We’ve been toying around with Nintendo Labo VR for a weekend now and it’s a fun piece of kit. But we’d be lying if we didn’t say we were more excited to jump into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild VR with the headset. To whet our appetites, Nintendo’s just released some new images of the game running in VR.
Two new screenshots of the game surfaced on the Nintendo blog this week. They don’t tell us much other than how the UI looks, but they’re accompanied by words from technical director Takuhiro Dohta.
Dohta says that the Breath of the Wild team decided to add VR support to the game after seeing a demonstration of Labo VR. They had originally discussed different ways of implementing VR before deciding on letting people play the full game with the goggles.
Perhaps the most important point in the blog, though, is concerned with when you should try VR. “We recommend taking a look through the VR Goggles when there’s something interesting to see,” Dohta writes, “like a location with a great view, a favourite character, or a favourite piece of equipment.”
While you can play the entire game in VR, then, it sounds like it might be best used intermittently. That seems like a good idea given that Labo VR has to be held to the user’s face with no head strap.
VR support will arrive as a free update to Breath of the Wild on April 26th. Super Mario Odyssey is also getting a free VR mode with three bonus mini-missions. Hopefully Nintendo has more VR magic in the works too.
I remember the first time I showed my PSVR to a 10-year-old. Or, more specifically, I remember the deafening crack I heard when he tried to yank the headset’s visor forward without pushing in the button to move it. I remember biting my lip with anxiety as he threatened to smash a Move controller into a wall, and the tedium of continuously explaining that he couldn’t turn around. It was, without a doubt, one of the most stressful VR experiences I’ve had.
Now, in comparison to PSVR, Nintendo Labo VR is a ‘bad’ VR headset. It’s not even a contest; a VR experience powered by the Switch hybrid console was never going to match up. If you’re a VR enthusiast looking for a high-end experience, this is not the device for you.
But Labo VR is something I could happily hand off to any child or, better yet, build alongside them. And, despite it’s many shortcomings, it’s also something I could enjoy playing with them. It’s VR infantilized, simplified and gamified. That, in some senses, is as significant a step forward as the next wave of high-end devices coming our way soon.
Say Goodbye To Spec Sheets
Labo VR will undoubtedly underwhelm even the most casual of VR fans. There is, for starters, the 720p display, which will evoke unwanted nostalgia for anyone that used the first developer kit for the Oculus Rift six years ago. The lines between pixels are bold and distort the picture, leaving you longing for the improved clarity of other devices. The slightest twist of your head brings in incredibly noticeable motion blur, too.
Then there’s the three degrees of freedom (3DOF) tracking, which is already starting to feel like a relic in the wake of the Oculus Quest and Vive Focus. You can point and tilt with controllers and twist your head to look around, but you can’t physically move your hands and head through virtual space like in those headsets. Neither can you escape the fact that Switch’s Nvidia Tegra X1 chip, while powerful, just isn’t up to providing the epic experiences we expect out of high-end VR gaming. By all accounts, it’s a spec sheet that looks pretty glum.
If it could, though, Labo VR would throw that spec sheet out the window and tell you to get your head out of the books. Above all else, Labo VR is to be enjoyed. It’s free from many of VR’s complications; the wires, PCs and external sensors. Its games aren’t multi-hour adventures with upgrade trees and side missions but instead a hodgepodge of virtual experiments, designed to be snacked upon in small bursts by minds that find engagement and fascination in, for example, steering a virtual RC car.
Social VR That’s Actually Social
There is very little to explain here and no real opportunity to get lost. Labo VR sets your expectations accordingly, instructing you to sit down before playing and making sure you start every game with the right peripheral in place. It prioritizes user-control and comfort over all else, letting you pull the headset away from your eyes at a moment’s notice and dive back in hassle-free.
Nintendo has, for years, expressed concerns about VR’s isolation factor. This is a company that’s long emphasized the joy of play and sharing it with others. It argues that cutting off from the outside world and sticking your head inside VR is counter-intuitive to that mission. In Labo VR, though, the company has found an intriguing workaround, if not a long-term solution, to that perceived problem.
When assembled, Labo feels like a pass-and-play headset. The lack of head strap makes it easy to hand over at the moments notice. You don’t need to describe what you’re seeing because, well, you can just show it instead. You’re also not handing around a $399 headset and controllers. The Switch itself might be an expensive console, but it’s nestled cozily inside with spongey stickers and a top protector that keeps it from falling out. The cardboard shell is tough enough to let you build with confidence and last a good while without any major incidents. And, if there are, replacing the peripheral in question is a much cheaper prospect than replacing an HTC Vive.
These might not be entirely new concepts — Mattel’s Viewmaster reboot adopted many of the same principles — but this has a library of great content ready and waiting for you (more on that later in the week). It’s also bolstered by Labo VR’s wonderful ‘do it yourself’ philosophy.
