PlayStation 4 Pro is now available and Shawn Layden, president of SIE America, commented yesterday at the Lisbon Web Summit on the future of virtual reality games.
Sony’s new console, PlayStation 4 Pro, has already hit the market and is capable of improving the experience of PlayStation VR games, as long as they are prepared for it. Sony is not clear what will be the most successful genre of virtual reality games, but Shawn Layden commented at the recent Web Summit that new experiences will be developed in the next two years. He did not go into detail about future releases, but commented that some of these titles, not yet presented, could really make it take off.
“In 12 or 18 months, we will find things in VR that can only be experienced in VR,” Layden noted. PlayStation VR has more than 50 compatible games available, but they are usually short experiences. According to Layden, this is the way they see new games on this platform, given the intensity of playing in virtual reality.
“I think the virtual reality experience as it is… it really works best with a 15, 20 or 30 minute experience… it’s like the arcades, where I put my coin in the machine and have that experience for 6 or 10 minutes. It will be a long time until we have a Final Fantasy 7 type experience in virtual reality with 75 hours of gameplay… it’s how it works best in such a tight and intense gaming environment,” commented Layden.
For Layden, the question is: how does virtual reality improve the experience? The use of motion controllers as the players’ hands, points out that it was a total change in immersion. “We’re just skimming the surface,” concludes Layden.
