BurningYggdrassil
@BurningYggdrassil

Was going to wait with this until February, but thought I'd rather have it a end of year post since it's a blast! Not going to go too much into detail, just opinions.

So yeah! It was a wacky launch at not the best timing. The economy was (and still is) not the best and the PS5s were still scarce. The pricing is debatable (I find it a good price for what you get), but it sure ain't cheap.
We have not heard much from Sony apart from some PR blala.. So what do we, and what do we not, have:

The headset and controllers themselves are just great. The haptic feedback(HD rumble) and adaptive triggers are all there in the Sense controllers and the simple, yet good, rumble in the headset and with foveated rendering can, if used well, be a huge value for the immersion of games.

So the games!

Unsure how many exclusives there are, but think it's around 10-ish, which is not bad for a first year of a niche system. And some of the games are just amazing.

Resident Evil Village:

You guys know by now how much I love this game and how much I love it in VR! But a fast recap of the VR part:
It uses everything the PSVR2 has to offer. The game just looks and plays great and I would never play it in pancake mode or even with a VR mod on other systems. It's just mad so well for PSVR2.

Resident Evil 4 Remake PSVR2

Same as with Village. Damn fine conversion to VR. Not as big a fan personally as I am with
Village, but looks and plays damn fine (not AS fine as Village)

Synapse
Not my pint of beer, but still oddly addictive. It looks and plays great.

GT7
Haven't played, but hear it's great. Also uses everything the PS5/PSVR2 can do.

Switchback
Another game that uses the PSVR2 for all it can. And what a spook =D I was sweating at times which is rare =D DON'T BLINK!

Horizon: Call of the Mountain
The one and only first party game I think. And this is where the oddity starts. The game itself isn't bad nor good. IS it a tech demo or a full game? It's more a game than a tech demo, but there is place for enhancement for the next game. If that ever happens!*

And these are but the exclusives. What abut the ports?

Got a slight fever so I'll go a bit short here and just have some examples:

Games like Red Matter 2 (and 1), use the PSVR2 superbly. The games look great for sure, but the minor details from the headset rumble when, for example, riding through a pillar on a train just shows how immersion is so well done on PSVR2 with the headset rumble.. Or how you can look underwater in Kayak and the headset gives you a little "splash" when your head hits the water.
When in the Walking Dead games you can "feel" the difference between splatting a head or hitting a wall... All this stuff is superb in PSVR2.But the there are the buts

Where is the rest of the support, Sony? You got two Resi games and two originals! Not being backwards compatible is understandable from the "it's a brand new device" perspective, but in that case why not support it more?
The one game that could truly benefit, and be not so hard a port, from the PSVR1 is WipeOut! Everything from the visual upgrade to the rumble would be perfect for PSVR2.
Since you already have two Resident Evil exclusives on PSVR2, why not the PSVR1 exclusive? Biohazard would be perfect i PSVR2 and it already has a VR core made! Can't be that hard!
And where is Team Asobi's game? Rescue Mission doesn't even need a new controller scheme for fuck's sake!! Where are these easy ports?

So basically it's far from as bad as people want it to be, but damn there's too much lost potential too!

Damn I hope Nintendo goes with the VR patents they have!



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in reply to @slimerybear666's post:

A mech game for PSVR2 is a dream I hope comes true. Maybe the team behind Runner could make one. They sure knew how to utilize the PSVR2 in many good ways.

Also Aces of Thunder, a WW2 sim game is coming and Ultra Wings 2 is also on the menu.

Glad you're enjoying it! Personally not a fan of VR (doesn't make me sick, just makes me feel weird whenever you're moving a character, almost like you're perpetually in that moment where a rollercoaster crests a hill), but I also hope Sony doesn't abandon it like they seem to be doing for the sake of those who enjoy what it has to offer.

Will sound weird but I heard a good tip lately is when you turn left or right in a VR game with full locomotion make sure to physicaly turn your head in that direction. Helps a lot with the feeling with your brain. Its why most VR games let you control movement direction by where you are physicaly looking at.

Sure hope they don't do a VITA on it. It's of great value and can have a nice future if supported enough, but that radio silence from Sony isn't promising.

Only two months for it's first birthday so hopefully we'll get some news then.

Yeah, hopefully they keep supporting it. I just feel like they keep fucking up by releasing their own hardware for it instead of just enabling connection to something like the Quest. VR's already niche enough, making it an incredibly expensive add-on purchase to an already expensive machine is just asking for a low adoption rate. The reason Meta's able to keep chugging along with it is their headset, while definitely not the most advanced, can operate on its own.

The PSVR is an incredible piece of tech, but unless the adoption rate skyrockets, I just don't see how devs on the software side (ESPECIALLY those unrelated to Sony) would be incentivized to develop for it. Unless Sony steps up the first-party support, it'll just turn into a bunch of PC ports.

