According to The Verge, which was provided with a render of the new hardware, HTC is planning to reveal yet another consumer-focused virtual reality and augmented reality headset at CES 2023 next month, with features that will potentially rival the recently-announced Meta Quest Pro, including full-color passthrough video.
Although the full announcement and reveal is still a few weeks away, HTC teased some early details about the unannounced hardware to The Verge. Like the Meta Quest Pro and older Quest models, the headset will be a self-contained, all-in-one unit (unlike most of HTC’s other offerings, which requires a permanent connection to a gaming PC) with roughly two hours of battery life and support for controllers with six-degrees of detected motion, plus hand-tracking.
The unnamed headset will also include front-facing and side-facing cameras, allowing the wearer to still see their surroundings in full color, facilitating augmented reality and mixed reality experiences. That was arguably the most compelling reason to splurge on the recently announced, $1,500 Quest Pro, as Meta’s older headsets only provide a grainy, black and white video feed of a user’s surroundings to help ensure they don’t crash into anything (or anyone). However, the new HTC headset will potentially outperform the competition, with HTC promising enough detail to allow users to still read text on computers and smartphones through the passthrough video, while the addition of a depth sensor will also make it much better at accurately mapping a user’s surroundings and inserting virtual content into it.
The render of the new headset doesn’t provide too many additional details, although it doesn’t look substantially different to the recent HTC Vive Flow, which looked like an over-sized pair of safety glasses. That goes with hints HTC posted this October that its next big product will be compact and lightweight.
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HTC will also reveal details about the new headset’s pricing at CES, but Shen Ye, the company’s global head of product, told The Verge that it doesn’t plan to subsidize the hardware by collecting and selling users’ data, and as a result the new hardware will probably be considerably more expensive than the $400 Meta Quest 2. That’s good news for those who value their privacy, but it could make the new headset a tough sell for most consumers, who seem happy to trade privacy for heavily discounted hardware.”
Update 12/16/22 at 2:05 PM:
This article originally stated that the Vive Focus 3 required a PC connection, which is not the case. We regret the error.
With today’s launch of The Callisto Protocol, a consensus across the games media is that this is a decent PS5 Dead Space-like, but a terrible PC game. The reason being, the game is grimly stuttering, even on top-end machines. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to stutter, but you do need to switch off some bells and whistles.
This morning, Rock Paper Shotgun said that it could be a fun game “if it ran on PC,” Eurogamer suggested that “PC is almost unplayable,” while PC Gamer called it “a stuttering nightmare.” This is all reflected by The Callisto Protocol’s Steam page, which currently has the game sporting the deathly orange epithet “Mostly Negative,” based on over 4,000 player reviews.
The issue is, beyond anyone’s specific complaints about the game itself, that it runs like absolute garbage when you run it at settings your PC should happily support.
The Callisto Protocol launched on PC today with some pretty hefty spec requirements to see it running at its peak. While it purports to be able to run on graphics cards as low as a GeForce 1060 or Radeon RX 580, when you get to the top-end, it’s eye-watering. For what it weirdly calls “Max” settings (despite there being a level above that), it asks for a Radeon RX 6700XT or GeForce RTX 2070, running on either Ryzen 7 2700X or an i7-9700. For the beyond-maximum “Ultra” level, it suggests a rig running a Ryzen 9 3900X or i9-9900K, with either a Radeon RX 6900XT or a GeForce RTX 3080. It’s just, it seems that people who can match these requirements are not getting the performance they bargained for.
My PC, an increasingly modest Ryzen 5 5600X with a GeForce RTX 3070, comfortably meets the game’s “Recommended” specs of a Ryzen 5 3600 and GTX 1070, which would have me assume I should be able to enjoy some of the fancier options. For instance, I’d expect a bit of ray tracing action to be available, and to be able to reach beyond “Medium” in the default settings. Hey, my computer almost hits “Max”—this is not an unreasonable position!
