I have just used a PS4, Xbox One and Occulus Rift; ask me questions!

[Chewie]

I was just at the Digital Nationz Video Game Convention in Auckland today, where I used the PS4, the Xbox One and an Occulus Rift. Does anyone have any questions about them they'd like me to answer?

 

[Chewie]

http://i.imgur.com/0MIi2u9.jpg?1 (ok for some reason this pic didn't resize so I've taken the embed out)

Overview of the setup inside the bowl from the Video Game History section (some more photos of this in the dropbox album). There were some things round the sides outside the actual bowl and behind the curtain and screens at the back was the presentation area with the speakers.

One of the occulus rift tech demos that I tried was a NZ project where you control a spaceship flying amongst asteroids. The other one I tried which was more popular was the rollercoaster demo. The occulus rift is quite impressive, there is a pretty good feeling of immersion. The field of vision isn't complete though so you can see black outlines round the edges. The resolution of the screens is pretty poor as well, given how close they are to your eyes, it is very easy to see the individual pixels. If you don't focus on them though it looks very good. When you go on the downwards part of the roller coaster it doesn't feel as exhilarating as a proper roller coaster but I think that's partly because they didn't have it on a high speed, presumably so people don't throw up. It does feel like you are on a roller coaster though. There is also a bit of lag between your head movements and the screens changing but it is not a huge amount.

The PS4 in all its glory. There were only around 4 PS4s available for use which was rather disappointing.

The controller felt better than I thought it would. The increase in size is welcome and the thumbsticks are a good improvement. The triggers in particular are very nice. The game I played didn't use the touch screen thing in the middle though.

This was the game I played - Drive Club. It's an online racing game, not going quite as much for the realism aspect like Gran Turismo/Forza but still pretty realistic. It's more online focused, racing against friends in clubs and trying to get your club above others. I managed to set the fastest time on the track that morning :cool: As well as a straight race though you get points for speed at certain points, and drifting etc.

They had Gran Turismo 6 set up with wheel and pedals and racing seat. Presumably it was running on PS3 though I couldn't see the console. They had a competition where the fastest lap time would win a copy of GT6. I was crap at using the wheel and set a terrible time lol :chinese:

I also played Beyond: Two Souls for a bit. It was rather confusing because I didn't know the controls and it didn't say anything about them anywhere and the Sony guys working there didn't really say anything about it, compared to the Xbox guys who explained everything before I began. The Sony section didn't really have clear lines, while the Xbox section had roped off lines

They had plenty of Xbox Ones there. There were 8 stations for Forza, 8 for some fighting game in the R13 area and 8 for Ryse.

The Xbox One controller is very nice. The thumbsticks in particular are really nice. The buttons too were pretty good. I didn't like the triggers as much as the PS4 one though. The feel of it in the hand is better in my opinion, but this is really personal preference.

I played Forza first. It looks pretty good but I don't know much about racing or cars so I can't say how realistic it is.

I had to wait in line for about 40 minutes to play Ryse. It is pretty fun and looks great. The demo I played was a two player teamwork based game in an arena/Colosseum. There are several stages where you have to defeat enemies or work together for objectives such as hitting these pots with boiling oil to stop something happening.

This was a game on a 4k screen (at least I presume it was 4k) using the kinect. It was a jetski racer where you hold your hands out and use them to speed up, turn, jump, etc. I couldn't see whether it was running at 4k or not because I was too far away.

They had some 3d printers which looked kinda cool printing stuff

Alienware had a booth with some laptops and this setup running DiRT3 (?). It has a wheel and pedals as well. Looked pretty cool. I sucked at it though. I could blame it partly on my car being manual for some reason and it's quite hard to see what gear you're in when you're running tri-monitor but really, I just suck at using the wheel and pedals in games.

Three reasonably big people in the gaming industry. Carl de Visser from Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile), Benson Russell from Naughty Dog (The Last of Us, Uncharted) and who I presume was Jay Hosfelt from Epic Games (Gears of War). Benson Russell is pretty nice, he was signing and handing out The Last of Us posters which I took advantage of. Tweeted to thank him and he replied to me

 

[Dutch]

Cheers for this. Great stuff. How would you compare the Xbox to the ps4?.

 

[Chewie]

At such a convention like this you don't get to experience any of the other features of both machines, just the games. Graphically, they seemed pretty similar and the games were fun on both machines. It's rather hard to compare them really, and I think ultimately the choice between the two would come down to what games a person enjoys more.

On paper though the PS4's features do seem better but as I said from a pure gaming and enjoyability standpoint there's nothing separating them.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

What sort of things were they printing with the 3D printers? Probably more interested in that than the 'NG' consoles to be honest.

 

[Chewie]

They were just small ornamental style things and figurines. It was my first time seeing one so it was rather interesting seeing how it worked

 

[Abhas]

I have a 3D printer with which we make Jewellery Models. Pretty cool really.

What's Occulus Rift?

 

[las_faiz]

I have a 3D printer with which we make Jewellery Models. Pretty cool really.

What's Occulus Rift?

Creates a virtual environment when you wear it

Very hard to explain. Just watch some videos on youtube

Developer's have been really impressed with its technology. Even sony is planning to make one for ps4

 

[Bluehaze]

Both pieces of hardware look interesting. Although i did read somewhere that you cannot stand the XBone on its side, well that's the recommendation from MS.

Drive club looks good, which is one of the games i am pre-ordering. Did they show any BF4 or COD:G videos there?

 

[Chewie]

Nah no BF4 or COD:G presumably because their developers weren't there

 

[AsadAbrar]

I have a 3D printer with which we make Jewellery Models. Pretty cool really.

What's Occulus Rift?

It's a VR headset for 3d gaming.

 

[zwarrior]

Guys. Which is better ? Xbox One with Kinect (saw something in amazon) or PS4 ? I have no idea about these two and I am planning to buy one of them.

I like games like COD, Assassins Creed, Battlefield, NFS, Uncharted and such games. Don't like any sports game except DBC. Which is better to buy ?

I apologize if I shouldn't have posted here. I couldn't find any other appropriate thread.

 

[Alexei.]

I have a VR headset : RITECH RIEM 3
Gear VR app doesnt allows to play their videos on it.
So was pretty disappointed

Even JUST BAT is a cricket game for Occulus Rift.

Q1 : Occulus If you tried it , A little info about its quality compared to Google Cardboard (apart from body) and how does it work with a Computer?

 

[SiriusBlack]

edited

 

[zwarrior]

For the current devices, you can check any of the comparison charts online. They're fairly easy to understand, and you can go with what you want. Speaking for myself, I went with the PS4 mostly because of the exclusives. With PS4, you get a whole host of fantastic exclusives (too many to name!), but with Xbox you're mostly limited to Halo, Forza and Sunset Overdrive.

Although now, you could look into Project Scorpio and PS4 Pro, since they might tip the balance somewhat. I don't know a whole lot, but there's plenty of material online.

Thanks for your response !