By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony Discussion - PSVR Sells Through 3 Million Units

 

Do You Own A PSVR?

Yes 18 35.29%
 
No 33 64.71%
 
Total:51
DonFerrari on 20 August 2018
Peh said:
I just leave this one here:
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/vr-parks-on-japan/index.html

Vr is still growing, it didn't reached mainstream, but in a few years it will. Technogy is advancing and so is VR.
Please don't use 30 years of VR failure as an argument. VR never went anywhere unless a few years ago.

A relative of mine lives in Japan and he talked about a VR experience controlling a mecha that you really had like full body simulation and felt inside a real one.

Conina said:
potato_hamster said:

P.S. You know how the "whole thing about Sega VR and Virtual Boy is "just silly" because they couldn't do most of what VR headsets can do today?

Even without taking specs into account like resolution per eye, field of view, processing power, number of colors, Hertz, lag...

Sega VR was just a concept that didn't make it to the market. We don't even know if the consumer version had the key features of a VR headset.

 

So let's go from this vaporware to the Virtual Boy: it wasn't a VR headset. It was missing a lot of key features of a VR headset:

 

It may look similar to a head-mounted display, but it is a stationary device with tabletop form factor. Instead of giving you some additional freedom to move your head around (like any HMD), you are even more constrained than looking on a TV or handheld screen. You have to hold your head absolutely still while looking through the goggles… not very comfortable.

 

You use it like a stationary tourism binocular:


 

There is no head-tracking at all. While any other VR system gives you 3DoF (3 degrees of freedom) or 6DoF (6 degrees of freedom) when you turn your head, the Virtual Boy only supports a fixed camera position in games (0DoF?).

 

You can’t even change the perspective with the controller, because the games weren’t using a 3D engine which allowed that. Without z-buffering, the 3D effect were some simple parallax tricks of 2D images… similar to the NES-classics on 3DS instead of the “real” 3DS games with a 3D-engine and proper management of image depth coordinates for a better stereoscopic effect.

 

It doesn’t try to put the player/user into a virtual world/scenario, you are only the observer from outside watching and controlling the protagonist.  

 

 

Saying that the Virtual Boy is similar to a modern VR headset (or even the Forte VFX1 of the ‘90s) despite lacking a lot of features which are essential for a VR experience (and we are not talking about resolution) is like saying that PDAs (f.e. Apple Newton) were already smartphones because they had many of the smartphone features (while ignoring the lack of other essential features).

If you so much wanted you could strap it to your head (not that it would be comfortable =p, but it still was a portable concept).

And the telescope actually have some freedom for you to move it and see different things =]

potato_hamster said:
DonFerrari said:

How is 3M on PS4 (PS4+X1+Switch = about 120M, but since it is just on PS4 it's 80M I'll consider) = 0.001% of the market?

And considering your silly examples of Nintendo Virtua boy 700k, versus PSVR that may cross 5M how can you say it stayed flat? You may deny as much as you want but this is the first generation of real tryout on VR, Nintendo tossed the system and cut it very very very fast.

If you want to look at it this way, screws are part of the car and probably less than 1% of the price of the car, are screws niche?

--

Considering the points you brought here you are much more wrong than Facebook analysts, but thank god I didn't pay for your analysis nor invested in your projections of PS4Pro, X1X or Switch.

--

You saying no one needs a smartphone is a very different reality than asking people why they buy their phones, they will certainly tell you it is a necessity item, much more than even a car, computer or even TV. Yes it is shocking.

Sure cars of 1M are niche, but are cars of 100k niche? But if people rather pay 100k instead of 10k but not buy console that shows consoles are niche certainly. That is how no sense your point on buying smartphone or tvs but not VR is.

--

Nope, we know that the probable path of evolution on VR is small google without any wire, so that is when it will leave enthusiast to enter more mass market appeal. As people said it will be probably another 10-15 years before it really get there. For an enthusiast level, prototype like, product to sell 3M at 299 USD is quite good.

Blackberry bringing back qwerty keypads, good luck on that.

--

Nintendo didn't even try to sustain it, just look at what WiiU was, and it wasn't motion control focused. You can enter 10 threads over WiiU failure and all will talk about the use of the gamepad instead of improved wiimote as one the biggest reason for failure.

--

Virtua Boy also had batteries besides not using a TV, since we divide the market in consoles and HH I would say it's much more on HH than console market. Or do you want to say that over 20 years ago there were a market that only the 700k Virtua Boy was present? That certainly would be blue ocean. Still as I put the Virtua boy was a shame because it was less than 1M versus previous over 40M sales. That is in no way, shape or form relevant to Oculus or Vive being failures or a shame. The only way you can claim that is getting their projections and seeing if they were met.

Because VR is more than just the PSVR, and pertains to more than just consoles. There's the HTC Vive (PC), Oculus Rift(PC), Samsung Gear(Mobile), Google Daydream (Mobile).

And need I remind that Nintendo shipped 700K Virtual Boys in just 6-8 months. It's not really fair to just compare the total sales of the Virtual Boy over its tiny lifetime to the total sales of the PSVR which will be sold for years.

And your screws example is another abysmally terrible analogy. I can't even begin to address all the things wrong with it.
---
I am much more wrong than Facebook analysts? I sure hope so. Otherwise my skillset is being put to waste and I'm being severely underpaid. But what are my projections on PS4 Pro, X1X and Switch? Please remind me.
----

The Phone part of their smart phone can easily be considered a necessity. Can the ability to play angry birds be considered a necessity?

And yes, 100K cars are certainly niche. They represent probably less than 5% of total automotive sales are. Do you know what isn't niche? sub 25K compact cars. Can you figure out why?

And you're still not undertstanding. If someone owns a smartphone they paid $800 for and wants a VR solution but ISNT willing to pay $800 for it, then they're saying that they'd rather be able to do things like play Angry Birds on their phone than play VR. If someone owns a 100K car and doesn't give a shit about video games, then them not buying a VR headset doesn't matter because they don't want one anyways! It only matters if they want one but aren't willing to pay the asking price.
---

So the *only reason* VR isn't currently more popular is because the headsets are too big and aren't wireless? Then explain the poor sales of the Oculus Go. It's wireless, cheaper and smaller than the PSVR. Why isn't the Oculus Go selling at a rate higher than PSVR?

Look at you being all pessimistic on Blackberry. "It's a pretty clear the advantage Blackberry brings to smartphones, you just don't like it. But you refuse to accept that you are being very negative." Sound familiar?
---

Nintendo didn't even try to sustain it? Was it the motion controlled main pad of the Wii U that made you think that? Or was it the fact that the only other controllers that worked with the Wii U were Wii Remotes that made you think it? Perhaps Nintendo putting motion controls in the 3DS must have made you think they hadn't tried. Or maybe it was offering yet another motion based option on the Switch that let you know they reallly couldn't care less about motion controls.

