PlayStation VR is a few games away from being ready for prime time

The PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco this weekend is one of the biggest opportunities to date for the public to check out PlayStation VR -- more than a dozen titles are on display here, including titles from Sony, Harmonix, Capcom and more. Unfortunately, it hasn't been easy for those at the show to actually try those games out. Attendees were able to sign up ahead of time and reserve a slot to try the PlayStation VR experience, but a glitch in Sony's database erased all those reservations, leaving a bunch of excited fans figuratively out in the cold.





But that hasn't dampened a general vibe of excitement for Sony's VR efforts. Some of the biggest cheers of the first day's two-hour keynote came for the VR titles shown off, and a number of fans I spoke to around the show were ready to dive into the VR movement, sight unseen. "I'm absolutely going to buy one," an attendee named Shaun tells me right before Sony's VR panel, despite the fact that he hasn't tried it yet. "The potential has totally sold me on it."
Another show-goer named Nick felt the same way. "I'm ready for that feeling of being totally immersed in the world," he told me. "Reality isn't the right word for it, but making believable experiences in VR is something I'm really excited for." His words echoed comments made by a number of participants on Sony's VR panel. Dave Raynard (game director from Sony's London Studio) said his goal when building a VR game is "to transport the player to this other place and make that believable." While there's been a lot of focus on making VR match reality, Raynard believes that VR "doesn't have to be realistic, but it has to be believable."
While most people I talked to had a positive first reaction when I asked them how they felt about VR, there were also a lot of feelings of potential skepticism. "I don't see myself playing through [games like] Batman orUncharted in VR," said an attendee named P.J. Maybe more in-depth VR games will change that opinion, but that's something that we're still waiting for, even though PlayStation VR is launching next year. "I'm kind of torn" says PlayStation fan Sammy while playing some games on his Vita. "I'm still waiting for a real killer app." A woman named Claudia echoed those sentiments, saying that "it's all too basic right now; I haven't seen anything I really want to play."

There's a lot of enthusiasm for PlayStation VR, but gamers are still waiting for games that don't feel like tech demos.

Fortunately, now that VR technology is relatively proven and reaching a consumer-ready level, game developers have been focusing on higher-quality experiences. But for the most part, nearly everything I've seen around the show is still little more than tech demos rather than anything that you'd want to play more than once. I tried a driving simulatorDriveclub VR that was startlingly realistic -- I felt palpable panic when I lost control of my car, and my brain expected my body to move when I hit the brakes or went around a turn. That disconnect was a bit jarring, but I definitely had moments where it truly felt like I was driving.



http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/06/p...from-psx-2015/