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Playstation VR: Sony researches wireless virtual reality

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Sony probably did not expect the wireless Quest 2 when they started making the PSVR2, and did not want to delay it's launch for another year. Instead we'll have a wireless PSVR2v2 in 2024.
I dunno man, I'm pretty sure Sony knows what they're doing when it comes to hardware, they no doubt have a fully wireless prototype and have assessed all the variables with cost/tech/usage and arrived at the optimal solution in PSVR2, i mean look at the tech in it now with it being wired and it's cost, now add in a battery and wireless receiver/chipset and you push that cost way out and for little gain imo, I think they choose the right path
 
what will the playstation store offer that Steam doesn't already have? how do you know that It's going to be a success?

I mean I can't tell you what we don't know since it doesn't exist but I can tell you that it COULD have the following

#1 Exclusive Sony games and exclusive PS5 games from 3rd party publishers or earlier releases
#2 Exclusive Sony VR games that are AAA games
#3 Trophy support and synced Trophy support
#4 Game Save Sync
#5 Maybe even cheap upgrades from Console games

That's pretty considerable. Will it be all of those, probably not. Could it be some things I haven't considered? Sure.

Is that enough to become successful? First define success. Second, who knows.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
First define success. Second, who knows.
IMO, success is being about as big, or in breathing distance of steam when it comes to popularity and playercount. Ludicrous i know, but Steam has 100-150 million monthly active players, which is not that far off from how many Playstation Consoles are usually sold a generation. Playstation has that kind of mindshare so if they don't manage to bring that to PC then i'd honestly consider it a failure. at the very least by year 2 or 3 it should be hitting 50-80 million MAU
 
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Crayon

Member
I had never thought about the fact that any increase in latency is going to mean widening the foveated area to make up for the lag. That make a wireless option or update less likely. You'd be giving up resolution for it.
 
IMO, success is being about as big, or in breathing distance of steam when it comes to popularity and playercount. Ludicrous i know, but Steam has 100-150 million monthly active players, which is not that far off from how many Playstation Consoles are usually sold a generation. Playstation has that kind of mindshare so if they don't manage to bring that to PC then i'd honestly consider it a failure. at the very least by year 2 or 3 it should be hitting 50-80 million MAU

See, I can already tell you that your definition of success is entirely warped.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether Sony can significantly increase their revenue with a PC storefront and what their margins would look like in order to do it.

50 million active users within 2 years is laughably ridiculous and entirely more than they'd need. Maybe you came up with those figures from comparing it to EGS, which is mistaken. Sony is unlikely to go the route of EGS in terms of offering a great deal of free games more than Sony would.

Their 12% revenue take is too low for them to really make much progress. Unlike Epic, Sony has other ways to encourage publishers to publish in their game store. I've mentioned it before, but they could reduce royalties for games that appear in both their PS and PC stores to 25%
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
50 million active users within 2 years is laughably ridiculous and entirely more than they'd need.
I did mention it sounded ludicrous... when you consider the success of the playstation brand before hand though i feel like a company that well versed in gaming in general should have a decent knowledge of how to make a popular PC launcher. Valve wasn't a very old company when they first made steam and it took them decades until they first broke 100 million MAU. Sony is established and has a gigantic name brand. That combined with the growth of PC gaming in many areas would probably lead to many previous Playstation fans trying PC for the first time to flock to their launcher. At least, thats my hypothesis
 
I did mention it sounded ludicrous... when you consider the success of the playstation brand before hand though i feel like a company that well versed in gaming in general should have a decent knowledge of how to make a popular PC launcher. Valve wasn't a very old company when they first made steam and it took them decades until they first broke 100 million MAU. Sony is established and has a gigantic name brand. That combined with the growth of PC gaming in many areas would probably lead to many previous Playstation fans trying PC for the first time to flock to their launcher. At least, thats my hypothesis
When you launch a product you have to determine what kind of profit model you're looking at.

Would Sony need to amass a large enough userbase QUICKLY, yes and no.

They need a large enough userbase to warrant any cost in getting publishers to put games on their launcher. Otherwise they would be just like EA, Activision, or Ubi-Soft.

That being said, they don't need EVERY title to come out on their launcher in year 1, but ideally for the Publishers if they can sell games for ANY better margin on the PS Store on PC, they'd do it. So if it's 25% compared to 30% on Steam for a large title and I think the game could sell 5 million copies, I'd rather they sell on PS Store on PC than Steam.