And why would I look at other threads? I thought the opinions of anonymous people on the internet weren't to be trusted. Now I'm supposed to count on them to let me know why the Wii U was a failure? I can find plenty of analysts that make no such insistence that the Wii U failed because it didn't include upgrades Wii remotes as the primary controller.

---
So that's it, it must not have to hook up to a TV and it must be able to use batteries in order to be considered a handheld console. You still might want to reconsider that.

So again, when Facebook acquired Oculus, they projected they were going to ship $2.8 billion of Oculus headsets annually by 2020. It appears they will miss that forecast by at least 80% and that's being conservative. So Oculus is not meeting projections.  In order to meet it's projections, Oculus is going to need to sell 8-12 million headsets per year in a little over a year. As it appears right now, they won't have even sold 4 million total by that point. So do you think facebook can turn it around and turn a few hundred thousand units per year in 2018 to 8-12 million by 2020, or are you willing to call that one a "missed projection" right now?

Ok so you want to consider all industry. Than again almost any game released is niche since besides some very few 10M+ sales, most are sold to less than 1% of the market.

The fact that Nintendo pulled the plug in few months makes no difference, they shipped 700k and that is it, we can count 8 months or 20 years of sale it won't make Virtua Boy cross 1M. You were the one who brought it the table so no complaining now.

I believe you made the 0.0001% based on revenue because if not you have about let's say 30M compatible PCs for VR and 80M PS4, so that makes 110M base with like 5M devices, still more than 0.0001% (if not please show what you meant with it). So if it's based on value then screws are a very very very low representation on the value of cars sold, so niche using your terms. Unless you want to change again the meaning of niche.

--

Your predictions about the 3 were already brought in this thread and you tried to dodge them. But since you accept their analysis is better than yours, until any analyst or representative of Oculus, Vive or Sony comes out saying their product was a failure or they stop supporting this or future versions of the product then you already accept defeat on it growing until being a representative chunck of market.

--

Necessity is a personal thing. Considering people are paying 80x over the price of a simple call phone and that the usage of cellphone for internet, texting and other voip like services is higher than direct call I would say they are all more necessary than the make call part. My cell phone can't receive or make calls for over 1 year and it didn't really bothered me much. So yes, people are paying 800 USD thinking of it as a need more than a hobby.

Please explain to us how I'm not understanding your definition of niche that you change for each argument.

--

On the Oculus GO you also forgot price and probably marketing. Never seem anything about it.

And on Blackberry my pessimism comes from it being a go backward instead of evolution. People used and liked their normal phones, got interested in qwerty and then touchscreen smartphone. Very very hardly they would go backward on it. If you said anything about implanted chip or any other technology that isn't a go back to the past I could say perhaps it will be successful. Your false parallel with the negativity is totally as said, false.

--

Nintendo didn't sustain it because they moved the focus on WiiU to the gamepad instead of the motion and that is what killed it. But as you put there were still motion control in WiiU, 3DS and PS4 so hardly saying it died out right? But considering none of these made motion the main focus on these consoles you can't say they really tried sustain it.

The professional analysts from Nintendo put the reason for the failure of WiiU on what them? Since you want to bring they to this analysis instead of consensus on the community.

--

I have no problem accepting they missed their projection (Sony didn't though), but still I'm willing to accept their projection had a better reasoning than your takes on why VR is going to fail. I would love to see your projections on PSVR one year before release. Or the whole VR market before this gen. So we can validate your credentials on this comfortable hindsight saying you are right and if PSVR keep consistent sales and have a PSVR2 launch you just vanish and forget.

--

If at the time having batteries to be used as portable, not needing TV (being self contained) wasn't put on the Handheld market, at what market were it put over 20 years ago?

potato_hamster said:
Conina said:

Even without taking specs into account like resolution per eye, field of view, processing power, number of colors, Hertz, lag...

Sega VR was just a concept that didn't make it to the market. We don't even know if the consumer version had the key features of a VR headset.

 

So let's go from this vaporware to the Virtual Boy: it wasn't a VR headset. It was missing a lot of key features of a VR headset:

 

It may look similar to a head-mounted display, but it is a stationary device with tabletop form factor. Instead of giving you some additional freedom to move your head around (like any HMD), you are even more constrained than looking on a TV or handheld screen. You have to hold your head absolutely still while looking through the goggles… not very comfortable.

 

 

 

 

You use it like a stationary tourism binocular:

 


 

There is no head-tracking at all. While any other VR system gives you 3DoF (3 degrees of freedom) or 6DoF (6 degrees of freedom) when you turn your head, the Virtual Boy only supports a fixed camera position in games (0DoF?).

 

You can’t even change the perspective with the controller, because the games weren’t using a 3D engine which allowed that. Without z-buffering, the 3D effect were some simple parallax tricks of 2D images… similar to the NES-classics on 3DS instead of the “real” 3DS games with a 3D-engine and proper management of image depth coordinates for a better stereoscopic effect.

 

It doesn’t try to put the player/user into a virtual world/scenario, you are only the observer from outside watching and controlling the protagonist.  

 

 

Saying that the Virtual Boy is similar to a modern VR headset (or even the Forte VFX1 of the ‘90s) despite lacking a lot of features which are essential for a VR experience (and we are not talking about resolution) is like saying that PDAs (f.e. Apple Newton) were already smartphones because they had many of the smartphone features (while ignoring the lack of other essential features).

Why are you acting like I've never used a Virtual Boy? I Know what it is. I know what it does.

Where did I say it was similar to a modern VR headset? I never. Where did I say it never lacked a lot of features modern headsets have? I never.
All I said was that it was a poor VR headset. And it was, because it was lacking a lot of features that it would need to make it a decent VR experience. That doesn't mean it wasn't VR.

As for smartphones:

"In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released the OmniGo 700LX, a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with a Nokia 2110 mobile phone piggybacked onto it and ROM-based software to support it. It had a 640×200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to place and receive calls, and to create and receive text messages, emails and faxes. It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

Sounds to me like taking a PDA and mashing a Nokia phone on the back of it does actually make a smartphone. Sure the Omnigo doesn't have much in common with the first iPhone, but they're both still considered smartphones. Imagine that.

You should mean why Virtua Boy isn't a VR, not even a poor one. It is more like a poor 3D attempt.

More proof that it took much more than 10 years since a decent smartphone was done to it being market ready.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

Around the Network
potato_hamster on 20 August 2018
Conina said:
potato_hamster said:

As for smartphones:

"In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released the OmniGo 700LX, a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with a Nokia 2110 mobile phone piggybacked onto it and ROM-based software to support it. It had a 640×200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to place and receive calls, and to create and receive text messages, emails and faxes. It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

Sounds to me like taking a PDA and mashing a Nokia phone on the back of it does actually make a smartphone. Sure the Omnigo doesn't have much in common with the first iPhone, but they're both still considered smartphones. Imagine that.

