Half-Life: Alyx Conveniently Discounted Ahead of PSVR2's PC Adapter Launch

Not having Alyx on PSVR2 is huge fail. No VR headset can be successful without the best games

PSVR2 is more dead than Vita on its later years. Sony is abandoning a wrecking ship again. If I was Sony I would give Valve everything they ask to ensure HL: Alyx license

The more worrying sign is that Sony won't even port their own PSVR1 games. We know they've likely not made the effort with Alyx if they won't even port Blood & Truth or Astrobot Rescue Mission, and it doesn't inspire buyer confidence.

@Darth_Stofi Some would argue that Gran Turismo 7 is the best VR game.

I thought the PC adapter was for PC to use PSVR? Do PS5 users need one as well? I’ve never used steam either so I just buy off steam then the game is in my PS5 catalogue? Apologies - I’ve no idea!

*edit - Ok now I’m really confused as I’ve just done some googling. I need a PC as well? I just thought PSVR 2 could now access PC games??

@Alpine021 no, that would be... huge.

@AK4tywill Astro Bot not getting a port was a huge disappointment. I thought it would have been a no brainer as its one of the best VR ever made, but now it's likely trapped on psvr1 forever.

Alyx gets the hype, but there are plenty of other cheap excellent titles on PC. Lone Echo should be dirt cheap.

Not sure how many current PS5 gamers are that big on HL anyway? Does the franchise have much pull?

Orange Box was terrible on consoles and it’s only boomers like me who played games like HL 1 & 2 back twenty to twenty five years ago on a decent PC.

Half the people reading this weren’t born when I installed HL1 on my PC so I wonder how many gamers care about it?

I learnt from the first PSVR that Sony wasn't going to support this long term. Sure, there's a handful of great games and third party support. But for me I want the big hitters. Even discounted it isn't worth the entry point, unless you have money falling out your arse.

@CrashBandicoat considering how many gamers "cared" about The Last Guardian as opposed to how much it sold when it actually came out, this isn't a surprise at all.

Where do you order the adapter?

@naruball GT7 is indeed fantastic, though when you're comparing to Index and PCVR at large you do have to put it up against Automobilista 2, iRacing, Asetto Corsa, and comparing non-car-sims, you get to MS Flight Simulator and DCS World. GT7 is great, is it as great as all the above though? Obviously with the adapter inbound, all the above is "playable on PSVR2" (we'll go with the spin there lol.)

I still don't get the sales of TLG. I mean, sure, it was vapor ware for a generation and a half and I think a lot of interest was killed from that, but how could such a hyped Sony game and highly anticipated game fail like that? I think so much of it was that PS4 gamers at that point in time weren't really PS gamers anymore, PS install base already converted to be mostly 360 install base by then.

@AK4tywill That was really the sign of just how they intended to treat PSVR2, when they have their own good library of VR games that wasn't even deemed worthwhile to port, let alone make any new games.

@Alpine021 Ahh, yeah, no, the adapter is just so you can use the PSVR2 HMD on a gaming PC for PCVR games. It doesn't involve PS5.

@CrashBandicoat You've taken the crown from FF as the most depressing thing around lol.

Has this been debunked.....

The adapter maybe coming out, but it actually takes away the features which make psvr2 the best vr headset out to date for the price?

I thought the main features like hdr, haptic feedback, headset feedback and eye tracking are all obsolete on pc.

Is it even worth it?

@Bez87 That's correct that HDR, haptics/feedback, and eye tracking are not functional on PC.

For PCVR there's not a ton of options at the price point, though. At normal non-sale price it's $610 for PSVR2 + Adapter. There's also the Pimax Crystal Light (non-dimming) at $600, which also lacks the above features, but has much better resolution and lenses (but they're not taking orders on those for a while due to a display vendor QC issue), and of course the 10,000lb gorilla in the room, the Quest 3 at $500 (+40-120 for a proper strap) (+$35-100 for a link cable or a proper wifi setup for wireless), and Quest 2 for $200 (but maybe out of production/unavailable, waiting for Quest 3s, a cheaper Fresnel lens version of Quest 3.) And there's the Pico 4 (not officially available in the US, but it's under $400 in EU.)

PSVR2 offers a direct display port connection, unlike the Quests or Pico which is an advantage (no video compression, less latency, less GPU overhead for encoding.) But it has far worse optics than the Quest 3 or Pico. Has better blacks than all the above, but that comes at the cost of pentile pixelation/blur filter, and OLED motion blur.

It's not a TERRIBLE option, but not the automatic best choice either. Comes down to which tradeoffs matter more to the buyer. I'd think for MOST PCVR players it's probably going to come down to Quest or Pico making the most sense, unless the latency or compression is a show stopper, where the PSVR2 or Crystal Light become much more desirable.

@NEStalgia buy I wonder though whether those features aren't available is due to the fact that the games on PC haven't been made for it.

I wonder if it catches on that the developers may go back into the games and update them for those settings?

