DIGITISER
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ

NINTENDO NX and PLAYSTATION VR: A TALE OF TWO TECHNOLOGIES - by Mr Biffo

16/3/2016

24 Comments

 
Picture
£349. That's a game changer. At that price, even a VR-sceptic like myself is tempted to join the party, even if it's just a case of sticking my head in the window surreptitiously, and unsettling the revellers by pointing at them and peeling back my lips.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about; Sony has officially announced that its PlayStation VR is going to be released in October, available immediately to its 35 million+ punters.

​The only upgrades they might need aside from the VR headset itself are maybe a PlayStation camera and a couple of Move controllers. And then they'll be ready to go and play the new - and exclusive - VR version of Star Wars Battlefront which also got announced yesterday.

See, here's the thing - I've got doubts about virtual reality. You know that. Lord knows I've whinged about it enough. I think the sensory, real-world, deprivation, is a massive issue for the average punter. Couple that to the enormous cost of a PC that's capable of running VR - even if you're an existing PC owner, the likelihood is that you'd still need to buy some new guts for your machine - and it seemed like an insurmountable hurdle.

Until yesterday.

Picture
TIPPING YARNS
It's all about the tipping points, see. When the pile of pros, or the pile of cons, gets significantly heavier than the other, see. This is how I saw it, see:

In VR's pros pile we had:
  • Incredibly cool technology.
  • Feels like the future.
  • Bragging rights.

In VR's cons pile:
  • Makes you look stupid.
  • You can't see or what's going on in the real world.
  • Extremely expensive.

For a while now - for me, and I suspect lots of others - the cons pile was heavier than the pros pile. £349 is still quite a lot of money, but Sony has managed to bring it lower than the psychological barrier that says "extremely". Suddenly, the cons have become a lot lighter.

Alright, the PlayStation VR won't be as powerful as the Oculus Rift - $200 more than the PSVR - or the HTC Vive - $400 more than the PSVR - but if we learned anything from Betamax vs VHS it's that regular people don't care about that. The graphics will still be pretty good, and at £349 people are going to be intrigued enough to give it a go.

Consequently, I no longer think that PlayStation VR is going to be a Mega CD, or a 32X. Providing the games keep coming with it - it's going to be massive. No question.

Frankly, Microsoft should be scared. But not as scared as Nintendo should be.

Picture
LEFT BEHIND
Here's my worry about Nintendo: it is starting to look increasingly last-world, as if it hasn't learned a thing.

Their stubborn adherence to an old way of doing things, of existing in their own little bubble, is at risk of making the company look like a relic.

Alright, technically Nintendo doesn't compete directly with Sony and Microsoft - you can't really place the Wii U in the same sort of bracket as the Xbox One and PS4 - but at the same token, of course it's a direct competitor, it's just that it's no longer a threat to either Microsoft or Sony. Let's not forget that the console market used to be about Sega vs Nintendo. The latter is only where it is now - on the fringes - because it got left behind.

Nobody really knows what the NX - Nintendo's next console - is going to be, but the top rumour seems to suggest some sort of console/handheld hybrid. Certainly, not a virtual reality-based system - and right now, VR is what's getting all the kids excited.

ANALYST
Michael Pachter is an analist - sorry, analyst - for Wedbush Securities, a financial services and investment firm. Pachter has a bit of a reputation for his outspoken comments regarding the games industry, and he isn't optimistic about the chances of the NX. 

Speaking to Gamingbolt he said: “You know, it’s sounding an awful lot like it’s a handheld and console hybrid, where you have a handheld and you do some stuff on it, and the console will be like an Apple TV or something, and you can pull games down from that.

"I would say based on Nintendo’s recent history, it is not going to be very good. I know they are pretty excited about it, but I would say it’s a backward looking technology, that is just not an improvement over everything else that we’ve got an option to do, and it will completely miss the point of games getting away from consoles.


"I think Nintendo is desperately clinging on to an old business model that is passing them by.”