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But bloody hell, it doesn’t. If I switch any amount of ray tracing on, or put the basic specs to “High,” the game runs at a very unsteady 12fps. It’s laughably bad, and it’s very easy to see why people are immediately upset about their $60.
Image: Striking Distance Studios
The good news is, I’m pretty certain anyone meeting those Recommended specs will be able to run the game, if they’re willing to make some fidelity sacrifices.
Now, I absolutely must stress that PC launch days are always a clusterfuck of fury, because given the near-infinite permutations of PC hardware, there will always be a sizable contingent of players who hit upon a setup a developer didn’t test for. So, I’ve no way of being certain if my (admittedly fairly generic) machine might have just lucked out here, but I suspect not. More significantly, I’ve no way of knowing if your setup is one that will hit a glitch until patches are out. That all said, try this out:
On the main menu (and note: you can’t access most of the options while in-game), select Options, then Graphics. At the bottom of the list is Run Benchmark, which will stress-test the game against your PC. Mine, no matter how much it should have done better, told me it recommended I “enable FSR2 Performance mode.” Again, it’s Options – Graphics, and then Advanced. In there, at the top of the list, is “Upscaling.” Mine was set to “Temporal,” which I assume stops the game from traveling through time. However, it’s this I needed to change, to “AMD FSR 2.”
With that done, I could then change the next setting, “FSR 2 Quality Mode,” down from the pleasing-sounding “Quality” to the much more disappointing “Performance.”
That done, the game transformed. I’m now able to play it at a pretty steady 60fps, occasionally dipping to 45 for a glitchy couple of seconds when entering a new area, but then quickly bumping back up to 60fps.
Honestly, it still looks pretty great. I mean, if you like grim, grimy spaceships splattered in mutated corpses and viscera. I really wasn’t aware what I was missing, although I expect it was better reflections in the pools of human blood, and maybe more bristles on the rugged faces of the ship’s frantic crew.
That said, no, of course this isn’t good enough. Either the specs were wildly inaccurate, or the game is in desperate need of a huge amount of patching. Which is always especially frustrating when there’s a PS5 version out there, running without any of these issues.
We’ve reached out to publishers Krafton to ask when we might expect a patch.
As of last week, a long-held dream of playing Valve’s landmark 2004 shooter Half-Life 2 in virtual reality has finally come to fruition. The journey began nearly 10 years ago, when a man named Nathan Andrews managed to hack together a functioning version of the all-time classic in VR. This was before any Vives, Indexes, Quests, or Oculi. With a primitive Sony HMZ-T1 and specialized motion-tracking gear, Andrews risked a resonance cascade scenario to splice together a working foundation for a full Half-Life 2 VR mod. Over the next decade, dozens of volunteers would contribute to the off-then-on-again project, all in hopes of one day bashing enemies with a crowbar in semi-lifelike virtual reality.
And now Half Life 2: VR Mod is ready to play, thanks to the hard work of the Source VR Mod Team and their free, open beta available on Steam. There’s more work to be done for sure—a public roadmap shows what’s to come—but the entire main campaign is already up and running, and pretty surreal to experience. Sharp corners and all, Half-Life 2: VR Mod is well worth checking out right now if you can.
The differences are quite immediate. The G-Man’s opening scene grants a whole other sense of scale since you have active depth perception. Images flash and appear inside of him as fully realized 3D spaces, which you can actually peer inside of and see with greater depth and dimension. This new presentation grants more weight to the whole scene.
Gif: Valve / Source VR Mod Team / Kotaku
As a video game graphics experience in VR, it’s super cool. Your eyes can track flying debris and exploding barrels with the ease and speed of just turning your head. The violence and realistic physics of Half-Life 2 are no longer just simulations appearing on a screen in front of you; they’re happening in a 3D space you feel a sense of presence and dimension in. It all feels so natural that it’s easy to forget this is the end result of a decade of hacked tech created by enthusiastic fans.