Sony's entire hardware strategy makes no sense to me. As much as I love (and I mean LOVE) my PS Portal, it'll probably get, what, a 5% attachment rate for PS5 owners? What are they doing with all these accessories? The only thing I can think of is they're basically writing these things off at inception and using the user feedback and data from those who DO buy them for longer term R&D projects

The PS5-PSVR2 combo is damn sweet. The power of the PS5 with the headset is, obviously, made for each other. Many of the games would never even run on it if it was a individual and weaker headset. Or run very bad, and that's not how Village and RE4 or Call of the Mountain is supposed to be like. Sony focused on a true next gen VR headset and that they made.
They could update it to function on PC, but what about the games? PS aren't going to easily let exclusives for PC, because that's not where the biggest chunk of money is. Just look at how slow they release PS5 games on PC, not to let go of those huge sales for PS5. Actually Nintendo earns more money on Switch sales than games sold on Switch. Don't think it's the same with PS5 (would be surprised) but you get the point!
They want it on their own ecosystem which is economically understandable.
And they do have some really good exclusives and some of the best ports for it's first year, as mentioned.

OK! Before I venture further I ahve to point out we still have no idea how much it has actually sold. We'll have to wait for the official numbers! =)

Anyway, the price isn't that bad either for what you get. Want the same quality on PC I hear you need a pretty hefty GPC and a pretty expensive headset (also the PSVR1 Bundle was 499 at launch. Play the inflation game and it''s like 640 now.......)
But where does Sony advertise this?
If I would work at their PR department I sure would convey the message that "You get a PS5, the fastest selling PS console of all time with these great exclusives (SPidey, GOW) and on top of that you can get the PSVR2, the only Console VR and cheaper than a full GPCVR with blabla exclusives (Village, RE4, Mountain).
And if the kids are using the TV we have the Portal bla bla bla" (I would have to write taht a tad bit better of course ;) ). But I don't see this any were. I barely see any advertisement for the VR2. There have been several Playstation Directs and barely any games shown. If they have games in development, then at least say so. If they are going to keep us in the dark like this it's no wonder people are thinking they are going to, or already have, abandoned it.

OK, that was more than I thought it would be, but you get my thoughts here and see they are a bit on a rollecoaster ride. There's a lot of potential there and I hope it gets tapped. First year is pretty good, but being so silent is bad advertisement.

BTW, I hear there's some lag with the Portal. HAve you noticed?

I guess my argument is moreso that VR simply isn't proven enough for an exclusive headset. It's incredibly hard to advertise what it does since basically any advertisement is going to be on a 2D screen, and post-COVID, demo units aren't really a thing. It's badass technology (if it didn't fuck with my head, I'd 100% own it), but just in terms of the market, it's highly unlikely it'll be successful or long-lived. The Quest 3 is standalone, which is way easier for the average consumer to wrap their head around. Then, if you're a developer, which are you going to develop for? Probably the one with the larger install base.

Also, yeah, you're right, they're not marketing these things at all. That's what makes me think they're playing the long game. Put the tech out, it'll be picked up by early adopters (who tend to be more technically inclined), get feedback, and use that to iterate on the next version. Sony has the safety net to lose money on these things, knowing they'll eventually make money once all this tech is mainstream in 5-20 years.

As for the Portal, it's VERY much a mileage may vary situation based on your network setup. At my house, it's great, but I'm also on a pretty high dollar setup (AT&T Fiber with Asus Zen mesh). I wouldn't play something twitch-based like Nioh 2 (hell, I wouldn't play that on console at all now that I've gotten spoiled with 120 fps on PC), but it was the key to me finally having the time to beat FFXVI with no real complaints.

Yeah, explaining VR to someone who has never tried it is not an easy task. Saying how immersive it is and all that doesn't always get through (a bit like sarcasm hehe).
When I got my PSVR1 headset I showed the Shark Encounter demo to some friends. Well, they instantly "got it". Would have been great with them demo stations indeed.

Your hypothesis of them "testing the grounds" with VR2 and Portal does make me wonder what the PS6 could be like, having this stuff all with it from the get-go. A guy can hope.

Patents don't mean those patents will happen, but it's good to see that Nintendo are/have at least been looking into it, and with their new system most probably coming next year a guy can hope a bit more. Thing is they could actually make VR more mainstream with their IPs.

A friend could afford the Portal, BUT he is extremely sensitive to lag (as in he hates it intensely), but I'll mention what you said =)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-GHtSHfOP8

Watched this just a bit ago before I popped in here so thought I'd just post it. Give me Low-Fi!

Cheers, Horses...I mean Hester!