DIY Delights
Much of the joy of Labo VR is in the building process. Last night I sat and built the wonderfully ridiculous bird peripheral with my partner. We worked towards a common goal of creating a VR experience that we then swapped between us, taking turns at marveling at it. While far from the most impressive VR game I’ve played, I was able to share it in a way I haven’t before. And that’s not even getting to the core of enjoying this stuff as a family, something that’s been challenging to do on a regular basis in the VR landscape.
And there’s value, too. The $80 VR kit offerings five things to build that will take serious time to get through. I’ve built two things and the software it comes with smartly locks away games on peripherals you haven’t yet made. You’re essentially paying $60 for a full game and $20 for a piece of hardware with the promise of future support adding longevity.
Would I like to see a better version of Labo later down the line? For sure; I’ve struggled with some of the minigames that use 3DOF motion controls and I’d welcome an optional head strap for the times you’re playing alone to save my arms a little pain. But Labo turns VR into something it’s never really been before: a toy. It’s a wonderfully mad invention that can be trusted with children and shared as an experience. We’ll go into more detail about the system’s more specific elements, the peripherals, games and extras, later in the week. If you’re reading this as an UploadVR regular, there’s a good chance that Labo VR isn’t for you. But, if there’s someone younger in your life better suited to its simple VR pleasures, I can’t recommend it enough.
The Nintendo Labo VR Kit launches this month and two of the Switch's biggest games, Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild, will get free VR support via an update that goes live a couple of weeks after the VR Kit launch.
It was only a few weeks ago that Nintendo announced its virtual reality (VR) venture with the Labo VR Kit for its portable console, Nintendo Switch. With a range of cardboard contraptions and videogames to suit, the kit is due for release next week. To bolster its VR offerings even further, Nintendo has suddenly revealed VR support to two of the Switch’s biggest titles, Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Mario Odyssey in VR won’t be the full version, instead, it’ll be three mini-games where players have to collect coins and musical notes to complete objectives. Familiar locations return such as the Cap, Seaside and Luncheon Kingdoms.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a different matter entirely as it looks like Nintendo has managed to make the entire experience VR compatible. It’ll still have the same third-person viewpoint as before, with the camera fully controllable as well – which will be interesting when it comes to comfort.
Both titles will only need to use the ‘VR Goggles’ part of the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit. The VR update for both will be released on 25th April completely free.
The Nintendo Labo: VR Kit will be arriving next Friday, 12th April, with the full kit retailing for $79.99 USD / £69.99 GBP, with pre-orders up and running. The fourth in the Labo series, the full kit comes with VR Goggles, Toy-Con Blaster, Toy-Con Elephant, Toy-Con Camera, Toy-Con Wind Pedal and Toy-Con Bird, each with its own unique title to complement the accessory. There will also be a smaller kit featuring the VR Goggles and Toy-Con Blaster for $40.
Additionally, there’s also the VR Plaza filled with 64 bite-sized videogames and experiences, a lot of which only use the VR Goggles part of the system. And for the budding videogame developers out there, Toy-Con Garage VR is a new tool that allows players to create their own VR content.
How long players will want to hold the VR Goggles up to their face to play the epic The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild adventure remains to be seen. Should any further title get VR support VRFocus will let you know.
Thought Nintendo’s Labo VR for Switch was just 3DoF? You’d be wrong. Nintendo actually uses a clever design to add positional controller tracking.
The Nintendo Switch right Joy-Con has a little known feature- an IR camera on the end. The VR Elephant Toy-Con has a slot for the right Joy-Con to be positioned in. It also has luminant paint dots on its front.
That IR camera only has a resolution of 340×220, but that’s enough to see those dots, and from that it knows its position. It’s similar to how tracking worked on the Oculus Rift, but having the camera move instead of the object with dots on it.
While the headset itself will still be 3DoF, the player can move the controller in and out and to the sides. The “trunk” is designed so that the dots will stay within the field of view of the tracking.
Nintendo uses this for two games so far. The first is a sculping game that seems similar to Oculus Medium. For this kind of sculpting controller positional tracking is vital, which is likely why Nintendo engineered this system.
The second is a puzzle game that almost reminds us of Gravity Lab. Here the higher degrees of freedom are needed to properly position the objects.
This is a smart use of existing low cost components to deliver a better VR experience than you’d have thought was possible on Switch. In fact, this kind of interactivity isn’t even available on Oculus Go or Samsung Gear VR. Nintendo have truly impressed us with this clever innovation.
Nintendo announced its return to virtual reality (VR) earlier this month by unveiling the Labo VR Kit for its hybrid console, the Nintendo Switch. At the time only brief details were released showcasing the various cardboard components and what the cost would be. Now, Nintendo has released a new trailer going in-depth with some of the actual software that’ll be available for launch next month.