And while there’s still more work to be done on the weapons, it is a thrill to be able to virtually hold, examine, and fight with these classic video game armaments. Smashing the aggressive, flying manhacks with a crowbar in VR is so obscenely fun that I want a mini spin-off mod of this alone. And my Fitbit tells me I’m earning “Zone Minutes” by whacking these things. The 9mm pistol feels fun to aim and shoot (and yes, I am only aiming with one hand). More modern VR games tend to have smoother reload mechanics, so this mod’s feel a bit clunky sometimes, but the action remains just as hectic and fun.
Half-Life 2 VR Mod Brings City 17 To Life
In a way it feels like Half-Life 2 was always supposed to be this way. It is very easy to lose yourself in this mod, both as a VR experience and a Half-Life one. It easily pushes past the status of “tech demo” or “mod,” feeling like it’s shaping up to be a solid VR game in its own right.
The Half-Life 2: VR Mod project is currently being worked on by users from the Flatscreen to VR Discord server, led by WormSlayer, whose involvement goes back to the earliest days of the project. Back then, WormSlayer caught sight of Andrews’ early prototypes and offered his talents, starting with work on the gun models.
WormSlayer’s description of the mod’s early days sounds like something you’d need to slap together to survive City 17 itself. The assemblage of tech included a “Sony head-mounted TV, a gun controller for a console, and a professional 3D tracking system [Andrews] had access to,” WormSlayer told Kotaku. That headset in question was the Sony HMZ-T1, which sported “an eye-watering resolution of 640×720 per eye, and a 45-degree field of view,” WormSlayer said. That headset would be left behind in favor of the Oculus DK1, the first hardware the just-incorporated Oculus (now Meta) ever released. You can see footage from those early days in a 2013 YouTube video.
Nathan Andrews
As such an early consumer VR experiment, the project was destined for some roadbumps as new tech hit the scene, quickly aging out existing standards. “Valve and Oculus both abandoned the idea of treating a VR headset as just another monitor,” WormSlayer said. “This was a sound idea for many reasons, but it effectively broke VR support in Half-Life 2.”
After that switch up, the team gave up for a while. Andrews retired from the project entirely. Eager VR community members, however, persuaded WormSlayer to reconsider dropping it all together. “[They] were confident they could hack OpenVR support into the old project,” WormSlayer said. And so the project sparked to life again, making great progress before once again resuming its slumber as essential contributors moved on.
Thankfully, the nascent Half-Life 2: VR Mod would indeed see a second resurgence when the Flatscreen to VR community mustered up a new team. Now that the public beta is out and playable, they’re focusing their efforts on bringing the project to a fully polished and finalized state.
As playable and fun as it is right now, Half-Life 2: VR Mod still has some issues, primarily regarding performance. “The old engine is very single-threaded and only supports DirectX 9, so even with our hacked-together DXVK implementation, we’ve been fighting to hit FPS targets in some places,” WormSlayer said. While I’ve yet to get to some of the more chaotic scenes of the game’s latter half, I’ve found performance so far to be quite good. Given that there’s no teleport-style movement option, however, this mod might be tough on the stomach if you’re new to VR.
Ultimately, the physics and tech of Half-Life 2 are still a joy to play with 18 years later. VR only amplifies the physicality of its world, with the ability to virtually pick up and manipulate objects. Half-Life 2: VR Mod is no Half-Life: Alyx in terms of the sheer amount of interactable objects, but it fits in well as a VR-worthy prequel. And with the addition of the crowbar and a head-mounted flashlight, it has more than a few features and comforts of its own. Being able to virtually manipulate objects in the world is a refreshing way to revisit many of the game’s puzzles.
The most surprising thing for me, however, was how this experience is affecting my perception of the game’s characters, especially the silent protagonist himself.