70 dollars a pop for 5 million copies is 350 million dollars. At 25%, you're looking at 262.5 million and at 30% you're looking at 245 million.

17.5 million is no small number for the same game, with MAYBE a requirement of programming sync saves and trophies, that you already programmed for on the PS4/5 version.

Sony also makes a number of deals. So does Sony make a deal with TakeTwo to have GTA6 be exclusive on PS5 and PC (via PS Store). Expensive deal for sure, but maybe one they'd do in the face of Call of Duty. That their deals could be extended to PC, make the deals much more enticing. Deals like FF16 that end up coming to PC, would almost certainly be exclusive to PC via PS Store, with the same sort of time exclusivity.

But that is where the margins come into play, but where Sony has a huge advantage over Steam. That's where Sony needs to be careful is not overextending themselves with deals that aren't working in terms of generating more active users, but they also have PS+ that they could extend to PC users if they brought PS1-3 emulation on PC.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
I did mention it sounded ludicrous... when you consider the success of the playstation brand before hand though i feel like a company that well versed in gaming in general should have a decent knowledge of how to make a popular PC launcher. Valve wasn't a very old company when they first made steam and it took them decades until they first broke 100 million MAU. Sony is established and has a gigantic name brand. That combined with the growth of PC gaming in many areas would probably lead to many previous Playstation fans trying PC for the first time to flock to their launcher. At least, thats my hypothesis
Yep. This will get the core Sony fanbase to finally come to PC.
When you launch a product you have to determine what kind of profit model you're looking at.

Would Sony need to amass a large enough userbase QUICKLY, yes and no.

They need a large enough userbase to warrant any cost in getting publishers to put games on their launcher. Otherwise they would be just like EA, Activision, or Ubi-Soft.

That being said, they don't need EVERY title to come out on their launcher in year 1, but ideally for the Publishers if they can sell games for ANY better margin on the PS Store on PC, they'd do it. So if it's 25% compared to 30% on Steam for a large title and I think the game could sell 5 million copies, I'd rather they sell on PS Store on PC than Steam.

70 dollars a pop for 5 million copies is 350 million dollars. At 25%, you're looking at 262.5 million and at 30% you're looking at 245 million.

17.5 million is no small number for the same game, with MAYBE a requirement of programming sync saves and trophies, that you already programmed for on the PS4/5 version.

Sony also makes a number of deals. So does Sony make a deal with TakeTwo to have GTA6 be exclusive on PS5 and PC (via PS Store). Expensive deal for sure, but maybe one they'd do in the face of Call of Duty. That their deals could be extended to PC, make the deals much more enticing. Deals like FF16 that end up coming to PC, would almost certainly be exclusive to PC via PS Store, with the same sort of time exclusivity.

But that is where the margins come into play, but where Sony has a huge advantage over Steam. That's where Sony needs to be careful is not overextending themselves with deals that aren't working in terms of generating more active users, but they also have PS+ that they could extend to PC users if they brought PS1-3 emulation on PC.
Epic already does 12.5%. And they give games away for free.
 
Er.. Resi Evil 8 was developed for the old 2D flatties and I daresay not that difficult/costly to convert to VR
Then you'd be wrong. It's very obvious from how RE8 is designed that, like RE7, it was developed for VR from ground up, it just had its release ahead of the actual VR headset it was supposed to be exclusive to.
I don't know what your experience with VR is, but duct-taping VR to existing first person games is not how any of this works.

From EyeToy, to Move, to PSVR, to PSVR2... Sony has taken an iterative approach to innovation, which is really similar to what Apple does right now.
Right, Timmy's dad didn't abandon him, he just took an iterative approach to parenting.
You admitted yourself there isn't a large AAA space in the VR Market right now, yet that is exactly what it seems like Sony is creating on PSVR2.
There isn't a large AAA space because there's not enough people that are interested/have enough room/don't have animals running around the house/have motion sickness tolerance/want to be physically active while gaming, for VR in the world. Take off your fanboy glasses, Sony is not doint ANYTHING that wasn't tried before in this space. They're actually just re-treading the old Oculus path, but somehow doing it even worse. A closed VR eco-system with more AAA exclusives than what Sony has now, has already been done.
It. Doesn't. Work.
At this point if you can't predict the obvious, you'll have to watch the obvious unfold in front of you.
Just don't say I haven't told you so.
Horizon Call of the Mountain looks like it might be the biggest AAA VR game ever made.
Nah, I'm sure it's gonna be a 4-5 hours campaign that ends on a cliffhanger, with no sequel to ever be made. Again, we've been there, done that with Oculus and their exclusives made by Sony studios.
 
