Beijing time on October 12, news, Sony's virtual reality headset PlayStation VR is about to go global on Thursday. Foreign media have published an article stating that, after years of not introducing breakthrough products, Sony hopes to use VR to speed up the company’s comeback. The reason why the outside world is optimistic about Sony is because Sony is very good in terms of games, music, and movie content. The lesson of 3D TV shows that content should be introduced quickly after the hardware is listed. Sony executives have repeatedly returned the engineer's prototype to increase comfort and control the price of equipment at $400.
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For Sony, the launch of the virtual reality headset PlayStation VR on Thursday meant the company was trying to regain lost aura.
It has been a long time since Sony’s last launch of products that attracted global attention. It may not have received such attention since the introduction of the first-generation PlayStation game console in 1994. After cutting back on the loss-making business, Sony has turned a profit, but it is even more confusing that Sony can restore its glory.
This is why Sony has invested thousands of employees in its VR project over the past four years. Under the leadership of two veterans who have been with the company for 30 years, PlayStation VR, which sells for $399, will be available globally on Thursday.
The PlayStation VR needs to work with the PS4, but Sony thinks video games are just one use for the device. With VR, travelers can preview the highlights of the journey in advance, and students can return to the dinosaur era through time.
“VR is a door that opens your dream world,†said Sony VR ambassador Shuhei Yoshida, one of the two veterans who lead Sony’s VR business.
Games and Entertainment Business Makes Most Profits for Sony
However, Sony first had to convince consumers that they needed a VR headset. Some people have found that such a head-mounted device is somewhat heavy and easy to wear. Sony executives of Nintendo's rivals said that the head-mounted device technology has not matured enough to reach the mainstream.
For some people, VR technology reminds them of 3D TV. The latter is another technique that has been scrambled by Sony and other companies, but it has not gained wide appeal.
This is one of the many blows Sony has suffered in the past 20 years. The most painful thing for Sony is the success of Apple's iPod and iPhone. Music players and portable electronic devices have long been Sony's specialty and can be traced back to transistor radios and walkman. However, Apple seized the market through the integration of hardware and software.
VR creates opportunities for Sony
VR has created an opportunity for Sony to make a comeback, partly due to Sony's strength in entertainment software such as video games, movies and music. “Sony has the most chance to be a leader in the VR industry because Sony is still a strong electronics and entertainment company,†said Minatake Kashio, director of Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a research company.
Analysts see PlayStation VR as the first VR headset device specifically targeted at consumers. They believe that the Oculus Rift, which costs $599 for Facebook, and the V799, which costs $799 for HTC, are more suitable for professional developers because these devices require powerful computers to work with.
Facebook spokesman declined to comment. According to HTC, Vive provides players with the most immersive VR experience by providing sitting, standing, and house tracking settings, attracting consumers.
PlayStation VR R&D process
Sony has paid special attention to ergonomics since the start of the VR project. Sony's VR product is based on the PlayStation Move, which is a motion tracking controller for the PS3. However, the PlayStation Move has not been commercially successful. Sony's few engineers in California began testing it to track head movements in 2010. By 2012, the study had become a formal project, and Sony employees conducted research and development separately in Tokyo and London.
As one of the principals of this project, Yoshida Hirayaki, 52, a software expert, joined the Sony PlayStation division one year before the first generation PlayStation console was launched in 1994.
Yoshida Shohei is a game executive who plays games in his spare time. Not long ago, a TV crew thought that he was an unknown fan of the game and interviewed him at a player fan campaign. Later on when the show was broadcast, he was indeed a man in his 50s. By his colleagues often hang around.
He pushed hard for the development of a feature that allows players who wear VR devices to interact with players who watch games on the TV in the same room. When the hardware team encountered obstacles in the development process, he asked the staff to come up with an expedient, using PS4 and PlayStation Vita handhelds.
"What I want to prove is that you don't need to cut off the connection with other worlds when using VR devices," Yoshida Hirayu said in an interview. This function was eventually adopted.
Product price controlled at $400
For the 54-year-old hardware supervisor Masayasu Ito, the engineer’s request left him with a headache. Similar to Yoshida Yoshida, Ito Yakang joined Sony in 1986. As a former car audio engineer, he had to control the desire of engineers to add expensive features to their hardware, such as cutting-edge displays, which would make it difficult to control the price of the device to within $400.
Ito Yakang said that he has repeatedly returned to the prototype sent by the engineers to improve the comfort of the equipment, trying to use one-handed operation of the locking mechanism to balance the weight of the equipment.
"The user experience must be placed first, and its priority is higher than the technical configuration," he said in an interview.
Strict requirements were exchanged for good reviews, and preliminary evaluations of PlayStation VR won praise. At the same time, new problems have emerged: Can it expand its scope of use not only as a niche product for senior players?
Sony and external developers plan to launch more than 50 compatible games for PlayStation VR by the end of this year, including EA’s Star Wars game. Capcom will release the VR version of the popular game "Resident Evil" in January next year.
Analysts said that if there is no more content support, PlayStation VR will face the same danger as 3D TV. "Game publishers should develop high-quality content for the VR platform only," said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at the Ace Institute for Economic Research. "The lesson that we learned from 3D TV is that this content should be available soon after the hardware platform is launched. ."