Gif: Valve / Source VR Mod Team / Kotaku
Gordon Freeman is a quiet guy even when he’s frantically destroying shit. But even just being able to nod at an NPC marks a 100% increase in inter-character interaction. Playing Half-Life 2 and being able to wave at Dr. Kleiner as he shouts with excitement upon seeing you makes me wonder: Is Gordon Freeman even a waver? Does he give a thumbs up to indicate he understands? Does he shake or nod his head when people talk to him? How have I never thought about this for all these years?
NPCs also look at you at eye level in a very eerie way. This feeling exists in other, more modern VR games, but it’s surprising to find it so present in a game from 2004. The simplicity of the models, with gentle head animations and eyes that give a hint of personality and awareness, just barely inches the game out of the uncanny valley into something that starts to feel realistic.
I’m not saying nodding, gesturing, and looking people in the eyes are the hot features you list on the back of the box (that’s saved for viciously beating the shit out of metal manhacks with a crowbar and seeing this classic game in true 3D), but it sure does change the tone of Half-Life 2. One nitpick here: It’s a shame you can’t see your hands while piloting the airboat. Not only did my eyes never leave the G-Man as I blazed past him in my escape from the Combine, I would’ve loved to stare and point dead at him, as if to say “I see you motherfucker. I see you.”
I’m looking forward to playing through the rest of Half-Life 2: VR Mod, spotting the unique changes the new format adds and inspires. There’s still work to be done by WormSlayer and the team, including more improvements to the weapons, tweaks to make the game a bit easier for folks prone to motion sickness, and even some AI-upscaled textures to give the more aged aspects of the graphics a bit of a facelift. Those changes will be very welcome, but for now this first playable version makes for a great way to jump back into this classic game. If you like Half-Life and own a PCVR headset, you should download this yesterday.
Sony’s PSVR for PlayStation 4, the first serious VR add-on for a console, did pretty darn well for itself. It was reasonably affordable, well received by players and critics alike, and got a lot more post-launch support than many prior PlayStation hardware efforts (RIP, dear Vita). Now, various outlets have gotten their first hands-on sessions with an early version of Sony’s upcoming PSVR2 for PlayStation 5. The anticipated new VR hardware doesn’t yet have an official price or launch date (just “early 2023”), but based on these impressions, it’s already making waves with critics.
A variety of outlets that got these hands-on demos describe the experience as being on par with presumably more powerful PC VR offerings from Valve or Meta. That said, it’s still going to be on Sony and other developers to create compelling games, and right now the new platform’s only exclusive experiences are a Horizon spin-off and a VR version of last year’s Resident Evil Village. The latter is playable for the first time in VR on Sony’s headset. There’s also a Walking Dead game and a Star Wars VR experience, both ports of prior PC/Quest VR games.
Overall, critics sound impressed, even wowed, by the experience. Among the qualities cited are the overall build quality and comfort, which seem to compete well with already-existing headsets. It’s still tethered, but the cable length sounds suitable enough. The graphical quality and overall “immersion,” in particular, are grabbing a lot of attention. One of the most bleeding edge features is the headset’s eye tracking, which allows the unit to optimize rendering based on where you’re looking, or in the future, lock gazes with other players. There’s also haptic feedback in the headset itself. Polygon notes that both features are used in Horizon, which is the most advanced showcase of the hardware so far.
Basically, it just needs some killer apps, and the quartet of existing demos sound like a solid start. Here are some highlights from each outlet’s hands-on impressions:
“Last week, I tried Sony’s new headset for the first time and was caught off guard by how stunning two of its marquee games, Horizon Call of the Mountain and Resident Evil Village, looked. They didn’t rely on particles or stylized art direction; they looked like AAA console games that just happened to be in VR. The past few years of playing Quest had recalibrated my expectations for how VR games should appear, and it was great to see games pushing forward visually once again without requiring an elaborate setup.”
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$663 Total Value
Humble Bundle 2K Megahits Game Bundle for Covenant House
Provide housing and supportive services to youth facing homelessness An array of games from 2K have been bundled together. You can pay what you want to support the cause, but if you want access to some of the big hits like Borderlands 3, The Bioshock Collection, XCOM: The Ultimate Collection, and Sid Meier’s Civilizatrion VI, you’ll have to pay at least $16. But hey, that’s hardly anything compared to the $663 value you’re getting from all 18 games combined.