PACHTER BASICS
Michael Pachter might be a professional troll, but in this instance his comments do echo my own fears. I don't want Nintendo to mess up. I want them to continue to produce their own machines. I mean, try imagining playing a brand new Mario or Zelda on a PlayStation 4. It would feel completely wrong. But Nintendo seems to exist in a bubble where it only has one eye on what's happening elsewhere in the world.

Yes, they want to put Nintendo products on smartphones... but given that they're simultaneously developing a new console, it's almost like they're putting their eggs in multiple baskets, and stretching themselves thin. There's a whiff of Nintendo feeling like the proverbial disco dad, the middle aged guy dancing by himself at the nightclub, in trousers and sensible shoes.

Sony - in one fell swoop with its PSVR announcement - has managed to make the Nintendo NX feel old fashioned, before anybody even knows what the Nintendo NX is.  

And if you need further proof, a leaked Nintendo patent, that's rumoured to show the NX technology, suggests a cross between Microsoft's ill-fated Kinect, and the equally ill-fated Wii U gamepad.

If anyone has any better ideas as to what the hell is going on below... our ears are peeled:
Picture
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
​THE NX STEPS: WHAT NINTENDO NEEDS TO DO
NINTENDO: LIFE BEFORE MARIO - A HISTORY
SEGA: LIFE BEFORE THE MASTER SYSTEM - A HISTORY
24 Comments
Chris
16/3/2016 12:25:30 pm

Fig. 14 makes it look like it has a built-in projector. However, the middle image ("IG.1") suggests the ability to wear a mobile phone as funky headgear.


I like the fact it can play "how many fingers am I holding up?"

Reply
Alastair Ward
22/3/2016 04:07:35 pm

Ha!

On second thought oh dear, I smell a slew of brain training games coming.

Reply
Col. Asdasd
16/3/2016 01:22:32 pm

Honestly, it just looks like another expensive fad. It's like we don't even remember going through this with Kinect, Move, Wii Motion Plus, 3D gaming, Kinect 2.0, various generations of music game peripherals..

One of the few remaining things that unites gaming as an industry and a culture is a seemingly bottomless appetite for the next heavily-marketed piece of plastic tat costing x hundred of your finest currency and destined in the long or not-so-long term for attics across the globe.

Reply
Mark
16/3/2016 01:33:00 pm

Sony always seem to be able to bring new tech to the masses at an affordable price but when it doesn't take off they quickly and quietly drop it .
I'm still hurting from the vita , ok it's still around but it's such a waste of space and Sony are not supporting it I will definitely hold on until it takes off properly

Reply
Rich
16/3/2016 01:35:13 pm

Looks like another feature only Nintendo will produce anything for. Probably a WarioWare and Party type game.

No idea why you'd stick it to the side of your head though.

Reply
Virtual Hermit link
16/3/2016 01:38:38 pm

Alas my pc ain't got the horse power for VR so I'm seriously tempted to get a Playstation VR instead. I have to remind myself that I haven't seen one game that looks interesting, no killer app, every game I have seen looks like fun for 5-20mins and then let's put this silly VR gadget away and play a proper game aye. Are there any meaty games coming to Playstaion VR? I try to find out but grow annoyed, I think I'm getting old.

As for Nintendo, I wish they would do a Sega and ditch the hardware and just publish/develop games instead the bloody stubborn idiots.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the prices of stuff on PSN makes me vomit, sure pre-order the PS VR headset, cheaper than the Vive and Oculus in'it mate, then take a loan out to buy some of those VR games with bloated prices.

Reply
Alastair Ward
22/3/2016 04:09:18 pm

Every time I look at the Reddit threads on making your own PC I flick back through the Argos catalogue and muse about how affordable and capable the PS4 looks in comparison.

Reply
Carl Harrison
16/3/2016 01:50:49 pm

I've pre-ordered it. I tried the Samsung Gear VR last night and was very impressed with just that alone. The thought of playing games is very enticing. I think This will be different as opposed to other peripherals Sony have done in the past that didn't last long (Eye Toy, Move etc) mainly due to the fact other companies are on board for VR beyond consoles. The price is is very good too compared to what is on offer for PC.