But that's exactly the point: A simple PDA is no smartphone. A simple mobile phone is no smartphone. A simple digital camera is no smartphone. A simple music player is no smartphone. A simple video player is no smartphone. A simple navigation device is no smartphone.

Combining all these features in one device makes it to a smartphone. If most of the key features are missing, it is only one piece of the puzzle.

And the same goes for the Virtual Boy.

Okay. So that HP Omni whatever from 1996.
Simple PDA? Check.
Simple mobile phone? Check.
Simple digital camera? Nope.
Simple music player? Nope.
Simple video player? Nope.
Simple navigation device? Nope.

Yet, it's still a smartphone. So by your own analogy, you should have no problem considering the Virtual Boy to be a VR headset.



potato_hamster on 20 August 2018
DonFerrari said:
potato_hamster said:

Because VR is more than just the PSVR, and pertains to more than just consoles. There's the HTC Vive (PC), Oculus Rift(PC), Samsung Gear(Mobile), Google Daydream (Mobile).

And need I remind that Nintendo shipped 700K Virtual Boys in just 6-8 months. It's not really fair to just compare the total sales of the Virtual Boy over its tiny lifetime to the total sales of the PSVR which will be sold for years.

And your screws example is another abysmally terrible analogy. I can't even begin to address all the things wrong with it.
---
I am much more wrong than Facebook analysts? I sure hope so. Otherwise my skillset is being put to waste and I'm being severely underpaid. But what are my projections on PS4 Pro, X1X and Switch? Please remind me.
----

The Phone part of their smart phone can easily be considered a necessity. Can the ability to play angry birds be considered a necessity?

And yes, 100K cars are certainly niche. They represent probably less than 5% of total automotive sales are. Do you know what isn't niche? sub 25K compact cars. Can you figure out why?

And you're still not undertstanding. If someone owns a smartphone they paid $800 for and wants a VR solution but ISNT willing to pay $800 for it, then they're saying that they'd rather be able to do things like play Angry Birds on their phone than play VR. If someone owns a 100K car and doesn't give a shit about video games, then them not buying a VR headset doesn't matter because they don't want one anyways! It only matters if they want one but aren't willing to pay the asking price.
---

So the *only reason* VR isn't currently more popular is because the headsets are too big and aren't wireless? Then explain the poor sales of the Oculus Go. It's wireless, cheaper and smaller than the PSVR. Why isn't the Oculus Go selling at a rate higher than PSVR?

Look at you being all pessimistic on Blackberry. "It's a pretty clear the advantage Blackberry brings to smartphones, you just don't like it. But you refuse to accept that you are being very negative." Sound familiar?
---

Nintendo didn't even try to sustain it? Was it the motion controlled main pad of the Wii U that made you think that? Or was it the fact that the only other controllers that worked with the Wii U were Wii Remotes that made you think it? Perhaps Nintendo putting motion controls in the 3DS must have made you think they hadn't tried. Or maybe it was offering yet another motion based option on the Switch that let you know they reallly couldn't care less about motion controls.

And why would I look at other threads? I thought the opinions of anonymous people on the internet weren't to be trusted. Now I'm supposed to count on them to let me know why the Wii U was a failure? I can find plenty of analysts that make no such insistence that the Wii U failed because it didn't include upgrades Wii remotes as the primary controller.

---
So that's it, it must not have to hook up to a TV and it must be able to use batteries in order to be considered a handheld console. You still might want to reconsider that.

So again, when Facebook acquired Oculus, they projected they were going to ship $2.8 billion of Oculus headsets annually by 2020. It appears they will miss that forecast by at least 80% and that's being conservative. So Oculus is not meeting projections.  In order to meet it's projections, Oculus is going to need to sell 8-12 million headsets per year in a little over a year. As it appears right now, they won't have even sold 4 million total by that point. So do you think facebook can turn it around and turn a few hundred thousand units per year in 2018 to 8-12 million by 2020, or are you willing to call that one a "missed projection" right now?

Ok so you want to consider all industry. Than again almost any game released is niche since besides some very few 10M+ sales, most are sold to less than 1% of the market.

The fact that Nintendo pulled the plug in few months makes no difference, they shipped 700k and that is it, we can count 8 months or 20 years of sale it won't make Virtua Boy cross 1M. You were the one who brought it the table so no complaining now.

I believe you made the 0.0001% based on revenue because if not you have about let's say 30M compatible PCs for VR and 80M PS4, so that makes 110M base with like 5M devices, still more than 0.0001% (if not please show what you meant with it). So if it's based on value then screws are a very very very low representation on the value of cars sold, so niche using your terms. Unless you want to change again the meaning of niche.

--

Your predictions about the 3 were already brought in this thread and you tried to dodge them. But since you accept their analysis is better than yours, until any analyst or representative of Oculus, Vive or Sony comes out saying their product was a failure or they stop supporting this or future versions of the product then you already accept defeat on it growing until being a representative chunck of market.

--

Necessity is a personal thing. Considering people are paying 80x over the price of a simple call phone and that the usage of cellphone for internet, texting and other voip like services is higher than direct call I would say they are all more necessary than the make call part. My cell phone can't receive or make calls for over 1 year and it didn't really bothered me much. So yes, people are paying 800 USD thinking of it as a need more than a hobby.

Please explain to us how I'm not understanding your definition of niche that you change for each argument.

--

On the Oculus GO you also forgot price and probably marketing. Never seem anything about it.

And on Blackberry my pessimism comes from it being a go backward instead of evolution. People used and liked their normal phones, got interested in qwerty and then touchscreen smartphone. Very very hardly they would go backward on it. If you said anything about implanted chip or any other technology that isn't a go back to the past I could say perhaps it will be successful. Your false parallel with the negativity is totally as said, false.

--

Nintendo didn't sustain it because they moved the focus on WiiU to the gamepad instead of the motion and that is what killed it. But as you put there were still motion control in WiiU, 3DS and PS4 so hardly saying it died out right? But considering none of these made motion the main focus on these consoles you can't say they really tried sustain it.

The professional analysts from Nintendo put the reason for the failure of WiiU on what them? Since you want to bring they to this analysis instead of consensus on the community.

--

I have no problem accepting they missed their projection (Sony didn't though), but still I'm willing to accept their projection had a better reasoning than your takes on why VR is going to fail. I would love to see your projections on PSVR one year before release. Or the whole VR market before this gen. So we can validate your credentials on this comfortable hindsight saying you are right and if PSVR keep consistent sales and have a PSVR2 launch you just vanish and forget.

