Don’t look now, but I’m actually here this week. Yes, apologies needed for my absence in the last couple of weeks. I had to take some time off at relatively shortish notice for the first one but as for the last week I was rather distracted by the pressing need to lay on the bathroom floor and beg the universe for everything to just stop following a bout of food poisoning and subsequent severe dehydration. It was as pleasant a break as it sounded. Trust me.
It also prevented me from attending EGX which was just up the road from me and I’m naturally pretty bummed about. As things stand now I’m still pretty weak and being at a computer for any length of time is deeply uncomfortable in at least four different ways. How fortunate I am that’s not my job. Ha ha!
Wait, that is my job?
Bugger.
Anyway, before I have to make another mad dash for the bathroom in my absence there’s been a number of items that I’d’ve certainly been column-worthy material. We’ve had the announcement of L.A. Noire’s HD remake and virtual reality (VR) mode which was touched on in something of a ‘Kevstitution’ VR vs. column as it was courtesy of VRFocus’ own Mistah J, Editor Kevin Joyce – one which makes a number of similar points I had planned to make, helpfully. We will be coming back to that game though as I do have some additional thoughts on what they’re doing and trends on the matter that I’d like to tackle. Suffice to say it’s great that Rockstar are at least taking a look at making things in the VR space, even if there are some reservations about how they are going about it.
Speaking of making things in VR, this last week was also the return of Palmer Luckey. Who hadn’t really gone anywhere – but yet also had; and he was doing something or not doing something inside/outside VR depending on what person you asked on any given day, that’s not including if they’d seen their shadow when they’d woken up in the morning thus signifying another six weeks of ZeniMax lawsuits. Or something to that effect. He appeared on stage for HTC Vive at the Tokyo Game Show to discuss a number of items. Of course, as every report ever on Luckey is all lies – that appears to be the running theme on Twitter anyway – he may actually not have done so at all. It may have just been a figment of my fevered imagination; born from a desire to get another tick on my 2017 predications column from earlier this year.
Speaking of which can Samsung please hurry up and buy FOVE in the next couple of months so we can tick off that prediction? Cheers, guys.
I will add though that if Luckey’s appearance was just my imagination can I just say how disappointed I was he didn’t stroll on stage to Eric Bischoff’s WWE theme? I think I might just mentally re-dub that over any appearance he subsequently makes in the future for my own amusement. Whatever the case there’s no doubting, and never has been, Luckey’s commitment to making VR work. As I’ve said on VR vs. previously he remains for better or worse the face of VR and channeling that enthusiasm contructively and creatively will do VR nothing but good.
Next up there was Nintendo being Nintendo in a very Nintendo way which I’d love to tackle but frankly I can’t summon the energy to devote to a column taking Mr. Fils-Aimé’s comments to pieces at the moment. Plus, there’s the school of thought that he’s talking such utter bunk he’s not worth discussing in the first place. Leaving just an echo of sadness and anger where rational thought used to be.
Lastly there’s been Intel cancelling Project Alloy, its all-in-one VR head-mounted display (HMD) citing a lack of interest from commercial partners. Which I can kind of understand. After all we’ve a gajillion VR headsets and there’s got to be a tipping point at some point. It felt like a bit of an out-of-leftfield announcement at the time and who really was it for? Most of Intel’s commercial partners who would have potentially been interested are already involved in VR, augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) headsets – many of them their own.
Cancelling now may be a shock and give plenty of fuel for the VR Is Dead crowd, but probably something we’ll consider in hindsight to be a very shrewd business decision. If something’s not going to fly for you nip it in the bud, save the cash and channel what you’ve learned into other things. I’m willing to bet Intel will still have a patent or two up its sleeve now thanks to the HMD which may come back into play at a later date and they’re now probably better placed to assist others in their efforts.
What will the next week bring? For VR, who knows. For me it probably brings the consumption of more rice and juice in an attempt to stop my stomach feeling like it is a washing machine. We should probably start looking towards the future however and Oculus Connect 4. Because that my friends needs to be big in more ways than one. Next week however I want to go back to talking about videogames.
Yes, we need to sit down and have a long talk about those…
And the aforementioned Ubisoft also have some interesting VR titles coming in 2018, with 
In a lot of cases developers will not be able to twist the concept into something that works in VR. Even then there is the little matter of design. Much as the concept of a videogame can only be twisted so far before it breaks, the same is true of the design of existing games. The best VR experiences are always going to be ones designed from the bottom up for VR. A game not originally designed in this way can only be bent so far in its adaption. Again, it might well work – but it may not work. At least in the way the audience expects, if not outright demands.
For Star Wars you have a familiar concept that sparks the imagination – that of lightsabre duels – that has been adapted to AR from the bottom up creating in Star Wars: Jedi Challenges. Something that not only got people very excited in AR, but from the reports of those who have tried it delivers on its promises.
