Yep. Good old "early adopters"

Some people dismiss them as "mugs", easily parted with their money for the latest fad, but the fact is the industry relies on them.

Got a gear VR with new phone, the static type things are ok but when I'm not in control of the camera and it starts whizzing about it makes me feel really motion sick after like 5 mins. So, the playstation VR probably isn't for me, depends on the games .. shan't be buying on release anyway.

What can I say, I'm not the hero this community needs, just the one it deserves

Gear VR only refreshes at 60 frames per second, which is simply too slow and causes the motion sickness. PSVR will be a minimum of 90 or even 120 frames per second.

Yes it's cutesy and screams Wii, but I love the possibilities for social gaming on display here.

http://youtu.be/sK8tMwlZLEM

A common misconception - while the human eye can detect differences in frame-rate up to 120FPS, "real-life" data itself is actually only processed by the brain at 60FPS. For example, a car's wheels may appear to be spinning backwards even if it is moving forwards, and this is because they are spinning at more than 60FPS and our brain is trying to make sense of it. This explains it pretty well - http://nerdist.com/your-brain-has-a-...s-pretty-slow/

Now I'm not saying the FPS has nothing to do with the quality of VR - after all, the more FPS, the more smooth the image will be. Refresh rate plays a part as well, and the Gear VR has half that of the PSVR.

However, when it comes to motion sickness, it's worth noting that motion sickness is often simply down to the perceived "otherness" of the virtual reality experience - you are effectively trying to trick your brain into believing you're somewhere you're not, doing something you're not. It's therefore not surprising that in some people this causes motion sickness, and it's not something you'll ever get over. Some people, for example, can't read or use any sort of handheld device while in a moving vehicle, without experiencing motion sickness, simply because of the mixed signals this sends to the brain. Your eyes, fixed on the book with the peripheral vision seeing the interior of the car, say that you are still. But as the car goes over bumps, turns, or changes its velocity, your ears disagree. This is why motion sickness is common in this situation. The driver of the car is generally least likely to suffer from motion sickness, because he not only has accurate sensory information from his ears, eyes and touch, but he is also controlling the car and can therefore anticipate turns, accelerations and decelerations. This position allows him to better calibrate his expectations of movement with the car's actual movement.

This is no different in VR. The motions you are experiencing through the headset are different to that you are experiencing in real-life. And no amount of changes in refresh rate, image quality, FPS, or anything else, will ever change that. No matter what Sony and all those with vested interests in new VR tech will tell you, if you are susceptible to VR motion sickness, then it is a biological reaction, and a £400 investment to "upgrade" your headset is not going to change that.

Whilst many of you points are true, you are vastly oversimplifying the causes of motion sickness.

Firstly, people can overcome motion sickness by exposure to things which cause it. So the more someone uses VR the more likely it is that motion sickness reduces or disappears although not in all cases

Secondly, a better product can make motion sickness less likely. For example motion lag between your head moving and the image moving would tend to cause motion sickness. A more expensive product is likely to have less lag.

And finally, some people can perceive FPS more than others. For those people a low FPS is more likely to cause motion sickness

I realise I have also over simplified it but our eyes and how we perceive images is very complex and our brain makes many assumptions of what we see. A better quality product is more likely to produce images that our brain can process correctly.

I imagine the difference between vr 'movement' sensation coupled with the lack of physical sensation to go with it can result in motion sickness too.

Any VR solution, no matter how advanced, can make anyone sick due to poor software design and implementation.

The (simple) point I was trying make is a maximum refresh rate of 60hz and unregulated software potentially running below that is asking for trouble. Access to high-end systems shouldn't be necessarily be dismissed just because of issues experienced with something like Gear VR.

Last of Us VR would be incredible.

Here's a hands on review which, whilst impressed by the technology, is also expressing many of my own concerns, such as image resolution and responsiveness -

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gam...1235379/review

"PlayStation VR is inspiring. As a whole it's incredible, even if there are some hang ups here and there. After trying it for yourself you'll want to experience something like BioShock Infinite or GTA V in VR, and the first few demos and games will give you a little sneak peek of what gaming could be like five years from now.

I say sneak peek because the PlayStation VR isn't quite complete. Tracking still isn't one-to-one and there's still work to be done on the image quality – edges are rough and objects seemed a little less clear than their HD display – but Sony seems clearly determined to iron these out before it comes to market."

The problem is that in order to get VR to the levels of graphical fidelity we've become accustomed to would mean completely new and very expensive hardware. Are people even aware that you need to connect another Wii sized unit to your PS4 just to run the VR headset?

Obviously there's going to be a drop in graphics quality. How can there not be? Rock solid, high frame rates and stereoscopic 3D are a necessity for VR. That extra processing power has to come from somewhere. But you're trading fidelity for "presence" which, for me at least, is a more than worthy sacrifice.

And yeah, there's a little black box. It's been known for ages.

That little 'black box' is bigger than most TV streaming boxes and the size of a Wii console!

Each to their own but 3D gaming is rubbish mainly because of the resolution drop. It's huge, next gen games suddenly have Wii standard graphics and that is not conducive to immersion imo.

Sony will be economical with the truth, it's in their best interests after all, how much have they spent on VR so far?

I wonder what the games are going to be like, as a lot seem fun but kind of 'Tech-Demo'-ish, the sort of thing you'd play for 20 minutes......But what's it like after an hour?