--

If at the time having batteries to be used as portable, not needing TV (being self contained) wasn't put on the Handheld market, at what market were it put over 20 years ago?

potato_hamster said:

Why are you acting like I've never used a Virtual Boy? I Know what it is. I know what it does.

Where did I say it was similar to a modern VR headset? I never. Where did I say it never lacked a lot of features modern headsets have? I never.
All I said was that it was a poor VR headset. And it was, because it was lacking a lot of features that it would need to make it a decent VR experience. That doesn't mean it wasn't VR.

As for smartphones:

"In March 1996, Hewlett-Packard released the OmniGo 700LX, a modified HP 200LX palmtop PC with a Nokia 2110 mobile phone piggybacked onto it and ROM-based software to support it. It had a 640×200 resolution CGA compatible four-shade gray-scale LCD screen and could be used to place and receive calls, and to create and receive text messages, emails and faxes. It was also 100% DOS 5.0 compatible, allowing it to run thousands of existing software titles, including early versions of Windows."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

Sounds to me like taking a PDA and mashing a Nokia phone on the back of it does actually make a smartphone. Sure the Omnigo doesn't have much in common with the first iPhone, but they're both still considered smartphones. Imagine that.

You should mean why Virtua Boy isn't a VR, not even a poor one. It is more like a poor 3D attempt.

More proof that it took much more than 10 years since a decent smartphone was done to it being market ready.

I mean it's not that I want to consider all of the industry, I want to consider all of the video game industry which has VR solutions. That's Playstation, PC and Mobile realistically. If you want to call say "God of War" niche because it "only sold 8 million" copies only on Playstation, then you're just distorting what niche means to fit your narrative. I'm sticking to where VR has a presence.

i know the fact that the virtual boy had the plugged pulled on it makes no difference to you. Why should I care if it doesn't to you?

I put. 0.0001% as a small number. I have no idea how small it actually is, all I know is that it's not exactly a big presence, it's never been a big presence, and based on its slow growth, no reason to expect it will be a big presence long-term. And 30 million compatible PCs for VR? Considering at least 30 million discrete GPUs are sold per quarter, I doubt that's correct, and I'm not even counting laptops with integrated cards that are capable of running VR now.

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-amd-discrete-gpu-market-share-report-q3-2017/

There's more than likely over 200 million VR capable PCs in people's homes right now, and that's probably pretty conservative.

Ahh so you don't actually know what my predictions were? You're taking someone's word about it who clearly only vaguely remembered the conversation by their own admittance. I clarified my points. But hey, it that's good enough for you, I don't see why i should care about how low you're willing to let your standards go.

the fact that people considered a smart phone to be a "need" doesn't mean it actually is. it's very clearly a luxury item, like VR headsets.

the Oculus Go: https://www.oculus.com/go/ Self contained VR headset, smaller, lighter, decent quality, $199.

As for Blackberry, Did the PS4 go backwards when they announced the PS4 would ship with the Dualshock 4 instead of Move controllers? How about when MS discontinued Kinect? I don't think many would argue that they did. Sometimes you just need to go back to what works best, which is what Blackberry feels they're trying to do. Such negativity from you!

Nintendo/MS/Sony didn't "try to sustain motion controls" with their consoles because their customers didn't want motion controls. They don't miss motion controls. They don't want to toss their controllers aside to use motion controls. Motion controls are no longer a thing because these companies listened to their audience. The motion control fad came and went. Those niche few that still want it can still have it, but for the rest of us, we get to go back to gaming the way we see fit, with a controller/keyboard/mouse. As it turns out, you can't force people to play games in ways they don't want to. See: X1 Kinect, Wii U. Lessons learned.

What did Nintendo's analysts say about why the Wii U failed, I'm not sure, but the end result is the Switch, which again doesn't have motion controls as a primary input, so it looks like they didn't consider that to be a reason the Wii U failed either.

Sony met their projections with the PSVR? They haven't said that since a few months after PSVR released. Since they all they've had to say was that they were "pleased" with how PSVR was selling, not that it was meeting projections.

As for me, I didn't give projections for PSVR for release and I don't care if you think I need credentials to talk about VR sales. Just pretend my credentials are whatever would give me the most credibility in your eyes. This is anonymous message board, so what I have or haven't done or what I know or don't know or what I've learned or not learned doesn't mean shit. the only thing that matters is the ideas I or anyone else expresses. I've said since the beginning that VR has only ever and will only ever cater to a niche market. Until a VR headset starts selling like gangbusters, gets a pile of legit RE VII-like support, and sustains that momentum over multiple product revisions, the VR industry will not have proven otherwise.

One more time, you really, really want to update your criteria. for what constitutes an handheld. I'm doing you a favor for the future. Think harder about it.

And it appears you never understood my point about the whole smartphone crteria - A VR headset doesn't have to have all, or even most of the features of a modern VR headset to be considered a VR headset.



DonFerrari on 20 August 2018
potato_hamster said:
DonFerrari said:

Ok so you want to consider all industry. Than again almost any game released is niche since besides some very few 10M+ sales, most are sold to less than 1% of the market.

The fact that Nintendo pulled the plug in few months makes no difference, they shipped 700k and that is it, we can count 8 months or 20 years of sale it won't make Virtua Boy cross 1M. You were the one who brought it the table so no complaining now.

I believe you made the 0.0001% based on revenue because if not you have about let's say 30M compatible PCs for VR and 80M PS4, so that makes 110M base with like 5M devices, still more than 0.0001% (if not please show what you meant with it). So if it's based on value then screws are a very very very low representation on the value of cars sold, so niche using your terms. Unless you want to change again the meaning of niche.

--

Your predictions about the 3 were already brought in this thread and you tried to dodge them. But since you accept their analysis is better than yours, until any analyst or representative of Oculus, Vive or Sony comes out saying their product was a failure or they stop supporting this or future versions of the product then you already accept defeat on it growing until being a representative chunck of market.

--

Necessity is a personal thing. Considering people are paying 80x over the price of a simple call phone and that the usage of cellphone for internet, texting and other voip like services is higher than direct call I would say they are all more necessary than the make call part. My cell phone can't receive or make calls for over 1 year and it didn't really bothered me much. So yes, people are paying 800 USD thinking of it as a need more than a hobby.

Please explain to us how I'm not understanding your definition of niche that you change for each argument.

--

On the Oculus GO you also forgot price and probably marketing. Never seem anything about it.

And on Blackberry my pessimism comes from it being a go backward instead of evolution. People used and liked their normal phones, got interested in qwerty and then touchscreen smartphone. Very very hardly they would go backward on it. If you said anything about implanted chip or any other technology that isn't a go back to the past I could say perhaps it will be successful. Your false parallel with the negativity is totally as said, false.