If you’re twisting existing immersion to VR or AR, you cannot expect it to be superior to that which is VR or AR by design. It’s not a coincidence that the Bethesda VR product that VRFocus’ writers have been the most positive about in 
Of course, Gamescom wasn’t the only thing going on in the last couple of weeks. There was also 
It’s not like Samsung don’t put effort in to the event. This one was particularly razzle-dazzle, with the stage comprising three videos screens (two walls and the floor itself) making a great spectacle for video with all three used as a singular unit. It all looked particularly impressive. I’ll also happily admit to being impressed that Samsung tackled the unmitigated disaster that was the Galaxy Note 7 right out of the gate. It could’ve been easy to breeze over or just ignore entirely. Instead, in a package of highlights on the history of the Note series, Samsung specifically acknowledged the it had “disappointed” people and let them down. They then went on to praise their fans for remaining loyal despite the troubles. Whatever your stance on that, and I know some felt it was a bit disingenuous, it was the right thing to do and rather brave of them to do so as the opening item. Not every company would want to remind folks how its last product, you know, exploded. Certainly not right before announcing the new model.
There wasn’t even a VR announcement to ease the pain of the whole thing. Which pretty much placed the out of date cherry on top of a very stale cake. All that remains is the sinking feeling of impending doom that after three years of covering Samsung Unpacked another two at least of the damn things lurk off in the distance next year. I am genuinely considering booking them off on holiday in a bid to save my soul from being sucked out my eyes.
Inevitably I’ll be spending Gamescom back in the UK sorting things out from afar. I say inevitably owing to my precarity for spending every major gaming event over the last decade plus of me being in and around the games industry away from it. That’s not through choice either. As I’ve mentioned 
When I came in it had BIG queues. However, in a very short space of time these queues seemed to vanish like steam in a strong breeze. Confused, I stepped up to one of the multiple free consoles (yes, free consoles at a Eurogamer Expo) and played the game myself. and it became very obvious as to why.
Two of the more curious members of the group quickly had an HMD on their heads, experiencing 
Talk about the tech kept popping up throughout the day but soon the day was at an end. Laying back on the bed I stared up at the ceiling and contemplated things. I had been defeated by VR. But at the very least I had seen that it was because it was resonating with people so much. That people of all ages were still learning what VR can do and were fascinated to see the magic in action. Still. At least now I could put thoughts of it to rest and, finally, get some rest myself. I let my mind slowly drift away.
The answer is no, of course not.
So, bearing all of this in mind it is perhaps not that big a surprise that when we look at both VR and AR the general response to one of the main platforms is not the same. Yet at the same time you can’t help but furrow your brow and wonder why that is. I’m talking about, as if the title of this week’s column hadn’t already given it away, about mobile.
Perhaps then AR’s mobile-centred praise is more to do with it being far more difficult to experience an AR HMD. Like comparing a label branded food to a gourmet equivalent you can’t tell whether or not the more expensive option is truly better if you can’t sample it. With VR you can, and relatively easily nowadays especially in comparison to even early 2016. But if you try an supermarket own brand sausage, then try some pork and apple sausage with herbs and spices and made from select cuts- and you prefer it – it doesn’t mean Sainsbury’s or Tesco or whoever should stop making sausages entirely. Them doing that allows more people to try sausages. People might even prefer the taste of the ‘simpler’ sausage for all you know.
E3 was very much about Microsoft’s reveal of what Project Scorpio would be, and things seemed geared up for a possible VR announcement as a part of that. When the time came and what ended up being the Xbox One X was revealed it seemed that VR was on the backburner for the console. Or was it? In the hours following the announcement we got conflicting interviews from Xbox personnel on where VR stood on console. Going from on one hand Phil Spencer somewhat unsubtly turning all of the BBC’s questions about VR support to answers about 
Which is of course what you want as a marketeer for a product you want a unique selling point – a USP. Equally, although you’ll never see this in any marketing textbook, you want if possible to take a USP away from the competition. At the moment PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 4 Pro has that USP in that you can play VR games on the system. I remember reading comments on N4G at the time of E3 and seeing one that proudly proclaimed “PlayStation is the juggernaut of console VR!” Of course it is rather easy to be the juggernaut of something when you’re the only party associated with something. It’s a bit like saying triangles are the juggernauts of three sided shapes. Nor would I say it is Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot as one commenter said, after all I’m not sure you can really say that when you have a vested interest in the other foot too.
As things stand if you’re after something specific you can, as mentioned, use Google. Which seems a pretty odd concept to have to do. Go outside the store to find what’s in the store. There’s the store front, so yes, you can see what’s there. But it’s still the equivalent of going into a supermarket and choosing what you’re going to get by squinting down the aisle from the very beginning of it.