The possibilities are great though, I was playing Assassins Creed Syndicate last night, and whilst I think the series has its flaws it does do a good job of bringing the past alive. Imagine how great it would be walking around Victorian London (or many other historical settings) in VR.

Absolutely but my biggest concern would be that because of power limitations you'll be walking round Victorian London with GTA 3 graphics and a very limited number of NPC's.
We'll see, I can't help but be incredibly cynical after 30+ years of tech releases.

A)Not as big as a Wii.

B)You're wrong about 3D as well.

I was trying to be civil with you but you are coming across more and more like a rabid fanboy.

"VR goggles will sell a lot too. All of the big four manufacturers will report great numbers in the first couple of weeks, and then go quiet about the steep drop until the next Black Friday/Christmas. Enthusiastic pre-orderers and early buyers will excitedly try out the tech, muck around in whatever gimmicky software is bundled, and spend another £50/$60 on a big brand game that’s designed to work with them. They’ll rave on forums about how thrilling it all is, because it will be thrilling for a bit, and then things will get quieter."

^^^ This is the cycle you are destined to repeat for eternity.


How am I wrong with 3D? I have a 3D TV with quite a few of the limited 3D gaming releases, even with the power of the PS4, Super Stardust (one of only a handful of PS4 games with 3D) lowers the resolution to sub ps3 levels and it's hardly the most power intensive game. VR requires much more power than 3D gaming so graphics will be hit even more when not designed around a tech demo.

I've tried 3D gaming quite a bit on the PS3 too where games with fantastic gfx turn terrible as soon as you switch on 3D, GT5, KZ3, UC3, The Puppeteer. They are all great games made worse by 3D.

I don't think I'm oversimplifying it at all as your post essentially agrees with what I was saying.

Can you "train" yourself to avoid motion sickness? Probably, yes. To what extent people will be motivated to do that is another question entirely.

I've already said that less lag is, of course, going to reduce motion sickness. However, I've also said that a mid-speced device such as the Gear VR is already outputting at 60FPS. This is about the rate at which the human eye/brain "decodes" constant recorded motion, such as a wheel spinning. So 60FPS will not cause any noticeable lag that really differs from a real-life experience. Even the Google Cardboard is generally outputting at a minimum of 30FPS, and usually more. Lag is not the issue in VR that it once was. Let's also remember that, with rare exceptions such as The Hobbit, every movie is filmed at 24FPS, and simply uses motion blur to cover this up.

Your final point "a better quality product is more likely to produce images that our brain can process correctly" misses the point entirely because ironically the more "real" a virtual reality experience is, the likelihood of experiencing the type of motion sickness associated with car or boat journeys increases. Your brain and inner ear will be at total odds with one another.

Again, this will not affect most people, but for those who are prone to motion sickness, I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter how visceral VR technology becomes - you will always be prone to it.

I suggest you try a little harder if you expect a meaningful response.

That article you mention is total nonsense, they don't cite any actual trustworthy scientific sources and the examples it gives are all that of aliasing.

Don't believe everything you read online!

Um, yes they do; the article is based on research from Trinity College in Dublin, a reputable University.

Even without research it would still make sense. We play the majority of our console games at 30FPS, with little to no noticeable lag when moving the camera. All modern VR systems have an FPS at least twice that. Refresh rate is much, much more important to preventing headaches and motion sickness than FPS.

I'm interested in VR but worried about motion sickness. It took a while to get over it when I got into playing FPS a couple years back. I even played with travel sickness wrist bands on for ages.

Some people are more susceptible than others, sadly, and a small percentage won't be able to use VR no matter what.

If it's any comfort, Sony seem to be striving to make it as little as an issue as possible. The screen has a top refresh of 120hz. All games will use reprojection to keep things smooth. Latency is down to 18ms and they are working to bring that down even further. And crucially they have warned developers that games must never drop below a minimum 60fps. If they do they will be rejected at certification.

Hopefully you'll be able to try it out before launch. Fingers crossed it works for you b

It's probably too late for me. I might have been willing to buy a PS4 for this, but more likely I get a Vive and/or an Oculus first because they'll be available, and then there's no point getting what will probably an inferior, if cheaper, system later.

If youre PC can run it then get Oculus.


And to be honest, if you hadn't gotten a PS4 by now, you were never gonna get one. It's like anything in life, people say they are gonna do things all the time and they never do it, the PS4 just isn't for you, if it had been you would have bought one already and also, it doesn't really mix. PC gamers don't tend to game on consoles and vice versa. You're probably best sticking to what you know, which is PCs and just sticking to whatever is released for it. You know yourself you were never gonna buy one.


And likewise with PS4 and console gamers. They just don't understand the gaming on the PC. They don't understand the cost or the know how and likewise wont do both. Two different forms of virtual reality for two very different groups of people. One group will be used to sitting still at a desk. One group will be used to sitting on the couch in the living room. One group is used to keyboard and mouse based games, one group is used to controllers. One is very social, one is not. It's just the way it is.


Gamestop actually have the PS4 Vr for £312 just now which is fairly cheap. With over 35 million PS4 consoles sold so far, I could see them really making an effort with the games in time for October and going all out and making their Vr the must have toy this Christmas. The only people that will get the Oculus are those that have the money and the PCs to make it work.