Valve: Introducing Tomorrow’s Fashions in Gaming Headware
Over the past few years, the evolution of our gizmos and gadgets has become increasingly streamlined. Innovation has lost some of its spectrum, revolving around “does it have awesome apps which consumers will shell out for?” and “how thin can we make it?” If you look at business models and news from industry titans such as Microsoft ( ie. Smart-Glass), Apple (thin phones/tablets and The App Store), Sony (more thin phones and computers…), just to name a few, you can’t deny that 90% of developments, at the very least, are simply previous ideas being refined in the most obvious ways.
But there are still slightly more-obscured companies with vision. This is the category for Valve, and now quite literally.
Today, the New York Times offered us a glimpse of just what the revolutionary creators of games and platforms such as Steam, Half-Life, and Portal have been doing as of late.
Say hello to the face of innovation… well, actually, that face has nothing to do with it. Rather, ignore the face, and look at that funky contraption strapped to it.
If one were to check out the latest job-listings for positions with the company, they probably wouldn’t be surprised to see the famed game developer expanding into the realm of hardware. And it appears they’ve brought their pioneer-edge along for the ride.
What you’re looking at is Valve’s latest attempts to bring gaming to reality via headset. Very little information on the device is actually being offered. All we know is it is a piece of immersion hardware that could be fully augmented to react to the real world in 3 to 5 years, but be suitable for release gameplay even sooner.
The author behind the article, however, gave out this description.
[quote]Every way I look, the scene shifts, the battle unfolds. I have a crazy contraption strapped to my head: a boxy set of goggles that looks like a 22nd-century version of a View-Master. It immerses me in a virtual world. I whirl one way and see zombies preparing to snack on my flesh. I turn another and wonder what fresh hell awaits. [/quote]
Will it survive the trials of production and integration? Titans don’t always like to play ball with sudden innovation. Will it be an economic success? Who knows. But is it a genius-driven, honest, inspired push to create something original and intriguing in a sea of lesser products? Yes, and that in itself is a rarity these days.
So, even while the market is being flooded with clones, maybe there is something to watch out for. Keep an ear to the ground.
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Anon
September 9, 2012 @ 12:02 pm
Nice. Hardware industry could definitely use some of valves energy. Give us something better than crappy motion controls
synopsis
September 10, 2012 @ 5:21 pm
I think the price on the headset would be so high, that next to no one would buy it, and it would turn into a “someone i used to know had one of those” type thing. Like the virtual boy, still have never seen one of those in real life. This type of thing has been thrown around for years, there must be some missing link to it.
Kelsey Miller
September 10, 2012 @ 6:10 pm
I can see that. And, often a nice part of gaming is not having to do anything uber physical (who wants to jump around in front of the TV after a 12 hour workday?)
But on the flip side, I think certain bits of hardware, like the Virtual Boy, didn’t have sufficient applications in the software realm; I mean, table-tennis in 3D? Not really worth it. One of the reasons Kinect is something of a joke is because it still is lacking in the way of proper software (stop being stupid, Microsoft Game Studios…).
But these days, we can make these huge, realistic worlds in our games, and motion-controls are reaching out to crowds that previously shied away from gaming. When I was younger, my friends would tease me about gaming. Now, many own Wii’s or play have played something like Dance Central. I can see a sim. product like this reaching out to that same crowd.
Valve’s still a bit ahead of their time, but I believe immersive-reality-simulation (totally just coined that term. A little IRS, anyone?) could easily be the next frontier as graphics and in-game worlds become ever more similar to our own.
You’re probably right; considering cost and viability, this is still probably a decade off. But it’s I think it’s a cool direction to take, and considering some of the ingenuity we’ve seen from Valve, and their refusal to take “No, it can’t be done,” as an answer, I’m willing to give them some slack and cross my fingers…
synopsis
September 12, 2012 @ 4:45 pm
No doubt it would be cool, but like you said, no one wants to jump around for long periods of time while gaming. It all depends on how it would be implemented. It would be cool to be playing a shooter and you see something out of the corner of your eye and turn and bang a headshot. Would not be cool to have to jog in place in a rpg for half an our to reach a town. and what if you were being chased!!, lawsuit, ha. And think of how many people would be punched walking by someone gaming… thats a plus in my book, ha.
bleachorange
September 12, 2012 @ 7:03 pm
all they would have to do is tie the gyroscope in the headgear to replace the right joystick input for any first person game, and voila! instantly you now have to turn your head to see stuffs.
bleachorange
September 12, 2012 @ 7:08 pm
so with the relative ease of that in mind, they’re probably working on some pretty cool stuff. i mean, it would be easy to tie a gyroscope to two screens for your eyes and swap that out for the input for the viewpoint. it would even be ridiculously easy to implement 3d with 2 different screens for different eyes. so i guess the question here is what ARE they doing with the headsets besides that stuff?
synopsis
September 12, 2012 @ 9:04 pm
The main issue to me is for it to add to the gaming, without it being a hassle or a cheap novelty. The tech is there i am sure, but how to use it….
bleachorange
September 14, 2012 @ 3:49 pm
well, it would be an all-in one gaming headset. mic, surround sound (aka ear phones), the turning of the head in addition to a wii controller/ps3 motion (for a gun) for immersion, 3d viewing. i mean, this could be a perfect setup for a fps, providing they do it right. maybe for other genres as well. still, the trick is to get people to buy the hardware, which would probably run around $150-$200 to do all the stuff I mentioned. the easy part is getting the tech to work. the hard part is getting people to adopt it widespread, and so the greater burden falls on the business model for selling and marketing the item. it could easily turn into a novelty item, but it could be the next wii controller as well.
Sean
September 14, 2012 @ 1:51 am
I love Valve. Just for people wondering, I guarantee that getup can be scaled down to be less obtrusive. Proof of concepts are always huge.