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Crayon

Member
Then you'd be wrong. It's very obvious from how RE8 is designed that, like RE7, it was developed for VR from ground up, it just had its release ahead of the actual VR headset it was supposed to be exclusive to.
I don't know what your experience with VR is, but duct-taping VR to existing first person games is not how any of this works.


Right, Timmy's dad didn't abandon him, he just took an iterative approach to parenting.

There isn't a large AAA space because there's not enough people that are interested/have enough room/don't have animals running around the house/have motion sickness tolerance/want to be physically active while gaming, for VR in the world. Take off your fanboy glasses, Sony is not doint ANYTHING that wasn't tried before in this space. They're actually just re-treading the old Oculus path, but somehow doing it even worse. A closed VR eco-system with more AAA exclusives than what Sony has now, has already been done.
It. Doesn't. Work.
At this point if you can't predict the obvious, you'll have to watch the obvious unfold in front of you.
Just don't say I didn't told you so.

Nah, I'm sure it's gonna be a 4-5 hours campaign that ends on a cliffhanger, with no sequel to ever be made. Again, we've been there, done that with Oculus and their exclusives made by Sony studios.


You are aggressively trippin and way overconfident. You even know what horizon is going to be. We'll see what Sony's plans are they haven't shown much of anything. Maybe they go down the pavr1 path again as a growing the market move or maybe they double down on investment. The hardware compared to peers is a massive upgrade from psvr1 at the time. That's practically all we know in terms of strategy.
 
Epic already does 12.5%. And they give games away for free.

Yeah and Epic is actually doing a really good amount of revenue, the problem is they are burning through money too quickly to do it.

I think Sony would aim towards something in between what Epic does and Steam and fewer game giveaways.

Sony doesn't have Fortnite either, but what they do have is their own games and their own relationships. They don't have to guarantee game sales on their PC store, all they need to do is give publishers a break on their PS5 royalties for games that hit certainly measurables on their storefront. That and mandating trophy and sync saves. They could even make an arrangement for tiered upgrades, like a digital deluxe package that comes with the PS5 and PC version for X dollars (but you have to be signed into PS to use the game). There are a lot of options.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
Yeah and Epic is actually doing a really good amount of revenue, the problem is they are burning through money too quickly to do it.

I think Sony would aim towards something in between what Epic does and Steam and fewer game giveaways.

Sony doesn't have Fortnite either, but what they do have is their own games and their own relationships. They don't have to guarantee game sales on their PC store, all they need to do is give publishers a break on their PS5 royalties for games that hit certainly measurables on their storefront. That and mandating trophy and sync saves. They could even make an arrangement for tiered upgrades, like a digital deluxe package that comes with the PS5 and PC version for X dollars (but you have to be signed into PS to use the game). There are a lot of options.
They're burning through money because people only show up to grab the free games. Go look at the documents that came out in the Apple lawsuit.

What you describe, Epic is already doing.

Sony will no doubt add an account function to their games, like what Activision, Microsoft, and others already do regardless of store/platform.
 
They're burning through money because people only show up to grab the free games. Go look at the documents that came out in the Apple lawsuit.

What you describe, Epic is already doing.

Sony will no doubt add an account function to their games, like what Activision, Microsoft, and others already do regardless of store/platform.

I like how you repeat what I said and tell me to look into it.

I said Sony wouldn't likely follow the same model of Epic, because they don't have to.

And the difference between Sony and Activision and even Microsoft, is the quality and quantity of games as well as buy in from external publishers.

Sony still has to bring their quality across to GaaS, multiplayer games, WRPG, and FPS, and that remains to be seen, but they've got significantly better studios than Activision and Microsoft and the ability to leverage PlayStation royalties and exclusivity deals with 3rd party publishers, something not even Microsoft can do.

