A lot of the enthusiasm for GT Sport centres around the prospect of playing one of the most popular racing game series in virtual reality on PSVR. That excitement was quickly dulled when series creator Kaz Yamauchi said that you won’t be getting the whole game playable in VR, but that there will be a “VR Tour”.
Now, in an interview with VentureBeat from E3, he’s sound less and less impressed by what virtual reality currently entails and what they’re able to do with PlayStation VR.
He said “The first head-mounted display was created before I was born, around 1962. [laughs] I’ve been waiting for more than 50 years. After all that time, I’d hoped it would be something more incredible than it is today. But we’ve done the best we can with what’s currently available.”
He’s still a little optimistic for the future of the technology though, saying, “Once we get to dual 8Ks, it’ll be pretty nice. Dual 8K and about a 200Hz refresh rate. Maybe in another 50 years?”
Further to that, there’s also the topic of motion sickness, which may be another reason why the VR Tour sounds more and more like a gentle Sunday afternoon drive through the country as opposed to full on racing, as is possible in some other games on various VR platforms.
“If you’re driving carefully, staying on the track, driving as you’re intended to, you won’t get sick,” he said. “As long as you keep the car under control, you’re fine. But if you run off the track or spin out, you’ll get sick. It’s the same as in a real car. You can’t avoid it. If you spin out a real car….”
Honestly, it sounds to me as if he would rather simply not have VR in the game at all…
Source: VentureBeat
camdaz
I read this over the weekend and thought that “dual 8K and about a 200Hz refresh rate” would be well worth waiting for but the “Maybe in another 50 years?” doesn’t go down well as I’ll be lucky (or unlucky?) to be around by then.
TSBonyman
I think that thing about the GT series is that as important as the driving itself has been, the visuals are almost as important. Personally i’ve never enjoyed the GT gameplay but i’ve almost always bought them because they look stunning on my PS console at the time.
And when they aim for such high visual fidelity, like with Driveclub the visual downgrade for VR is probably going to be more pronounced than with something like Dirt Rally.
Of course higher resolution would always be welcome but that’s going to take time for the tech to catch up.
tonyyeb
If Kaz can’t do it right, then he won’t do it. This has been forced on him in my opinion.
Andrewww
No wonder, given they usually work towards billions of polygons creating the ultimate visual car porn.
When I tried Driveclub, which I love and which still impresses me visually, in VR on the demo disc, I was so badly disappointed I never touched it again.
The Lone Steven
And yet, they left out highly detailed bird crap that could occur at any time to one’s annoyance.
Andrewww
And all those smashed bugs sticking to your windscreen… :o)
Andrewww
And in VR, when driving a cabrio, you could even eat some of them… ;o)
aerobes
Given his perfectionist approach I think VR was pretty much a non starter for GT. Instead of shoehorning it in they may as well have left it out.
JSilvers1982
I think VR on the whole is a bit of a fad, just like 3D and curved displays. Some games are OK, but generally speaking you are surrounded in a “moving” environment but you have no physical frame of reference. Your body is not moving and feeling the effects of inertia so your brain just flips out and you tend to feel dizzy and sick. That will never go away no matter what the resolution or refresh rate.
TSBonyman
Currently for certain VR is what it is, primarily a visual presentation combined with audio in order to convince you that you are in a place. But there’s ongoing work on providing experiences with more sensory feedback, suits, pads, walkers, heck there’s even someone working on a device that looks like the robot arm/crane from Assassin’s Creed!
I’m not entirely convinced that the addition of that kind of physical feedback will actually reduce the feelings of nausea. I think in some cases it may very well do the opposite but we’ll have to wait and see.
I do think that VR is not just going to fade away soon, not with full experiences such as Doom VFR, Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR(the latter not on psvr) on the way.
Also, motion sickness seems to be down to the individual to a certain extent. So far, i’ve only felt a bit queasy playing the Rez Infinite demo but i barely feel anything in Dirt Rally VR (which i’m actually disappointed by – i totally expected to be hurling chunks playing that!) :)