a complex question. Personally, I'm certain (though more as an act of faith than antthing I can objectively prove) that it is :-

- partly about the tech, and
- partly about the viewer, and
- partly about how the above two interact, and
- very probably, a number of other things.

For me, I failed miserably to get on with 3D, and my bet is that that's largely aboutcthe third option above, due to the second. I have some eye issues, some of which are long-standing, others more recent. But, I suspect the combination is terminal for my enjoyment of 3D and isn't helping with VR.

It might be that, due to those eye issues, I'm never going to properly react to VR and ifvit makes you queasy, there may be something going on with you, too. One game, I think, has made me queasy, and that was the original Wolfenstein. Not Castle Wolfenstein, but the much cruder one, some years earlier. Why it did I still don't know. Something about frame rates, flicker, perhaps. I never found out.

But, playing that for more than 10-15 minutes always made me feel I wanted to puke. One day, I decided to "work through" and persisted anyway. The result was a 2-day migraine.

Now, I do and long have suffered headaches, sometimes very badly - and very possibly related to those eye issues. But no game, nothing, before or since, has hit me like that. I even, on the offchance that it was somethihf extraneous I was going through at the time, went back to that game about 10 years later and trued again. Within 10-15 mins, I was feeling nauseous.

Moving on to 3D, I've tried numerous setups, from cheap and cheerful to, courtesy of journalusm and connections, state of the art systems set up specifically for me by manufacturers. All, in varying timeframes, made me ferl a bit icky though not fully queasy, but also ALL started to trigger a feeling I know only too well leads to a head-splitting headache.

For anyone reading this, those headsplitting headaches are nothing new to me and aren't migraines - according to a succession of doctors and hospital specialists. The "wanna puke" one brought on by Wolfenstein might well have been but the 3D ones are qualitatively different, and aren't.m



So .... my point is that all such systems, 3D, VR, etc, are playing games with our senses, with the way optical data is interpreted by our brains because we do know, medically, that our eyes are just sensors inputting a datastream(s) to our brains and that we "see" with our brains.

And I believe, though again cannot prove, that what gives me headaches with 3D and to a lesser extent VR, is the effect of those eye conditions on the processing the brain has to do.

It's also worth remembering that what the brain is doing is integrating, with various priorities, data from multiple sensors .... eyes, ears (hearing), ears (sense of balance), taste, touch, smell, etc, all to give us a sense if the world around us, and it happens deep-down, below thw conscious.

So, your queasiness with VR might be, for instance, because courtesy of VR, your eyes are telling those lizard-level processes one thing but your sense of balance is telling you something else. And it's having trouble reconciling the two. Your conscious brain knows about VR, but our lizard-level processes are saying "Duh, wot?". It's like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a three year old that's MUCH more interested in the ice cream cone you're holding. Firstly, it's distracted, and secondly, you're explaining concepts way beyond it's ability to comprehend.

[dannyboy75]

Ouch, sounds like you suffer much worse than I do with this stuff. I guess it must come down to genes and luck. I've never had a problem with 3D (I owned a 3D TV for several years, and loved it), but 3D definitely was/is a fad, at least until there's no need for the sunglasses. I've never really suffered with motion sickness either, so thought I'd be fine with VR gaming.

You could well be right about options being limited, in terms of what can be done to make things better with motion sickness. I've seen a racing seat for driving games, which rotates when steering left/right (like the old WEC Le Mans arcade game, if you're old enough to remember that , and whose marketing proudly claims to eliminate 'yaw motion sickness'. Trouble is, I don't think yaw is a big deal for most people - surely roll and/or pitch are the bigger culprits. Just ask anyone who's ever felt seasick...

As I understand it, the issues around VR are the opposite of classic motion sickness. With the latter, we're moving but our brain thinks we're not (e.g. if you're sat below deck and can't see the horizon, or another reference point). With VR, we're not moving but our brains are being fooled into thinking we are. The end result is much the same though - not pleasant. I guess there's only so much that improved frame rates etc. can do to mitigate these issues.

[Saracen]

Ouch, sounds like you suffer much worse than I do with this stuff. I guess it must come down to genes and luck. I've never had a problem with 3D (I owned a 3D TV for several years, and loved it), but 3D definitely was/is a fad, at least until there's no need for the sunglasses. I've never really suffered with motion sickness either, so thought I'd be fine with VR gaming.

You could well be right about options being limited, in terms of what can be done to make things better with motion sickness. I've seen a racing seat for driving games, which rotates when steering left/right (like the old WEC Le Mans arcade game, if you're old enough to remember that , and whose marketing proudly claims to eliminate 'yaw motion sickness'. Trouble is, I don't think yaw is a big deal for most people - surely roll and/or pitch are the bigger culprits. Just ask anyone who's ever felt seasick...

As I understand it, the issues around VR are the opposite of classic motion sickness. With the latter, we're moving but our brain thinks we're not (e.g. if you're sat below deck and can't see the horizon, or another reference point). With VR, we're not moving but our brains are being fooled into thinking we are. The end result is much the same though - not pleasant. I guess there's only so much that improved frame rates etc. can do to mitigate these issues.

Despite suffering headaches, I've never really suffered motion-sickness, and have been fine in everything from a Royal Marine landing craft (not the most, ummm.... hydrodynamic of craft) bouncing over choppy waters, to a passenger in a jet fighter doing a roll, etc.

But that one video game really made me feel like puking. Mostly, though, games are fine, but 3D and to a lesser extent, VR aren't.

My reaction, however, may well be unique to me, or at least, highly unusual. And I don't think my bad game reaction was most-sickness related, hence the guess about feame rates. Maybe it was exactly the wrong flicker frequency, the was fluorescent lights affect some people (though not me).

In any event, the brain does some weird things.

[DanceswithUnix]

Not Castle Wolfenstein, but the much cruder one, some years earlier. Why it did I still don't know. Something about frame rates, flicker, perhaps. I never found out.

I wonder if that is the game where they leaned that the "head bob" effect did that to some people. Later games like DooM ISTR had it reduced and had the ability to turn head bob on or off.

, but 3D definitely was/is a fad, at least until there's no need for the sunglasses.

I still find this odd. Plenty of 3D content in the cinema, some movies I still buy in 3D for home viewing otherwise I wait for then to tun up on NowTV/Netflix. Perhaps if they didn't charge such a premium for 3D Blueray it would have taken off, the premium at the cinema doesn't seem as bad.

Still, some games are far worse than others. I can fly a ship in Elite all day, I can drive a car in Dirt Rally for at tops about half an hour, but Minecraft in VR is about 5 mins before I need a bucket. Hopefully the content creators and headset vendors will learn to improve the situation.

In the mean time, I noticed Assetto Corsa is in the Steam sale and VR capable. My resolve to not buy any games is weakening, and the few reviews I read didn't mention motion sickness