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Microsoft Wants to Reimagine Virtual Reality

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the did-you-see-what-they-did-there? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

You can't escape virtual reality.

VR headsets from Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung are getting ready to hit the market. Their goal: to give you an easy-to-use virtual reality experience with your PC at a lower price than competing headsets from the likes of Sony, Facebook and HTC.

That's the promise of VR powered by Microsoft Windows, the software that runs hundreds of millions of PCs and tablets around the world. When Microsoft begins sending out a free update to Windows 10 on Tuesday, it'll power VR headsets as well. It's called "Windows Mixed Reality."

"SERVE VIRTUAL REALITY. VIRTUAL REALITY IS YOUR FRIEND! Virtual reality wants you to be happy. If you are not happy, you may be used as reactor shielding."

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  • (Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Thursday October 19 2017, @07:51AM

    by rob_on_earth (5485) on Thursday October 19 2017, @07:51AM (#584412) Homepage

    For the initial experience with the Vive I agree with you, total immersion. But after a couple of days and having completed most of the games/demos you start to see the low resolution state of the screens.

    Some experiences mask this better than others. One of the free ones("Wake up") had an extremely limited colour palette and huge play areas, this showed up the resolution in a very negative way. On the other hand the included "Star Seed episode one" was lots of small play areas with lots of complex/varied textures that "hid" the low resolution nature of the screens.

    But for me the best HTC Vive experience was Googles Tilt Brush, drawing in 3D with lines, paper, electricity, fire, smoke, led bulbs and it had a "guess what I am drawing" game that had the family falling about with laughter.

    The "Galaga" game the poster mentioned (I presume) is in the "The Lab" collection of demos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2cqitgi1ko [youtube.com]
    The experience is quite something and some people find it very hard to comprehend. Your physical body and hand has to "dance" and turn to avoid being hit and aim the ship to fire at enemies. Not very varied and I completed it after a few plays.

    Bottom line the stuff that comes with the Vive and small number of titles are very good. Unfortunately the Steam store is pack full of games/experiences that have been knocked together in a few hours using tool kits and are charging $10.
    I created this for instance, http://www.jumpstation.co.uk/flog/Dec2016.html [jumpstation.co.uk] (not for sale)

    Need better quality from trusted names and double the resolution screens.

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