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- Sony pausing PSVR2 production until it clears current inventory
Sony pausing PSVR2 production until it clears current inventory
INSIDE: Canon reveals new VR recording lenses, researchers find the perfect framerate for VR
Mathew Abraham
April 03, 2024
Greetings, AR enthusiasts.
Sony pausing PSVR2 production until they sell their backstock, and HTC is now offering a better deal for developers.
Researchers have also found how you can stop being all sick while in VR.
In today’s Phantom Thread, we will look at:
Sony pausing PSVR2 production to clear current stock
The HTC Viveport storefront now has a sweet deal for developers
VR sickness could be a thing of the past with 120fps, a new study says
Canon has revealed their VR plans: it's all lenses for now
How to make an Apple Vision Pro Persona
3 New XR Tools
WEEKLY THREADS
The weave: The PSVR2 has been declining in sales ever since its launch in February 2023, so Sony is pausing production so that it can sell off the rest of its current inventory.
The strands:
This does not mean that Sony has completely stopped making PSVR2s and as inventory clears out, Sony could restart production.
The life of the PSVR2 has been pretty rocky with fans complaining that there aren’t enough games to warrant a $550 purchase on top of their $450 console.
Sony has been scaling back on VR game development through layoffs and scaling down first party game development teams.
The fabric: While this does not mean Sony is going to stop selling PSVR2s, you might be able to get one of these headsets at a deep discount at stores near you. Sony was also rumored to be testing the PSVR2 to try to bring it to PC as well later in the year.
TKKurikawa / depositphotos.com
The weave: HTC’s VR storefront had announced that they will be sharing 90% of the revenue from the apps bought on the platform, while HTC will only be keeping 10%.
The strands:
Other industry leaders like Meta take 30% of revenue, so HTC aims to get more developers making apps on their platform by offering a better revenue model.
This new revenue sharing plan will come into effect from April 1st and older existing apps will be paid out the higher revenue split for every sale made after March 1st.
HTC wants to empower the average developer by letting them have a bigger slice of the revenue pie which can bolster the app offerings Viveport currently has.
The fabric: This revenue split is the opposite of what app platforms like Meta currently do, with Meta in particular even charging devs 30% of revenue for unlisted apps that do not appear in search results. HTC hopes more devs get onboard their platform, which doesn’t currently offer the same number of apps that Meta’s store does.
The weave: Researchers have figured out that higher framerates in VR is the best way to avoid the common issue of motion sickness that people report when using VR headsets.
The strands:
This research has been years in the making, and they had tested 60fps, 90fps, 120fps and 180fps to see which framerate did the best.
But the headset that they used is cutting edge, with support for 180 Hz refresh rate, which most headsets currently don’t have.
They figured out that 120fps is the threshold, and a higher framerate didn’t really reduce nausea by much.
The fabric: Most of the popular headsets like the Quest 3 and PSVR2 support 120 Hz, but a lot of software isn’t designed to run at high refresh rates. Devs would have to turn down the graphical fidelity to consistently maintain high framerates. So it does mean that we’d have to wait for more powerful headset hardware for the motion sickness issues to completely go away.
wolterke/ depositphotos.com
The weave: Canon revealed their new VR recording lenses at The Photography & Video Show at Birmingham, UK. Three new models were revealed but Canon says they are all prototypes.
The strands:
Three lenses were revealed, with two regular lenses, and one for mirrorless cameras. There was also a concept VR camera also on the show floor.
No further details were given about these lenses and there wasn’t any indication of a launch date, which pretty much confirms these lenses are a few years away at least.
All lenses work with Canon’s APS-C mirrorless bodies, but they haven’t yet designed them to fit with full frame cameras yet.
The fabric: Canon thinks VR is still in its infancy, and with these new VR recording lenses they expect to be one of the first movers in the VR video recording space. They also aim to lower the barrier of entry to VR recording with these lenses, so expect them to be priced more reasonably.
AR TUTORIAL
How to make an Apple Vision Pro Persona
The weave: The newest update for the Vision Pro has improved Personas a lot, so now is a great time to create your own. You can then use it on Facetime as a fun conversation starter!
Here’s our step-by-step guide:
Go to the Settings on your Vision Pro and select Persona.
Tap Get Started and follow the prompts.
Watch the video it shows you. Doing this is pretty important since it gives you the lowdown of how the entire process is like.
Put the headset back on after it is done scanning your face.
Set a lightning style and customize the rest of the features as you see fit.
WEEKLY AR TOOL ROUNDUP
Featured AR tools:
XSight - AR camera app that gamifies social interaction with your friends with cool treasure hunts and helps you meet new people.
Neatsy - Neatsy helps you with your expensive sneaker collection hobby by allowing you to try on a model in AR before you buy it.
Conekton - A platform agnostic framework that can be used to develop AR apps.
FLASH FRAMES
Flat2VR is now porting normal flatscreen games to VR ports; all licensed from the original developers.
Plex indicated that they do not have any intention of making apps for the Quest or Apple’s Vision Pro, and their official apps will no longer be receiving updates.
Meta is planning a lite version of the Quest 3 VR headset, but it won’t be having mixed reality features.
Monster Energy’s new product, the Energy Ultra in Ruby Red flavor, was launched through AR in an industry first reveal event.