--

Nintendo didn't sustain it because they moved the focus on WiiU to the gamepad instead of the motion and that is what killed it. But as you put there were still motion control in WiiU, 3DS and PS4 so hardly saying it died out right? But considering none of these made motion the main focus on these consoles you can't say they really tried sustain it.

The professional analysts from Nintendo put the reason for the failure of WiiU on what them? Since you want to bring they to this analysis instead of consensus on the community.

--

I have no problem accepting they missed their projection (Sony didn't though), but still I'm willing to accept their projection had a better reasoning than your takes on why VR is going to fail. I would love to see your projections on PSVR one year before release. Or the whole VR market before this gen. So we can validate your credentials on this comfortable hindsight saying you are right and if PSVR keep consistent sales and have a PSVR2 launch you just vanish and forget.

--

If at the time having batteries to be used as portable, not needing TV (being self contained) wasn't put on the Handheld market, at what market were it put over 20 years ago?

You should mean why Virtua Boy isn't a VR, not even a poor one. It is more like a poor 3D attempt.

More proof that it took much more than 10 years since a decent smartphone was done to it being market ready.

I mean it's not that I want to consider all of the industry, I want to consider all of the video game industry which has VR solutions. That's Playstation, PC and Mobile realistically. If you want to call say "God of War" niche because it "only sold 8 million" copies only on Playstation, then you're just distorting what niche means to fit your narrative. I'm sticking to where VR has a presence.

i know the fact that the virtual boy had the plugged pulled on it makes no difference to you. Why should I care if it doesn't to you?

I put. 0.0001% as a small number. I have no idea how small it actually is, all I know is that it's not exactly a big presence, it's never been a big presence, and based on its slow growth, no reason to expect it will be a big presence long-term. And 30 million compatible PCs for VR? Considering at least 30 million discrete GPUs are sold per quarter, I doubt that's correct, and I'm not even counting laptops with integrated cards that are capable of running VR now.

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-amd-discrete-gpu-market-share-report-q3-2017/

There's more than likely over 200 million VR capable PCs in people's homes right now, and that's probably pretty conservative.

Ahh so you don't actually know what my predictions were? You're taking someone's word about it who clearly only vaguely remembered the conversation by their own admittance. I clarified my points. But hey, it that's good enough for you, I don't see why i should care about how low you're willing to let your standards go.

the fact that people considered a smart phone to be a "need" doesn't mean it actually is. it's very clearly a luxury item, like VR headsets.

the Oculus Go: https://www.oculus.com/go/ Self contained VR headset, smaller, lighter, decent quality, $199.

As for Blackberry, Did the PS4 go backwards when they announced the PS4 would ship with the Dualshock 4 instead of Move controllers? How about when MS discontinued Kinect? I don't think many would argue that they did. Sometimes you just need to go back to what works best, which is what Blackberry feels they're trying to do. Such negativity from you!

Nintendo/MS/Sony didn't "try to sustain motion controls" with their consoles because their customers didn't want motion controls. They don't miss motion controls. They don't want to toss their controllers aside to use motion controls. Motion controls are no longer a thing because these companies listened to their audience. The motion control fad came and went. Those niche few that still want it can still have it, but for the rest of us, we get to go back to gaming the way we see fit, with a controller/keyboard/mouse. As it turns out, you can't force people to play games in ways they don't want to. See: X1 Kinect, Wii U. Lessons learned.

What did Nintendo's analysts say about why the Wii U failed, I'm not sure, but the end result is the Switch, which again doesn't have motion controls as a primary input, so it looks like they didn't consider that to be a reason the Wii U failed either.

Sony met their projections with the PSVR? They haven't said that since a few months after PSVR released. Since they all they've had to say was that they were "pleased" with how PSVR was selling, not that it was meeting projections.

As for me, I didn't give projections for PSVR for release and I don't care if you think I need credentials to talk about VR sales. Just pretend my credentials are whatever would give me the most credibility in your eyes. This is anonymous message board, so what I have or haven't done or what I know or don't know or what I've learned or not learned doesn't mean shit. the only thing that matters is the ideas I or anyone else expresses. I've said since the beginning that VR has only ever and will only ever cater to a niche market. Until a VR headset starts selling like gangbusters, gets a pile of legit RE VII-like support, and sustains that momentum over multiple product revisions, the VR industry will not have proven otherwise.

One more time, you really, really want to update your criteria. for what constitutes an handheld. I'm doing you a favor for the future. Think harder about it.

And it appears you never understood my point about the whole smartphone crteria - A VR headset doesn't have to have all, or even most of the features of a modern VR headset to be considered a VR headset.

It shouldn't concern to any if the shipment was done in 7 months or 7 years when it encompass all shipment. Unless you have numbers showing that making the frame of analysis bigger would make the shipments higher. As was replied to you this shipment was enough to keep the system on shelves for months after due to sluggish sales.

So your 0.0001% was an preposterous random number you pulled just to say the numbers are bad?

If PSVR sold 3M only on PS4 80M userbase costing 5x more than GoW and still needing extra expenditures on games is niche for you than almost all SW are niche. That is the definition you are bending not others.

I'm willing to bet Pemalite or several other members who follow PC market closely would show how wrong you are about 200M PCs being ready for Oculus and Vive. The fact you have a discrete GPU on your PC doesn't make it compatible with any of these 2.

Let me take it, so like 2 Billion people buying a smartphone considering it a need for them doesn't make a need because you say otherwise. Sure if you want we may say that only water and food are needs. So where are you going to draw your moving line?

Nope Sony didn't go backwards when shipping with DS4 because Move wasn't ever the standard control of PS3. Although they went back on the boomerang because market didn't like it. Kinect2 the same, Kinect wasn't ever the standard input method for X360 and also Kinect2 didn't even get use before being axed on X1. Funny enough for all the flack that Move received, it kept supported for PS4 against Kinect 2. But that have more to do with Sony strategy of diversification versus MS more on it either is massive on market and have chance to monopoly or is cut out.

Blackberry may think it works best, since we have had smartphones with touch become the new standard (which didn't happen in the other examples) it will be very hard for them to go back. What do you think of the chances of VHS, K-7 coming back? What about 5+1/4" floppy disks?

So you brought Nintendo analysts to the table without knowing what they said? Great, thanks for showing you are trying your hardest to win an argument without any backup and trying to throw back spinned arguments to the people discussing with you.

Since we have 2 positive direct info with being over projected and being pleased, plus providing numbers (PSVita they stopped showing numbers when it got bad, and PS3 just got direct numbers when things started being good) make 3 good pointers of meeting or exceeding projections the only thing saying otherwise is your OPINION. Mind to give any source showing PSVR sales are a disappointment to Sony?

