If you had to run a montage video highlighting all the fads of the nineties while Vanilla Ice music played in the background, Virtual Reality goggles would be jiggling its unwieldy frame alongside images of Power Rangers and tickle-me-Elmo dolls. Fading into obscurity eventually, the world forgot about VR, except for Sony, who have been hard at work, reinventing the technology.
In an interview with Develop, Sony Worldwide Studios Senior Director Mike Hocking explained how the company had begun testing the new VR technology with gaming platforms specifically.
"We’ve got a new head mounted display, that we showed at Consumer Electronics Show. At the moment it’s just a head-mounted display, the head isn’t being tracked, but that’s something we’re doing R&D on.â€
"I have to say, what we’ve done in the R&D projects has just been fantastic. We’re working with a couple of games at Sony that are experimenting with virtual reality type experiences."
Hocking has been positive about the technology presented so far, as it has finally advanced to the point where gaming can finally realise the aims that were set out for it back in the nineties,meaning that the technology could once again become popular with consumers.
“We’ve now got the power to do it, we’ve got the screen resolution to do it, we’ve got the processing power to update fast enough so that we can have very, very immersive experiences on head-mounted displays in gaming in the not too distant future,.â€
The last time a consumer grade device featuring virtual reality was offered to the public, it was Nintendo with the Virtual Boy, a console that was a massive failure for the company. But if Sony can reinvigorate interest in the tech, then we might just see a renewed interest in virtual reality, specifically for gaming of course.
Source: Develop-online.net
Last Updated: July 19, 2011