Reply
lilock3
16/3/2016 01:57:18 pm

As someone who doesn't currently own a PS4 (just PC and Nintendo consoles) there's still quite a high price barrier for me with VR and to me it doesn't seem worth it. I suppose that having experienced the "VR Light" that is the Nintendo 3DS, I see depth perception as a gimmick rather than a necessity in the games I like to play.

I tend to prefer 3rd to VR-friendly 1st person perspectives. The only thing I can think of that would make VR seem worthwhile to me would be some sort of vehicular experience; an arcade racer or aerial/space shoot-'em-up. They're not my go-to genres though, so even if I had already got a PS4, I'm not convinced I'd be making the leap if I had to cough up any more than one-hundred of those shiny pound coins.

As for Nintendo, so long as they produce games I want to play, I will continue to buy their machines, if there are no/not enough exclusive titles to justify that *cough-DSi-cough*, then I won’t. I appreciate that I’m a minority weirdo for liking what I do like, and that there are insufficient numbers of us to support a once major videogames company…

Reply
CdrJameson
16/3/2016 04:09:00 pm

I'm glad Nintendo aren't chasing the VR bandwagon and live in their own bubble. (cue: Nintendo immediately announcing VR bodysuit for £5.99) Doing their own thing is both a strength and a weakness, but it gave us the glorious DS and the Wii when MS/Sony were chasing the the same silly emphasis on graphical power and Poochie-tude.

I've had VR for nearly a year now and it's all a bit meh. Mostly it gathers dust (but not as effectively as a hoover), but that could be lack of games? I guess? It's qualitatively different from 3DS-3D, and gives an unparalleled sense of scale, but it still takes work to use it and a 2D screen just works better most of the time.

I had the same reaction to the 3DS when it came out when I was doing development on Nintendo stuff. After a very short period the devkits stayed with the 3D effect resolutely OFF, a finding that seemed to be the general use reaction too. It didn't help that if you caught sight of them out of the corner of your eye it felt like you were viewing a tear in the fabric of reality. Squamous!

Anyway, it works pretty well but it's still a major gimmick in the Kinect vein.

Reply
Panda
16/3/2016 06:12:09 pm

It's way too early to call just now. Not just whether Nintendo is too out of touch (the last five or six years suggests they are but we literally don't have a clue whether or not they've learned anything for the NX) but also because we don't know whether PS VR is going to work well. Sure, we know it's competitively priced and, piggybacking on the massive PS4 install base, it'll probably sell very well (at least at first) but the proof is in the games and those have yet to come, beyond easy ports and tech demos.

It's an interesting comparison to make for both the companies and I'd hope, at the very least, Nintendo have considered the danger of being completely overshadowed by more exciting sounding tech but even if the NX is just a boring set of non-progressive gimmicks, it doesn't mean its hypothetical failure will have anything to do with the PS VR unless that takes off as much as a bunch of execs are promising it will. Which is hardly a given.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
16/3/2016 06:12:51 pm

But Biffo... Betamax was a Sony product!

Dun dun dunnnnn!

(I have no point.)

Reply
Mr Biffo
16/3/2016 07:24:41 pm

Wha... wha... wahaaaaaa???

Reply
Damon link
16/3/2016 07:21:46 pm

I have an optic nerve imbalance which requires glasses to correct. I can't use 3D glasses unless I can wear them over my normal glasses. While I can function without them VR isn't going to work right if my eyes aren't aligned correctly. When VR headsets can be worn with glasses comfortably I might give it a go, but I already hate wearing hats and I remember the Virtual Boy. I kind of don't want a thing strapped to my head. I can already feel the neck pains.

Come to think of it every time Nintendo looks forward tech isn't where it needs to be and every time they use tech that is where it needs to be people say they're looking behind. I'd say on some level they must know the risk they're taking.

What I heard is that the NX is actually a cross-compatibility platform and not a console, though it will launch with a console built around it. What I'm saying is that I'm not sold on the idea the NX is one single machine, yet.