“But what does it feel like to actually play games on the PSVR2, with all of its new bells and whistles? The actual PSVR2 hardware was a joy to use. Like most modern VR headsets, it lets you adjust the head strap to make sure everything rests comfortably on your noggin, and you can tweak the inter-pupillary distance (IPD) so that the actual lenses inside the headset are the right distance for you. The screens looked great, though things sometimes felt just a little bit hazy at the edges, which could also happen with the first PSVR.”
“Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That’s the word that keeps springing to mind when I try to sum up my time with PlayStation VR2. As a fervent fan of VR for many years now, it’s safe to say that my first hands-on experience with Sony’s upcoming headset wowed my VR-loving socks off. This sleek and stylish unit was all I could have wanted for an upgraded PSVR headset and much, much more.
In terms of technological and visual quality, this feels like one of the more memorable generational console leaps. Experiencing the difference in visuals between the PSVR1 and the PSVR2 brought back memories of graduating to the sparkly, sharp, high-definition games of a PS3 after spending years playing games on the PS2 in standard definition.”
“Sony has touted much higher visual fidelity for PSVR2, which, for the tech-spec obsessed people out there, amounts to an OLED display that offers a resolution of 2000×2040 per eye, HDR, refresh rates of 90Hz and 120Hz, and a 110-degree field of view. This is all impressive on paper, but when you experience it with the headset on, it’s a bit of magic.
The level of detail on display was genuinely overwhelming, mostly because I didn’t expect it from a VR game. I know how dismissive that sounds of all the VR games out there, of which there are certainly more than a few impressive-looking ones. However, there’s a clear line between the way a VR game and a non-VR game look—there’s a level of richness, detail, and polish that separates the two. Horizon Call of the Mountain blurs that line on PSVR2.”
“PlayStation VR2 thankfully feels like a modern entry into the VR landscape, with top-notch visual fidelity and comfortable ergonomics. Its haptics and adaptive triggers, if implemented well, will be a welcome addition to the immersive experience. As with all new pieces of hardware, the question now falls to whether there will be enough games to make the investment worth it. First-party games like Horizon Call of the Mountain certainly help assuage those fears, and while nothing has been announced yet, I would be shocked if the outstanding Half-Life: Alyx didn’t make its way to the platform.”
It’s always worth rooting around down the side of the bed, or in the drawers, when you stay in a hotel room. Who knows what exciting items may have been forgotten by the previous guest? Like, for instance, a top-secret Oculus VR headset. That’s what happened to hotel worker Ramiro Cardenas, who claims to have discovered and revealed to the world that Project Cambria is most likely due to be called the Meta Quest Pro. Then he made an unboxing video.
The headset was originally teased last October, with the Project Cambria moniker, when Mark Zuckerberg said it would be sold at the “high end of the price spectrum.” At the time, we learned that it would possess cameras that send high-res full-color video to its screens, alongside face and eye-tracking, and all manner of exciting algorithms.
OCULUS QUEST PRO!!!!
Now, a full month before its intended announcement date, the new device is available for all to see thanks to one especially forgetful hotel guest. A very excited Ramiro Cardenas, who posted the video as Zectariuz Gaming, pulls the new headset and handheld controllers from their box, while whispering in delight.
This new-look Meta Quest Pro headset looks like something a mad inventor would wear in a 1980s Disney live-action movie about a man who accidentally invents time travel. The controllers, meanwhile, seem to have dropped the hollow hoop design of the Meta Quest 2 and gone for a much simpler, neater form-factor.
While covering up identifying details, the pictures accompanying the video do include one that reveals the legend, “NOT FOR RESALE – ENGINEERING SAMPLE.” It’s in pretty swish packaging considering! But it does suggest the product may be close to release.