Thanks to the six different parts of the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit (VR Goggles, Toy-Con Blaster, Toy-Con Elephant, Toy-Con Camera, Toy-Con Wind Pedal and Toy-Con Bird) Nintendo has created quite the mix of videogames to compliment each particular peripheral.
So for the big Toy-Con Blaster, there’s a videogame called Blaster where you have to battle an alien invasion with giant bosses to contend with. Or Kablasta, where players can challenge a friend to competitive hippo feeding by flinging different types of fruit. While the Toy-Con Camera offers a much more relaxed set of titles like Ocean Camera and House Camera, where players can take underwater snaps or interact with the strange house creature respectively.
As weird as it looks, the Toy-Con Elephant offers a much more creative approach, using Doodle users can create 3D artwork using various in-game tools and styles, in a similar vein to Google Tilt Brush. Or for puzzle fans there’s Marble Run, with physics puzzles to complete by using various objects to guide marbles through rings.
And then there’s the Toy-Con Wind Pedal and Toy-Con Bird contraptions. Use the Toy-Con Wind Pedal to play Hop Dodge as a jumping frog, or combine it with Toy-Con Bird to play Bird Dash. Race through checkpoints in the sky with the Wind Pedal delivering an extra boost of speed. Or just use Toy-Con Bird by itself to soar on the back of a bird, in Bird.
That’s not all Nintendo has in store, there’s also the VR Plaza filled with 64 bite-sized videogames and experiences, a lot of which only use the VR Goggles part of the system. And for the budding videogame developers out there, Toy-Con Garage VR is a new tool that allows players to create their own VR content.
The Nintendo Labo: VR Kit will be available from 12 April, with the full kit retailing for $79.99 USD / £69.99 GBP. If you’re eager to jump into Nintendo’s VR world you can pre-order the kit now, here for US customers, and here for UK customers. For any further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Missed the news? Nintendo’s getting into VR. At least, it sort of is. Later this year the beloved gaming company will launch a Nintendo Switch Labo VR Kit. It’s a set of cardboard peripherals that you make yourself. One forms a Google Cardboard-style headset to plug the Switch into. The others all resemble controllers. But what can you actually play with these devices? Nintendo just revealed all.
The below video walks through each of the cardboard peripherals, or ‘Toy-Con’ as they’re called. It looks like each peripheral comes with a handful of games.
The Blaster Toy-Con, for example, offers some simple alien shooting. It looks a little like Nintendo’s take on the wave shooter. There’s also a hippo game where you try and fire food into their mouths.
Next up is a Wind Pedal. You keep it by your foot and press of it to get a gust of air in your face. It’s assigned to a weird-looking game where you jump over balls as a frog. Weirder still is the Toy-Con Bird, which turns the headset into, well, a bird. As you might’ve guessed it comes with two games that make you a bird.
Perhaps the best-looking of the bunch is the Toy-Con Elephant. Surprisingly, this comes with Toy-Con’s own version of a VR creation app like Tilt-Brush. You use the elephant’s trunk to move a 3D paintbrush. There’s a handful of minigames for this one too. The Toy-Con Camera, meanwhile, takes you to an underwater world.
But these aren’t the only games you’ll get with Toy-Con VR. Nintendo also revealed a VR Plaza that features some 64 minigames to explore. You can play a virtual drum kit and get into a boxing match.
Finally, there’s Toy-Con Garage VR. This allows you to make your own VR games. With some simple programming interfaces, you can design characters and maybe make your very own Astro Bot, for example.
Nintendo Labo VR launches on April 12th. We’ll be hugely interested to see if this is a VR experience worth our time or if Switch’s various limitations hold it too far back.
Nintendo Labo: VR Kit has a plethora of games to play after you're done building the Toy-Cons. From an on-rails alien shooter to a deep sea photography adventure, here's what you can play with Labo: VR Kit. You can even make your own games.
The big news this week has certainly been the fact that Nintendo is embracing virtual reality (VR) once again, although rather tentatively by creating a cardboard Labo VR kit for the Switch console. While certainly interesting news, until the kits are made available VRFocus isn’t entirely convinced this is a good idea. So much so we decided to see what the VR developer community thought of the announcement.
Having gone for the easy option of making a cardboard cut out kit for Nintendo Switch – essentially turning the popular hybrid console into a Google Cardboard like device – reactions to the VR adaption are mixed, to say the least, with Vertigo Games’ (Skyworld, Arizona Sunshine) Managing Director Richard Stitselaar saying in an email: “At first glance, the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit certainly feels like a step backwards for the VR industry. We hope it will pique rather than discourage wider consumer interest for VR.”