Then again for both the 3DS and WiiU a lot of the games I wanted on it game out very late in their life cycle so maybe I should just pull out of console gaming...

Reply
Mr Biffo
16/3/2016 07:24:20 pm

Apparently, PSVR works nicely over specs.

Reply
Damon link
16/3/2016 10:11:06 pm

Well I also am cursed to be a large person. Can it accommodate my large head *and* specs? I'd have to try one out. Also there's a chance that I would have trouble coping with a lack of tactile / haptic feedback. I actually had to use that on my phone's soft keyboard to realize when I've hit a button.

I know I sound grumbly but these are personal problems I have which I assume others must have -- why would phones ship with tactile feedback options if no one used them?

KaraVanPark
16/3/2016 07:32:15 pm

Everyone is drooling at the mouth, just assuming it'll work properly.

Reply
Dr Kank
16/3/2016 08:27:34 pm

I predict that the NX will be some kind of box or blanket or something that you put over a PS4 to make it look a bit more Nintendoey after you've downloaded Super Mario World off of the Playstation Network.

Reply
Retro Resolution link
17/3/2016 04:54:17 pm

Reminds me of a very young me sticking an upsude-down shoe box over a remote controlled car, and drawing something approximating the controls of Big Trak on it, as a jealous reaction to seeing my mate's new wonder-toy.

[Btw, am I missing an account creation step somewhere - quite a barrier-to-entry adding a name, email, and website for each and every comment]

Reply
Dr Kank
17/3/2016 06:17:40 pm

I just put my name in and that's it.

RR
17/3/2016 06:20:49 pm

Ah, stupidly I expected field validation rules to apply!

Dirty Barry
17/3/2016 03:36:02 am

Having been pretty underwhelmed by the Xbox One and PS4 so far, I was considering NX. After seeing that patent diagram, I'm not considering it anymore.

I can't believe they're trying the same gimmicky stuff again. Such a shame.

The PS4's VR seems a lot more interesting than just waving your hands at stuff. If well implemented, VR could be a wonderful thing.

Reply
Retro Resolution link
17/3/2016 04:48:24 pm

A wealthy friend bought an Oculus dev kit last year. He eventually got Alien Isolation and Elite: Dangerous working, which I tried out for ten minutes.
I tend to get motion sickness reading in a car, and sometimes on a train, and even playing fps games (n64 Doom and GameCube Time Splitters 2 especially, both due to overly-smooth 60fps visuals), so I expected a rough ride.
Sure enough, Elite had me nauseous within two minutes - but not before I'd had time to note and bemoan the low resolution and odd grid of dots on the display.
Alien was less vomit-inducing, but I wasn't in the mood, and insisted on trying to bludgeon the unkillable titular xenomorph, much to my mate's chagrin.
Shortly afterwards the expensive VR kit disappeared from the PC workstation, to join his other hoard of underused technical gubbins.
Unfortunately I think my motion sickness, and astigmatisms, and migraines, are going to leave me a bystander of the iteration of VR (not to mention the costs).

Reply
AcidBeard
18/3/2016 07:31:46 pm

Given the disappointing sales of the Wii U i'm hopeful that Nintendo know that if the NX fails then it will be their last console.

Basically all they really have to do is release a more traditional style console that equals but hopefully exceeds the PS4 in terms of power. They can always add/support VR later once the risk has been taken out of it by Sony et al. This is actually an advantage as they can create a superior product by iterating on any flaws of their competitors.

These are all big ifs though but given the consequences then they surely will get it right. Right? Unless that diagram is correct and the NX is actually a learning aid for performing the wanker sign correctly.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings:


    Current Number Of Columns are = 2

    Expand Posts Area =

    Gap/Space Between Posts = 12px

    Blog Post Style = card

    Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

    Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

    Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

    Picture
    Support Me on Ko-fi
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    RSS Feed Widget
    Picture

    Picture
    Tweets by @mrbiffo
    Picture
    Follow us on The Facebook

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