The two giants attach great importance to the new generation of consoles, and fans of each company are also comparing the parameters and other information now exposed, as if it is an arms race. In this console war, the two companies have completely different attitudes towards VR games, which are called future game forms.
According to Bloomberg news, after launching the new PS5 at the end of this year, Sony will release a new version of PSVR. Sony has recently been exposed to a new facial tracking patent for PSVR: it can feed the user’s facial expressions into the game in real time, which has also led to speculation that it will be used in the next-generation PSVR. The head of Microsoft's Xbox has made it clear that he has a negative attitude towards VR and that the new generation of consoles does not intend to support VR.
This article will start from VR games and discuss the impact of the improvement of players' overall hardware level on the VR game industry after the release of new generation consoles, as well as the opposing views of the two giants Microsoft and Sony on VR games.
This article is the first part, mainly describing the quality of current VR games and players' recognition of VR games.
Most people should have heard of or briefly experienced VR games. Compared with the extremely huge total number of game players, the number of VR game players seems not worth mentioning, but VR games are the future game industry There seems to be no doubt about the development trend. So from the perspective of game quality alone, how are VR games developing today?
There are many standards for evaluating the quality of games. This article only selects some of the "3A game" standards that are widely circulated among players to evaluate VR games:
Split the above content Later we found that the evaluation criteria are mainly divided into three categories
1. Player perception/experience level: VR games can achieve comprehensive upgrades in this aspect to meet players’ pursuit of further game immersion, but it is limited Regarding technology, the current actual experience is relatively average.
2. Game design level: It has little relevance to the classification of VR games themselves. It mainly depends on what team is doing it and how much investment is required.
3. Software and hardware ecological level: There are many similarities and differences between the VR game ecology and the traditional game ecology. Generally speaking, the development of the industry is still in its infancy. Both game production and hardware development/distribution require certain skills. time.
Taken together, the VR game industry still lacks soil. There are many excellent works but the overall quality is low and the actual experience of the equipment is average.
Let’s talk about the answer first: excellent games will not lack players’ pursuit.
This article uses two phenomenal works in VR games, "Beat Saber" and "Half-Life: Alyx", to illustrate Are VR games really popular?
1. "Beat Saber (Rhythm Light Saber)"
If you ask what the highest quality VR game is, there may be different opinions, but the most popular VR game is "Beat Saber" 》It is estimated that not many people have objections.
Maybe you have never been exposed to VR games, but you have probably seen videos like this. The player wearing the headset wields two "sword hilts" to chop the oncoming bricks from various directions, and cooperates with the big Screen and music equipment, each action of the player cutting blocks corresponds to the time when the accent in the music appears. When the cutting action is connected with a series of accents, a dance step will naturally occur. Onlookers will feel that the game is full of futurism, and for players, this is indeed an unprecedented gaming experience.
"Beat Saber" won the title of Steam's 2019 Best VR Game, and also topped the PSVR 2019 download list. “Beat Saber” is extremely popular, and some even believe that the game broke the winter of VR games in 2018.
"Beat Saber" is a typical game that was "bought" by players with zero publicity from the developer and relied on word-of-mouth. Its success lies in its excellent sense of attack and rhythm feedback, as well as the combination of gameplay design and player physical strength. Combine and so on. In summary, this is: while ensuring excellent game quality, try to allow players to participate in the game process through rich body movements.
2. "Half-Life: Alyx (Half-Life/Half-Life: Alyx)"
"Half-Life: Alyx" was released on March 24 this year ( (hereinafter referred to as HLA) is more representative. Compared with the zero publicity of "Beat Saber", HLA was born with many auras. It is the sequel to the famous IP in the gaming industry, with a production team with extremely rich production experience. As an industry giant production company. There is currently no VR game that meets the definition of "AAA game" more than HLA.
Players have also shown positive feedback on this. In the week of its release, it ranked second in the weekly sales list of all games on Steam. At the same time, it also led to the emergence of its production company Valve’s VR suite, which was popular among players as soon as it was put on the shelves. Sold out scene.
HLA From the perspective of physical interaction, almost all objects in the game can be interacted with and have precise physical collisions. Judging from the game screen, it has been able to meet the standards of top "3A games". In terms of game details, physics system and other aspects, HLA has set a new benchmark. The famous foreign game media IGN gave "Half-Life: Alyx" a perfect score of 10. The reviewer believes that it will take a very long time for other VR works to catch up with "Half-Life: Alyx", let alone When can we transcend it?
These two examples illustrate two points very well:
1. The popularity of a game is not limited to the form of the game. The quality of the game is the final answer. In VR games It has achieved the point of ensuring excellent game quality while allowing players to participate in the game process through rich body movements as much as possible. There is no worry about no market.
2. "Beat Saber" shows that small-scale development teams also have great opportunities in the field of VR games, and HLA clearly reflects that "AAA VR games" are not just a mirror image.
VR games have good future development expectations, and even at this stage there is no shortage of high-quality game works that are popular among players. However, judging from the number of high-quality games and the quality of equipment, the VR game industry still has a lot to do. Long way to go.
This article is the first part of the series. The next article will focus on the main components of the VR game industry and the limiting factors for the development of the VR game industry today.