On the consumer end, they have a multitude of options depending on how much money they want to burn through, but I don't envision them going as aggressive as Epic on free games. They can explore bundled cross buys, upgraded cross buys, trophies, sync saves, you name it. They have their own options.
 

hlm666

Member
So if it's 25% compared to 30% on Steam for a large title and I think the game could sell 5 million copies, I'd rather they sell on PS Store on PC than Steam.
A game that successful would put it down to 20% they would only have to pay steam. After a game has made $10 million revenue steam takes 25%, then after $50m it drops to 20%.

 

reksveks

Member
Just cause its helpful

Platform splits

Epic is 12% (caps to 18% if you are using UE)
Steam starts 30% and goes down to 20% if you hit 50m revenue (not sure if this is at a publisher or game level)
MS apps and PC games is 12%
PS, Switch and Xbox is 30%
iOS/Android one off purchases - 30%, 27% if you use a third-party payment processor*
iOS/Android subscription - first year 30%, after 12months, it gets dropped to 15%. Think the same 3% reduction applies if you use a third-party payment processor
Itch.io - 10% by default

* might be applicable in certain markets and/or certain categories of apps
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Whatever happens Ubisoft really need to release VR versions of their historical/educational sections of their latest Ass Creed games, I'd love to take a dander around those ancient cities, taking in the sights and learning their histories, I'd buy those day 1
 

Tygeezy

Member
Then you'd be wrong. It's very obvious from how RE8 is designed that, like RE7, it was developed for VR from ground up, it just had its release ahead of the actual VR headset it was supposed to be exclusive to.
I don't know what your experience with VR is, but duct-taping VR to existing first person games is not how any of this works.


Right, Timmy's dad didn't abandon him, he just took an iterative approach to parenting.

There isn't a large AAA space because there's not enough people that are interested/have enough room/don't have animals running around the house/have motion sickness tolerance/want to be physically active while gaming, for VR in the world. Take off your fanboy glasses, Sony is not doint ANYTHING that wasn't tried before in this space. They're actually just re-treading the old Oculus path, but somehow doing it even worse. A closed VR eco-system with more AAA exclusives than what Sony has now, has already been done.
It. Doesn't. Work.
At this point if you can't predict the obvious, you'll have to watch the obvious unfold in front of you.
Just don't say I haven't told you so.

Nah, I'm sure it's gonna be a 4-5 hours campaign that ends on a cliffhanger, with no sequel to ever be made. Again, we've been there, done that with Oculus and their exclusives made by Sony studios.

Some of my favorite vr games are ports from old flat games like doom 3 and quake 2. VR wasn't considered at all in their development and they work great with proper 6dof and controller tracking support.
 

Baki

Member
Sony sees VR as a side thing and so they wanted to keep costs low so they can make money on each headset sold. That’s why it’s wired. They’ll release a wireless version in the future when they can make money on each headset sold and have a competitive price.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
HL Alyx on my setup with Oculus Airlink had a total App+Display latency of 60ms
no 60ms additional latency but 60ms total latency.
That's pretty - bad - by VR standards though.
Actually bad enough (think 200ms flat-panel gaming, in relative terms) that the only thing that makes it use-able is Quest doing latency-compensation with its on-board GPU.
 

Crayon

Member
Sony sees VR as a side thing and so they wanted to keep costs low so they can make money on each headset sold. That’s why it’s wired. They’ll release a wireless version in the future when they can make money on each headset sold and have a competitive price.

The vive wireless modules have been pretty expensive. I think the current one for pro 2 is like $300 or something like that. Evevtually it will be figured out but might be a ways off depending on how much htc is gouging for that thing.
 

Baki

Member
The vive wireless modules have been pretty expensive. I think the current one for pro 2 is like $300 or something like that. Evevtually it will be figured out but might be a ways off depending on how much htc is gouging for that thing.
Margins need to be in the 60% range to make money off just hardware.
 

midnightAI

Member
The vive wireless modules have been pretty expensive. I think the current one for pro 2 is like $300 or something like that. Evevtually it will be figured out but might be a ways off depending on how much htc is gouging for that thing.
I think that is the main issue currently. I don't think Sony want another break out box and so want it all self contained. I am not so sure the issue is price of the headset but rather the price of the console if you was to add the VR wireless technology inside it (it would also increase the price of the headset of course)
And then you would also have a situation were people are buying a console at extra cost were only a small percentage would use that component (if people are complaining about the price now then imagine that situation)
 
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