VR Gaming News Spotlight: March 11th, 2024
Jeff Minter has terrible luck
This week on Alex’s VR news roundup and commentary: Jeff Minter gets hosed again with the “magic” of exclusivity, and Meta drips out a new update to their payment system.
Akka Arrh Hits PSVR 2 For Some Reason
A few days ago, with little fanfare other than its sudden appearance, a PSVR2 version of Jeff Minter’s hyperactive action game Akka Arrh hit the PS5. It’s buried as an optional mode inside a traditional PlayStation flat release of a game that’s already been available on other platforms like PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. The game is a modern development effort from Minter’s Llamasoft based on an arcade prototype that Atari cancelled decades ago, though they’re marketing this as if it’s somehow the original code.
I guess Atari decided that they didn’t want a meaningful number of people to play the VR version, so they made it exclusive to Sony’s beleaguered PSVR2 platform. Current Sony leadership no longer seems to care about their headset, as they just fired a significant percentage of their own internal VR software developers. The exclusive release might drum up some additional short term interest and hype from a diehard player base that’s desperate for any PSVR2 content — or the limited audience might mean that this unique take on a fun Jeff Minter game never gets the success it deserves and falls into obscurity.
If I were Jeff, I’d be pissed that my VR game wasn’t reaching every single player that it could.
It’s one thing for first party published or developed titles to be exclusive to a platform, but it’s super weird to see a third party put their VR game (itself already a more limited space) onto the platform with the lowest installed base of users. I can’t imagine that Sony was willing to put up the cash to make this worthwhile considering that they just let go of many of their internal VR teams, and that Minter’s games have never been blockbusters. Maybe it was simply easier to focus on one platform for its initial launch, and it’ll come elsewhere in the future? Or maybe Jeff Minter himself just really loved the OLED display inside the PSVR2 hardware?
In a couple of days, Digital Eclipse is releasing one of their trademark deep-dive collections that covers most of Minter’s career, so perhaps that will offer some insights into this curious move that we simply can’t know right now. Minter has never followed the crowd…but I’ve always personally wished that his games found a wider audience, and putting the VR version of this tiny game out only on the PSVR 2 seems like a bad move to me.
Meta Rolls out Quest OS V63, now with Cash and Lying Down
The latest Quest software update is rolling out to headsets this week, and I saw a lot of noise online about how this was going to somehow disable mod support in games because of a provision buried in the Google Android code that underpins Quest’s operating system. So far, it seems like that was unfounded and the result of people jumping the gun based on some text in the beta of this update, but I’ll write another story about it if there’s some fire to go with the smoke.
Two new features are coming to the platform in this update — though they’re kind of old features, in a way. The first is “Quest Cash,” an overhaul of the existing gift card system with a new name and some new options. Now, you’ll be able to transfer money from your Quest wallet directly to your friends, giving you another easy way to lovingly force gaming content on your VR buddies.
The second new feature is so far exclusive to Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets, a rare win for the older hardware. It’s a feature they actually tested out once before: a lying down mode. You’ll be able to recalibrate the sensor package in either of these headsets to work properly when lying on your back. It seems like the more advanced cameras and depth sensor on the Quest 3 are holding this feature back from the newer platform for the moment. Also, staring at a ceiling doesn’t make for a compelling Mixed Reality environment on a product heavily advertised around blended VR/AR games.
Still, for those that just want to chill out in a VR environment and look at some stuff while totally prone your couch or bed on their older Quest tech, this will be a welcome update. It’s a separate mode that you’ll have to toggle into from the “Experiments” menu that’s a couple layers deep in settings. Hopefully in the future, they’ll make the toggle easier to reach if enough people take the plunge.
The screenshot at the top of this piece is from Asgard’s Wrath 2, which I’m still making my way through for more in-depth coverage soon. Follow me if you’d like to read that when it drops.
I wasn’t asked or paid by any of the above-mentioned companies to write about these topics or products.