Project Cambria
The Verge reports that Cardenas told them he was able to reunite the headset with the person who had stayed in the hotel room, but not before—you know—uploading photos and a video of the device to Facebook to blow up Meta’s plan to reveal it during October’s Meta Connect.
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$663 Total Value
Humble Bundle 2K Megahits Game Bundle for Covenant House
Provide housing and supportive services to youth facing homelessness An array of games from 2K have been bundled together. You can pay what you want to support the cause, but if you want access to some of the big hits like Borderlands 3, The Bioshock Collection, XCOM: The Ultimate Collection, and Sid Meier’s Civilizatrion VI, you’ll have to pay at least $16. But hey, that’s hardly anything compared to the $663 value you’re getting from all 18 games combined.
It’s quite the coincidence that Cardenas, and his Zectariuz Gaming page, had already taken a keen interest in the various forms of the Oculus. We have reached out to him to ask how this serendipitous event occurred.
We have of course also reached out to Meta to ask if they’ll bring forward the Pro’s announcement now, and indeed whether they’ll be mounting the engineer’s head on a pike outside their HQ. (We might not have phrased it exactly like that.)
Apple’s WWDC event came and went without any mention of an AR/VR headset, but that hasn’t slowed the influx of reports and rumors surrounding this highly anticipated product. Despite the first model’s absence, we’re now learning about Apple’s second-generation mixed reality headset.
I appreciate your collective eye-rolling and exasperated sighs, but this newest report doesn’t come from a random Twitter user coming up with specs and numbers. Rather, it was reported by the reliable South Korean outfit The Elec, which claims LG Display will attempt to supply the micro OLED panel for Apple’s sophomore headset.
Why not the first model? Sony is reportedly supplying the main micro OLED panel for the original mixed reality headset while LG will provide an outer OLED “indicator” screen.
LG wants to get more involved and will try to overtake Sony as the primary supplier for the main micro OLED display on the second-generation headset. This could benefit Apple as it attempts to distance itself from a potential rival—Sony is already a major player in the VR space with its PlayStation VR headset.
LG is reportedly prepping its micro OLED displays by ordering deposition equipment from Sunic System. It will use those tools to manufacture micro OLED panels for Apple’s second-gen headset.
What is micro OLED?
As The Elec explains, micro OLED mounts an OLED layer on a silicon substrate whereas conventional OLED panels mount them on glass. With crystal silicon as their backplane, micro OLED panels can be thinner and consume less power, while delivering excellent picture quality with perfect black levels and high brightness. micro OLED is expected to be the technology of choice for upcoming mixed reality headsets.
But this nascent screen technology combined with other advanced features (M-series processors, two 8K displays, a dozen sensors) isn’t cheap. It will reportedly raise the price of Apple’s upcoming AR/VR headset to a ridiculous $3,000. That’s another zero added to the price of the Oculus Quest 2, the current leader in the space.
We anticipated some mention of AR/VR at Apple’s WWDC event last week, but it never came. Still, all rumors point to a late 2022 or early 2023 reveal and a release in mid/late next year. If you prefer to wait for the second-gen product, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted last year that it would arrive in the second half of 2024 with a lighter design, improved battery life, and faster performance (and a lower price, we hope).
Please, be careful the next time you slip on a virtual reality headset and go jumping into the latest MMO craze or Beat Saber. Otherwise, you might end up hurting yourself, someone else, or breaking something. If so, you won’t be alone. According to an insurance company in the UK, VR-related claims are on the rise, with a large spike occurring in 2021.
As reported by The Guardian, 2021 saw a 31% increase in the number of VR-related insurance claims. This data comes from insurance company Aviva who told the UK outlet that it saw a large uptick in folks bashing into and breaking valuable pieces of furniture or TVs.
According to Kelly Whittington, a director at Aviva UK, this is a common trend as new gadgets and entertainment products become popular. “In the past, we’ve seen similar trends involving consoles with handsets, fitness games, and even the likes of rogue fidget spinners,” Whittington told TheGuardian.