You want to toss up the Oculus projection of the past, so allow us to see yours to see your track records. Because your posts themselves doesn't give you any good credentials.

Your criteria in this thread is as flexible as you need to shoot down PSVR and you know it.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

potato_hamster on 20 August 2018
DonFerrari said:
potato_hamster said:

I mean it's not that I want to consider all of the industry, I want to consider all of the video game industry which has VR solutions. That's Playstation, PC and Mobile realistically. If you want to call say "God of War" niche because it "only sold 8 million" copies only on Playstation, then you're just distorting what niche means to fit your narrative. I'm sticking to where VR has a presence.

i know the fact that the virtual boy had the plugged pulled on it makes no difference to you. Why should I care if it doesn't to you?

I put. 0.0001% as a small number. I have no idea how small it actually is, all I know is that it's not exactly a big presence, it's never been a big presence, and based on its slow growth, no reason to expect it will be a big presence long-term. And 30 million compatible PCs for VR? Considering at least 30 million discrete GPUs are sold per quarter, I doubt that's correct, and I'm not even counting laptops with integrated cards that are capable of running VR now.

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-amd-discrete-gpu-market-share-report-q3-2017/

There's more than likely over 200 million VR capable PCs in people's homes right now, and that's probably pretty conservative.

Ahh so you don't actually know what my predictions were? You're taking someone's word about it who clearly only vaguely remembered the conversation by their own admittance. I clarified my points. But hey, it that's good enough for you, I don't see why i should care about how low you're willing to let your standards go.

the fact that people considered a smart phone to be a "need" doesn't mean it actually is. it's very clearly a luxury item, like VR headsets.

the Oculus Go: https://www.oculus.com/go/ Self contained VR headset, smaller, lighter, decent quality, $199.

As for Blackberry, Did the PS4 go backwards when they announced the PS4 would ship with the Dualshock 4 instead of Move controllers? How about when MS discontinued Kinect? I don't think many would argue that they did. Sometimes you just need to go back to what works best, which is what Blackberry feels they're trying to do. Such negativity from you!

Nintendo/MS/Sony didn't "try to sustain motion controls" with their consoles because their customers didn't want motion controls. They don't miss motion controls. They don't want to toss their controllers aside to use motion controls. Motion controls are no longer a thing because these companies listened to their audience. The motion control fad came and went. Those niche few that still want it can still have it, but for the rest of us, we get to go back to gaming the way we see fit, with a controller/keyboard/mouse. As it turns out, you can't force people to play games in ways they don't want to. See: X1 Kinect, Wii U. Lessons learned.

What did Nintendo's analysts say about why the Wii U failed, I'm not sure, but the end result is the Switch, which again doesn't have motion controls as a primary input, so it looks like they didn't consider that to be a reason the Wii U failed either.

Sony met their projections with the PSVR? They haven't said that since a few months after PSVR released. Since they all they've had to say was that they were "pleased" with how PSVR was selling, not that it was meeting projections.

As for me, I didn't give projections for PSVR for release and I don't care if you think I need credentials to talk about VR sales. Just pretend my credentials are whatever would give me the most credibility in your eyes. This is anonymous message board, so what I have or haven't done or what I know or don't know or what I've learned or not learned doesn't mean shit. the only thing that matters is the ideas I or anyone else expresses. I've said since the beginning that VR has only ever and will only ever cater to a niche market. Until a VR headset starts selling like gangbusters, gets a pile of legit RE VII-like support, and sustains that momentum over multiple product revisions, the VR industry will not have proven otherwise.

One more time, you really, really want to update your criteria. for what constitutes an handheld. I'm doing you a favor for the future. Think harder about it.

And it appears you never understood my point about the whole smartphone crteria - A VR headset doesn't have to have all, or even most of the features of a modern VR headset to be considered a VR headset.

It shouldn't concern to any if the shipment was done in 7 months or 7 years when it encompass all shipment. Unless you have numbers showing that making the frame of analysis bigger would make the shipments higher. As was replied to you this shipment was enough to keep the system on shelves for months after due to sluggish sales.

So your 0.0001% was an preposterous random number you pulled just to say the numbers are bad?

If PSVR sold 3M only on PS4 80M userbase costing 5x more than GoW and still needing extra expenditures on games is niche for you than almost all SW are niche. That is the definition you are bending not others.

I'm willing to bet Pemalite or several other members who follow PC market closely would show how wrong you are about 200M PCs being ready for Oculus and Vive. The fact you have a discrete GPU on your PC doesn't make it compatible with any of these 2.

Let me take it, so like 2 Billion people buying a smartphone considering it a need for them doesn't make a need because you say otherwise. Sure if you want we may say that only water and food are needs. So where are you going to draw your moving line?

Nope Sony didn't go backwards when shipping with DS4 because Move wasn't ever the standard control of PS3. Although they went back on the boomerang because market didn't like it. Kinect2 the same, Kinect wasn't ever the standard input method for X360 and also Kinect2 didn't even get use before being axed on X1. Funny enough for all the flack that Move received, it kept supported for PS4 against Kinect 2. But that have more to do with Sony strategy of diversification versus MS more on it either is massive on market and have chance to monopoly or is cut out.

Blackberry may think it works best, since we have had smartphones with touch become the new standard (which didn't happen in the other examples) it will be very hard for them to go back. What do you think of the chances of VHS, K-7 coming back? What about 5+1/4" floppy disks?

So you brought Nintendo analysts to the table without knowing what they said? Great, thanks for showing you are trying your hardest to win an argument without any backup and trying to throw back spinned arguments to the people discussing with you.

Since we have 2 positive direct info with being over projected and being pleased, plus providing numbers (PSVita they stopped showing numbers when it got bad, and PS3 just got direct numbers when things started being good) make 3 good pointers of meeting or exceeding projections the only thing saying otherwise is your OPINION. Mind to give any source showing PSVR sales are a disappointment to Sony?

You want to toss up the Oculus projection of the past, so allow us to see yours to see your track records. Because your posts themselves doesn't give you any good credentials.

Your criteria in this thread is as flexible as you need to shoot down PSVR and you know it.

So the fact that while it was being sold the fact that the Virtual Boy sold around the same rate as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive is irrlevant to you because you consider total sales more important than rate of sale? I just want to confirm that for future reference.

My "0.0001% number" represents an insignificant portion of the market in which VR devices exist. There's a difference between 1 in every 10 Playstation 4 owners bought God of War, and 1 in every 2 console gamers bought a Playstation 4 and 100 in every 100 PS4 Owners bought a PS4, or 1 in every say, 1000 owners of VR capable PCs bought a VR headset. If you can't recognize the difference between the two, that's on you. If you want to blow the term "niche" beyond "represents a comparatively small percentage of the potential market it exists in due to its limited appeal", that's fine. I really don't care how you define words, but I'll stick with the common vernacular.

