News Sony: 'Virtual reality is coming back'

It could work. We have the technology to make cheap, light, compact dual-screen 3D goggles, and we have cheap movement/orientation sensors. We could produce them for about £100,--. We also have the processing power to render the dual images fast enough.

Combine it with a Kinect and you won't need gloves. You just look around and you see and hear the virtual landscape around you; you just gesture to interact with it. Simples!

 

+1

 

holdeck would seal the deal for me too, but if the virtual reality monkey deathmatch intro to Lawnmower man is anything to go by it could be very fun to play mp crysis 2 with your mates wearing Geordi La Forge specs zapping the crap out of one another

 

Sweet.
I used to work for Walden industries / VRi / Virtuality many many many moons ago before they went boobies up after floating on the stock market

If you played this you will know my real name as it was in the credits;

 

Oh yeah, I had a few goes on one of those. Ah, the memories...

 

I still think my BiL has one of the prototype shotguns kicking around somewhere.

Ahhh happy days when work was 50% playing on them things, hell we even got to go on music video shoots, the 90's were crazy times

 

i could see it, but we need way better tech. Two screens placed in front of the eyes and some joysticks have been done plenty of times before in arcades.Thats the extent of arcade VR. So we need to advance past that to say Kinect x 2 + Hydra + gamer containment center + mental visual injection technology. I mean movies, and the Batman Beyond animated series, have presented exactly where it should go. Just need to get there.

 

Bring it on Sony

I'll crash you from here man!

 

really! i mean REALLY! the fact that for it to work it has to override your senses, is the reason it won't catch on.

 

Yes, those new fangled 'head phones' never did take off, eh?

 

Can't wait.

 

That way Sony can live in a world where they dont get hacked and can get away with pathetic security, thus limiting cost.

If you see it enough you will eventually believe it. Its the matrix theory ;P

 

I clicked on this purely to see an old picture of a guy in a funny suit wearing a big clunky helmet and visor - consider me disappointed.

 

I'm not talking about one sense. But all senses. If any of your senses say anything different the 'reality' is broken and your senses begin to fight over where you are. Also paranoia will kick in for some people. Playing your vr machine? Is there an intrude laughing at me while stealing my stuff? Also vr is pretty much a solo activity going against most of the play with friends scene of the mass market.

 

VR is not RL. We all agree? Therefore you will not get all your RL senses tingled, but you will get the senses that VR tingles, tingled. You have used VR? Then you will know how VR feels and which senses it tingles.

As for VR being a solo activity that excludes your mates ... you have played console games online? Or PC games online? What makes you think VR will exclude any of these activities? I can currently play CSS or L4D with 3D glasses on. I'm fairly sure VR goggles when combined with a little extra code will be playable with online games as well.

Ahhhh the memories! Not that specific game, but as a youngster I remember getting strapped-in, having the heaviest goggles put over my head and then getting my ass handed to me on a plate because I was too busy looking around in wonder at my new VR pixellated world that rotated round about me as I moved my head.

 

The heavy visettes we used to use on the 1000 models were ruddy massive;

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/virtuality.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0SmB0i9Ato

It's a shame they never really caught on in arcades as thinks may have progressed a lot more by now, but arcades didn't want to have operators by the machines when traditional games were stand alone needing no assistance.

 

I know its not rl. But for it to work it has to have total visual and audial sense control, you will probably be flailing your arms around to do what is required only you'll be flailing them about in rl where you might put your foot in the fire, knock over an ornament or trip and knock yourself out or possibly worse. There might be some light hearted holodeck jokes but for it to really work that's what you'll need. I think Sony are just trying to out do the kinect but not really thinking about it.

 

Were you involved in making a VR game where the player could fall down a hole into a sewer? I can't be much more descriptive because back in my yoof they were bloody expensive to play and none of myself or friends could get very far before our pockets were emptied. When my character landed in the sewer, I physically bent my knees to absorb the landing even though I didn't need to ... oddest feelling, and hugely fun at the same time.

 

"Garlic bread-- I've tasted it! It's the future!" --Phoenix Nights

I've tried VR (with those heavy goggles which were a helmet, really) on a 486DX2-66 (remember those?) as far back as 1995. It really did work, even then. With current tech, combined with something like Kinect, it could rock.

 

Mt first PC ... and my first PC game was Discworld

I had a group of friends round the day it arrived and we all huddled round the 15" monitor and cooed at the awesome graphics and amazing gameplay ...