While Alexander Erdyakov, Fibrum’s (Desirium) Business Development Director was far more positive: “I’ve heard a lot about Nintendo Labo on release and our team can approve that using Labo was an awesome and unique experience. Labo VR kit seems to be game-changer because of amazing switch controllers and new mechanics from game to game. Needless to say, Nintendo is innovators and will surprise us once again. I believe that games for it will be great, but as for original Labo, I’m not sure that the content will be replayable and we will see must have titles.”
The most negative response – and one that aligned with VRFocus’ fears – came from Make Real’s (Loco Dojo) Director of Immersive Technologies Sam Watts on Twitter where he said: “Nintendo Labo VR is going to be terrible for perceptions of what #VR is but still gonna buy one for the studio curiosities shelf. Hopefully not with the label “This is what killed VR, again.”
He went on to say: “We don’t need anymore 3DoF Cardboard to sully the waters…Google Cardboard has done more harm than good. Many people have only tried that and think that’s all VR has to offer and have dismissed it any further.”
Even with Nintendo’s skill at innovation, the Labo VR Kit may not be the best introduction to VR, seen as more of a gimmick than a reputable entertainment medium. When VRFocus gets its hands on one, we’ll let you know what we think.
After the internet rumour mill went into overdrive a couple of weeks ago suggesting Nintendo was once again heading to the land of virtual reality (VR), for once the rumours weren’t wildly inaccurate with Nintendo announcing the Labo VR Kit for its portable Switch console today. While certainly an interesting concept, prior to actually testing it in the flesh I’m torn between thinking this is both a good and bad idea for the VR industry as a whole.
Nintendo Labo: VR Kit
The Japanese gaming giant released its Labo construction platform almost a year ago, encouraging kids to do more than just stare at a screen by involving both the physical and digital worlds. Using cardboard cut-outs – which don’t require any cutting, glueing or sticky tape – children could make bikes or pianos that work with specific Nintendo software. With three kits available, they soon proved to be highly popular, offering unique gameplay that only the Nintendo Switch could provide.
The Nintendo Labo: VR Kit is the fourth in the series (Toy-Con #4), featuring a possible six contraptions to build depending on which kit you actually buy. All of them revolve around the ‘VR Goggles’ which holds the Switch and can then be attached to the rest.
Unlike most of the VR headsets you see today, the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit goes for the Google Cardboard style of VR, where you hold the headset up to your face, instead of a head strap to support it.
Helping Nintendo test the VR waters
Nintendo isn’t dumb, it has been burnt by VR before way back in the 90s with the disastrous release of the Virtual Boy, with its red and black screens and the fact it needed to be table mounted.
Since the consumer rollout of VR in 2015/16, I’d say there has been a consistent look towards Nintendo regarding whether it would enter the VR field again, with occasional quotes from employees teasing the possibility. And for the company going down the Labo approach makes complete sense. Nintendo has (sort of) taken the mobile phone path which is cheaper for both it and consumers plus there isn’t the need to spend a ridiculous amount of money developing hardware that might become a commercial failure.
Then if the Labo VR Kit does prove to be overwhelmingly popular and receives great feedback then that could easily spur Nintendo on to further invest in VR, which would quite frankly be a boon for the consumer side of the industry.
The Good, the Bad, and the Cardboard
However, not all of this completely sits right with me – from a VR enthusiasts point of view. I love the Nintendo Switch – I have one myself – but it was never really designed for VR, Nintendo have just tacked it on. And the problem with that is the quality of the experience.
Now I’m not saying Nintendo would do a half-arsed job on the software side, but the Switch is only 720p, and looking at the images of the VR Goggles I’m not sure whether the whole screen would be in view. So there could be quite a bit of screendoor, and what about latency and refresh rates, can the Switch provide a smooth experience? So many questions.
While those queries can only be answered with a demo, what also concerns me is the whole experience of putting a Nintendo Switch on my face. The design definitely steers towards short gameplay sessions, because even holding the VR Goggles players arms are going to tire – even more so with the larger items like the Blaster. Nintendo gets around this by stating in its press release: “Nintendo Labo: VR Kit encourages passing around the Toy-Con creations among a group of people so everyone in the room can easily join in on the fun.” So no epic Beat Saber sessions then!
Which leads to the question. Will the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit make VR seem even more like a fad as players eventually get bored of holding the kit to their face?
The Nintendo knock-on effect
If the platform doesn’t provide a great experience then the answer could easily be yes, stalling what could be enhanced mainstream adoption. If it is awesome then there could be the double whammy effect of Nintendo investing further, or more consumers looking for bigger and better VR experiences offered by the like of Oculus, HTC Vive or PlayStation VR.
I really hope that the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit is a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Yet its toylike cardboard quality doesn’t evoke a durable, hardwearing solution to longterm mainstream adoption. That’s still in the ballpark of the major VR players.
Nintendo Labo: VR Kit