Read More: The 12 Best PC Virtual Reality Games
Since 2016, according to Aviva, VR-related insurance claims have gone up by 68%. The most common claims often involve broken TVs as people swing about wildly, trying to kill zombies or aliens, or other players. The average VR-related claim is about $922 (£650.)
Aviva warns folks to be more careful when playing VR and to be sure the area around them is clear. It also, unsurprisingly, suggests folks add accidental damage cover to their home insurance plans. I suggest you just clear out an area and maybe hide the expensive stuff in your room before hopping into Arizona Sunshine.
It shouldn’t come as a shock to hear from Aviva that, as the Oculus Quest 2 continues to sell well, 2022 has already seen an increase in VR-related claims. It’s likely that as VR tech becomes cheaper and more accessible, more people will end up breaking stuff or kicking things while enjoying the metaverse.
Sony pulled back the curtain on its next-gen virtual reality headset tonight at CES 2022. It’s called PlayStation VR2 (woah, who would’ve guessed?) and it’ll feature a virtual reality spinoff of Horizon Zero Dawn (okay, no snark here, who would’ve guessed?).
Called Horizon Call of the Mountain, it’s a proper “new story…and experience,” rather than a VR port of Guerrilla Games’ open-world Horizon Zero Dawn or its sequel, next month’s deliriouslyanticipatedHorizon Forbidden West.
Sony didn’t share much info beyond a brief clip showing a close-up look at a tallneck (the brachiosaurus-like robot dinos from the source material) walking through the woods. Also, though she didn’t show up in the teaser, Horizon protagonist Aloy will apparently make an appearance in the full game.
Horizon Call of the Mountain is being developed by Guerrilla Games and Firesprite, a smaller studio best known for Run! Sackboy Run that was formally acquired by Sony last year.
Beyond the briefest snippet of a new game, Sony also dropped detailed specs for the PSVR2, intended to be the next-gen version of its virtual reality headset. If you’ve been on the edge of your seat since Sony officially announced the existence of a next-gen headset a year ago, here you go:
Display method: OLED
Panel resolution:2000 x 2040 per eye
Panel refresh rate: 90Hz, 120Hz
Lens separation:Adjustable
Field of View: Approx. 110 degrees
Sensors — Motion Sensor: Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer) Attachment Sensor: IR Proximity sensor
Cameras: 4 cameras for headset and controller tracking, IR camera for eye tracking per eye
When PlayStation VR2 comes out, it’ll feature dedicated controllers called the Sense. It’s made up of two components. You hold one in each hand. Seems like that’s a way better fit for the “DualSense” moniker for a controller, no?
Sony did not provide a release date for PSVR2 or for Horizon Call of the Mountain.
Western Digital Corp. is in advanced talks to merge with Japan’s Kioxia Holdings Corp., according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal that could be valued at more than $20 billion and further reorder the global chip industry.
Long-running discussions between the companies have heated up in the past few weeks and they could reach agreement on a deal as early as mid-September, the people said. Western Digital would pay for the deal with stock and the combined company would likely be run by its Chief Executive, David Goeckeler, the people said.
There’s no guarantee Western Digital, which had a market value of around $19 billion Wednesday afternoon, will seal an agreement, and Kioxia could still opt for an initial public offering it had been planning or another combination.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Western Digital and Micron Technology Inc. were examining potential deals with Kioxia, which makes NAND flash-memory chips used in smartphones, computer servers and other devices. Micron’s interest has since cooled and Kioxia has been focused on discussions with Western Digital, which already has deep existing ties with the Japanese company.
Any transaction would require the blessing of the Japanese government, given Kioxia’s significance there and the political sensitivities of transferring ownership of such key technology. Washington would also likely play a role, but a deal could fit with a push by the U.S. to boost its chipmaking capabilities and increase competitiveness with China.