Valve put a lot of focus on VR in Day 2 of SteamDevDays. We’ll rundown the details for you below.
Valve expect consumer VR to happen by 2015. Valve has been working on their own VR hardware for quite some time, but doesn’t plan to release it, at least not in the near future. Instead, Valve has doubled down on their collaboration with Oculus Rift, working on improving tracking, as well as recently releasing the SteamVR for Oculus VR owners to test.
Valve has put forward predictions for the HMD of 2015. It will have 20 ms motion-to-last-photon latency, 3 ms pixel persistence, a 95Hz refresh rate, 110 degree FOV, 1K x 1K resolution for each eye, and high level optics. In terms of tracking it will have millimeter accurate resolution translation, quarter degree accurate rotation, and the ability to cube a volume of roughly 2 meters.
Interestingly, Valve also thinks personal computers, across Linux, Windows, and even OSX, will be the epicenter for VR. Sea changes are already happening because of the appearance of the Oculus Rift. Valve believes that many developers and IHVs will pop up, and they will have freedom to make huge innovations. Valve still believes PCs are the most powerful platform, and it will continue to be so. On their end, Valve will help push VR forward as much as Steam.
As if Steam Machines was not enough of a risk for Valve. Optimism aside, I have to point out that these are the kinds of high level investments that could bankrupt a company. Valve went into it for the long haul to make Steam a success, but can they juggle bringing these two initiatives forward as well?
We’ll continue to keep you up to date on SteamDevDays as it happens.