I really don't think you realize how cheap VR ready PCs are getting, both in the laptop and graphics cards spaces. $650 desktop PCs can run VR reasonably well, and those prices will go down by $100 or so now that nVidia launched it's latest family of graphics cards.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/dont-look-now-but-oculus-ready-pcs-are-getting-relatively-cheap/

Also, I didn't say anything about Nintendo's analysts. You did. You misinterpreted me saying "I can find plenty of analysts that make no such insistence that the Wii U failed because it didn't include upgrades Wii remotes as the primary controller" to mean Nintendo analysts. I did not. So what's that about winning arguments? Have you noticed I'm the only one of the two of us actually sourcing my points?

Just because 2 billion people enjoy a luxury doesn't mean it isn't still a luxury. I don't see why this is so hard for you. Cars are also luxuries, so are televisions, so is the internet. I don't see how this is even remotely controversial.  Just because you "feel you need something" doesn't mean you actually need it, it just means you're so comfortable with it you forgot how to live without it. There are millions of people in the USA alone that get along just fine without smartphones. How do they do it?

So Sony creates a motion control system, pushes support in a variety of games, creates peripherals like Wonderbook that make specific use of them, and then with their next console scales back the use of motion controls to literally just VR games, and you don't see that as a step backwards? As for MS, you're flat out wrong with the Kinect 2. The Xbox One was on the Market for eight months before they sold an Xbox One without the Kinect 2. Every single Xbox One sold up to that point came with one. Many people didn't even hook them up but bought one anyways just to get their new Xbox. No only that, Microsoft mandated that developers build in some sort of Kinect 2 support into (I believe) every game that came out for the system until that point. It took months of terrible sales, MS claiming that the Kinect was an "essential and integral part of the platform", or that "Xbox One is Kinect, they are not separate systems", and all kinds of other nonsense before they finally relented. Read here:

https://www.polygon.com/2014/5/13/5713634/xbox-one-kinect-integral-add-on

Tell me, what kind of benefits do VHS tapes offer over Blu-ray? What kind of benefits do 5 1/4" floppies offer over thumb drives? What's that? None? SO PESSIMISTIC!

PS Vita numbers were always bad. They stopped showing them when they got outright embarrassing. They released unsatisfactory numbers for the Vita multiple times before they finally started lumping sales. The mere fact that they're still releasing numbers does not indicate that the numbers are meeting expectations, that is, unless you think Sony announcing the Vita sold 4 million in 2012 as "meeting expectations" of selling just 2.8 million units from February to December. And yes, while it wasn't intended, the Vita turned out to only cater to a niche audience.

For the last time, I really, really don't care what you think of my credentials. It doesn't matter if I'm actually Phil Spencer, Shuhei Yoshida, or Miyamoto himself. If my arguments are out there to stand for themselves, and I don't try to lend any authority to give them credibility. I'm not asking you to take my word for any of it. So please don't. If you don't want to respond, don't respond. That bothers me none.

Nah, my criteria has been pretty clear from the beginning, and has not changed. If you want to point our how my criteria has changed about whether something is "niche" or "selling well" or "a VR system", I'd be happy to listen, but as far as I know I've held the same stance in this thread the entire time.



Around the Network
Lafiel on 20 August 2018
potato_hamster said:

Okay. So that HP Omni whatever from 1996.
Simple PDA? Check.
Simple mobile phone? Check.
Simple digital camera? Nope.
Simple music player? Nope.
Simple video player? Nope.
Simple navigation device? Nope.

Yet, it's still a smartphone. So by your own analogy, you should have no problem considering the Virtual Boy to be a VR headset.

the Virtual Boy has all the features of a personal 3D viewer like Sony's HMZ series and none of the additonal features a VR headset has, so it totally is a VR headset /s



potato_hamster on 20 August 2018
Lafiel said:
potato_hamster said:

Okay. So that HP Omni whatever from 1996.
Simple PDA? Check.
Simple mobile phone? Check.
Simple digital camera? Nope.
Simple music player? Nope.
Simple video player? Nope.
Simple navigation device? Nope.

Yet, it's still a smartphone. So by your own analogy, you should have no problem considering the Virtual Boy to be a VR headset.

the Virtual Boy has all the features of a personal 3D viewer like Sony's HMZ series and none of the additonal features a VR headset has, so it totally is a VR headset /s

Well, I mean, besides the features it does have in common with VR headsets. If we ignore those, you're right. Just because VR headsets have evolved since then to include things like head tracking or a wide field of view doesn't mean it wasn't widely considered to be a VR system at the time. Here. Let's ask Nintendo. From their original press release (emphasis mine).

https://www.planetvb.com/modules/advertising/?r17

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 1994--Nintendo, the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of video games, today announced the introduction of "Virtual Boy"(TM), the first virtual reality system developed and produced for the mass market. The RISC-based, 32-bit system utilizes two high-resolution, mirror-scanning LED (light emitting diode) displays to produce a 3-D experience not possible on conventional television or LCD screens.

Virtual Boy's unique design eliminates all external stimuli, totally immersing players into their own private universe with high-resolution red images against a deep black background. The 3-D experience is enhanced through stereophonic sound and a new specially designed, double-grip controller which accommodates multidirectional spatial movement.

Virtual Boy will be unveiled tomorrow at the Sixth Annual Shoshinkai Software Exhibition in Tokyo. The new product will be released in Japan in April of 1995 at a suggested retail price of 19,800 yen for the hardware system. Three cartridge-based software titles will be introduced at launch, followed by two to three new titles each month. The manufacturer's suggested retail price for the software will range from approximately 5,000 to 7,000 yen. Nintendo projects Virtual Boy sales in Japan of 3 million hardware units and 14 million software units by March of 1996.

Virtual Boy combines 3-D image immersion technology developed by Nintendo with proprietary display technology created by Reflection Technology Inc. of Waltham, Mass., and licensed exclusively within the video game market to Nintendo on a worldwide basis. Reflection is a recognized leader in miniaturized display products and holds exclusive worldwide patents for technology that incorporates color matrix LED (light emitting diode) displays which, when combined in the stereoscopic Virtual Boy, produce a complete 3-D experience.

"It has always been Nintendo's strategy to introduce new hardware systems only when technological breakthroughs allow us to offer innovative entertainment at a price that appeals to a worldwide audience," said Nintendo Co. Ltd. President Hiroshi Yamauchi. "Virtual Boy delivers this and more. It will transport game players into a 'virtual utopia' with sights and sounds unlike anything they've every experienced -- all at the price of a current home video game system."

Virtual Boy is a standalone, table-top unit which does not connect to a television screen. It is powered by six AA batteries. Accessories will include an AC adaptor and a rechargeable battery adaptor, which will be sold separately.

Nintendo's U.S. subsidiary, Nintendo of America, will officially unveil Virtual Boy hardware and software at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (WCES) on Jan. 6, 1995, in Las Vegas. The product will be released in the Western Hemisphere in April of 1995. Manufacturer's suggested retail prices will be announced at the WCES.

"We are very confident of the market potential for Virtual Boy," said Nintendo of America Chairman Howard Lincoln. "Nintendo is extremely excited with the tremendous opportunity which this exclusive technology affords."

Reflection Technology Inc. is a world leader in virtual display technology and mobile messaging. Reflection develops and markets virtual displays and products that incorporate these displays. Reflection's patented Scanned Linear Array (SLA) displays are being used in a new generation of products that are expanding the horizon of the telecommunications and consumer electronics markets.

Nintendo Co. Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan, is the leader in the worldwide $15 billion retail video game industry. As a wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere where more than 40 percent of American homes own a Nintendo system. -0-

Virtual Boy is a trademark of Nintendo.



Lafiel on 20 August 2018
potato_hamster said:
Lafiel said:

the Virtual Boy has all the features of a personal 3D viewer like Sony's HMZ series and none of the additonal features a VR headset has, so it totally is a VR headset /s

Well, I mean, besides the features it does have in common with VR headsets. If we ignore those, you're right. Just because VR headsets have evolved since then to include things like head tracking or a wide field of view doesn't mean it wasn't widely considered to be a VR system at the time. Here. Let's ask Nintendo. From their original press release (emphasis mine).

Even years before the Virtual Boy was released there were headsets with headtracking, which ment the user could be placed inside a world (with real scales etc) instead of the user simply seeing a small scene in 3D infront of them. Nintendo marketed the VB as VR, but it never was that.

The VB is simply put a "weird looking" 3D monitor.

Last edited by Lafiel - on 20 August 2018

potato_hamster on 20 August 2018
Lafiel said:
potato_hamster said:

Well, I mean, besides the features it does have in common with VR headsets. If we ignore those, you're right. Just because VR headsets have evolved since then to include things like head tracking or a wide field of view doesn't mean it wasn't widely considered to be a VR system at the time. Here. Let's ask Nintendo. From their original press release (emphasis mine).

Even years before the Virtual Boy was released there were headsets with headtracking, which ment the user could be placed inside a world (with real scales etc) instead of the user simply seeing a small scene in 3D infront of them. Nintendo marketed the VB as VR, but it never was that.

The VB is simply put a "weird looking" 3D monitor. The 3DS has a better claim to be VR, although I think it's capabilities were never used in such a way.

Just because there was much better VR headsets at the time doesn't mean that the Virtual Boy wasn't VR. At the time it was widely considered to be VR, and I cen remember reading many articles and magazines that said as much, and it still is considered "VR" by many today (and again, no one is saying it was good or even decent VR even for the time).

You don't make the rules about what constitutes "VR" and what doesn't.  The consensus amongst the gaming industry and media alike at the time, both before and after its demise, called it a "VR system". I don't see any reason to change that just because 20 years later, modern VR solutions blow it out of the water in every way imaginable.

Let me put it to you this way: Imagine in 15 years time, someone looked back on the GTX 1050 graphics card and said "That wasn't a real graphics card. It didn't do real time ray tracing,  it didn't play AAA games at the time in 4K at ultra settings,it doesn't do (insert 15 years of advancement here), and look there were better graphics processing solutions at the time that did real time ray tracing, 4K, and other things the 1050 didn't do! It has the same feature set in common with this more modern APU. nVidia marketed it as a graphics card but it never was. The GTX is simply put a "weird looking" APU!" They would be laughed at. Because it's horseshit.

Last edited by potato_hamster - on 20 August 2018

Lafiel on 21 August 2018
potato_hamster said:
Lafiel said:

Even years before the Virtual Boy was released there were headsets with headtracking, which ment the user could be placed inside a world (with real scales etc) instead of the user simply seeing a small scene in 3D infront of them. Nintendo marketed the VB as VR, but it never was that.

The VB is simply put a "weird looking" 3D monitor. The 3DS has a better claim to be VR, although I think it's capabilities were never used in such a way.

Just because there was much better VR headsets at the time doesn't mean that the Virtual Boy wasn't VR. At the time it was widely considered to be VR, and I cen remember reading many articles and magazines that said as much, and it still is considered "VR" by many today (and again, no one is saying it was good or even decent VR even for the time).

You don't make the rules about what constitutes "VR" and what doesn't.  The consensus amongst the gaming industry and media alike at the time, both before and after its demise, called it a "VR system". I don't see any reason to change that just because 20 years later, modern VR solutions blow it out of the water in every way imaginable.

Let me put it to you this way: Imagine in 15 years time, someone looked back on the GTX 1050 graphics card and said "That wasn't a real graphics card. It didn't do real time ray tracing,  it didn't play AAA games at the time in 4K at ultra settings,it doesn't do (insert 15 years of advancement here), and look there were better graphics processing solutions at the time that did real time ray tracing, 4K, and other things the 1050 didn't do! It has the same feature set in common with this more modern APU. nVidia marketed it as a graphics card but it never was. The GTX is simply put a "weird looking" APU!" They would be laughed at. Because it's horseshit.

Your example doesn't hold any water. Graphics cards have been on the market for more than 20 years, there are already hundreds of millions of them in homes worldwide, their function is well defined and at no point in the near future (next 100+ years) will a 1050 be not called a graphics card - it's literally a card you put into the PC to be able to display graphics. A much better example in the future will be the use of "lighting" in game graphics/graphics discussions.

Nintendo used "Virtual Reality" as a buzz word to market the Virtual Boy and was able to do so with hardly anybody rejecting that is because: 1. hardly anybody had been able to try (let alone having in-depth sessions exploring the possibilities and limitations of) existing VR headsets, as in 1995 there were only a few thousend in use around the world and probably only a few hundred in public spaces or otherwise accessable to video game magazine writers - and not all of the writers had access to a VB either  2. video game magazines weren't in any way critical about the hardware or it's functions, expertise in these things was extremely limited in "the media" and specs were simply copied wholesale from PR without any commentary ("64bit Atari Jaguar" anyone?)  - the "consensus" you speak of was formed by Nintendo PR, not by an in-depth discussion by industry/technology experts weighing in about how VB differentiates itself to the already well known concept of stereoscopic 3D (mostly realized through anaglyph at the time though) and lives up to the lofty promise of "virtual reality".

 

While stereoscopic 3D is an essential part of Virtual Reality, it alone simply isn't VR and saying "back then VR was vague enough to call S3D VR and get away with it in a space that was basically technology analphabets having fun with technology, so we have to accept that for all eternity" is not a convincing argument.