Surely with those features it would make the psvr2 a more desired headset for PC? And rival the others

@WhiteRabbit yeah, I've heard about that from quite a few people, but I haven't played it myself (though I bought it last year I think). Walking in VR gives me migraines, unfortunately.

@WhiteRabbit Thanks
I tried that with several games, but it breaks immersion. I just choose on rails games instead like Pistol Whip and Transformers or rhythmic games like Beat Saber and Beat the Beats. Synapse was ace, but also painful, so I only played it once and can't recommend it highly enough.

@WhiteRabbit I played Thumper once and I think I liked it. I still haven't bought Tetris Effect, though, because I find it a bit expensive, even with the price cut. When it goes below £20, I'll bite!

@Bez87 I'd briefly wondered the same thing from Sony's original wording, but it seems like it's on the Sony side that at least eye tracking is not getting passed through. Why would they not pass it through? IDK, but they specifically mention that it supports "foveated rendering without eye tracking", which is what other mfrs call "FFR/Fixed Foveated Rendering" when they lack eye tracking modules at all. Why Sony would have the hardware and not send the tracking data, IDK unless it's something proprietary on PS5. Maybe it has something to do with the use of Virtual Link instead of a separate USB data channel.

Controller haptics, it does support rumble, and we know PC supports DS5 just fine with the haptic triggers for a handful of games. Maybe that's something the open source would could eventually patch in, if the headset gets popular on PC, since it's something pushed TO the controller rather than something the headset isn't pushing to the PC like eye tracking. But like DS5 itself on PC, not many games would end up supporting that.

Modders/OSS will probably add some kind of hacky support for SOME controller features. Maybe even could get headset rumble working, but no games would really support that as no other headset has it, it would have to just use controller rumble data, but the one that matters most, eye tracking, seems to be a limitation that would have to be fixed by Sony. If the data's not there, it's not there.

If they were to add eye tracking support, it would become a much more desirable PC HMD, no other similarly priced HMD has eye tracking. That they didn't include that makes clear they either didn't want it to become popular and therefore crippled it's best attribute or their "planned from the beginning" PC support is a last minute afterthought indeed. It's an awkward release. Imagine having the only product with a desired feature in it's price class...and then removing support for the feature.

@NEStalgia I agree completely with all your points.

Like you said it makes no sense on Sonys side to have those features already within the headset at that price point and not have them unlocked for pc users.

Yes point in question that no game uses it nor does any other headset, but then why not have it their, then developers have the option to design a game with those features in it.

My only guess is the tech they have inside is top secret and do not want it on PC for fear of it being used by others? Maybe.

Or like you said they don't really want it to take off anymore so they'll let it die slowly like they did with the vita.

Sony loves making amazing secondary hardware and just letting it die. It's their thing hahaha

@Bez87 It adds to the whole weird arc of PSVR2, really. They started designing it on the heels of PSVR1, probably before Jim was even CEO, considering it had the, at the time, bleeding edge Virtual Link port support, and that was built into the PS5 itself. That port died early in the NV20 series era, and Sony might be the only company actually making VL hardware at all which must cost a fortune making custom interfaces for a dead protocol. And even PS5 Pro will be stuck needing it (unless they want to launch Pro and say PSVR2 isn't supported...) It guarantees PSVR2 won't work on PS6. It'll be doomed like PSVR1 was.

Then they have the PSVR1 showcase instead of the PS5 launch, while Xbox announced Series. Then after PS5 announce, Jim had that weird interview that pretty much said they're not interested in VR. Then a few days later Sony Japan leaks pictures of PSVR2 with a "we're not dead, yet!" vibe. But then it doesn't launch for over 2 more years. And when it does we find out they have minimal software support and start closing every studio as soon as it launches. Then a year later they announce this PC adapter, but it doesn't support most of the actual hardware features including the selling point eye tracking, and apparently has Bluetooth issues with the controllers, and they apparently tested 4 whole USB receivers with it. Then they claim this was the plan all along.........

I can understand them not supporting the headset rumble, it's a unique feature, nothing on PC exists to support it, I get it's unnecessary (and probably won't exist on other headsets maybe ever.)

I can't understand them not supporting VRSense haptics because PC already supports DS5 haptics....aren't they the same? I also can't understand how they have such dodgy bluetooth and how Sony didn't think to test this, or just put a BT receiver on the adapter itself that's guaranteed to work. At $60 they could afford it.

I can even get them not supporting HDR, because that's mostly not a thing on PCVR, and other headsets costing 4x more also do not have HDR, and only support 8bit color. Software support is thus, non-existent. And even on PS5 the HDR comes with serious tradeoffs (terrible motion persistence on the panel) unless you drop the brightness, basically, nulling HDR.

But not including the eye tracking data? It's either extreme laziness, intentional sabotage so the headset doesn't actually become a popular PC choice because the hardware isn't profitable on its own, or they implemented the eye tracking in a weird or proprietary way and it's stuck. But it's a typical Sony move. But if they don't want it to be popular on PC, why make an adapter at all if the goal is to make an undesirable product so that it won't sell? Just a value add for PS5 users who also happen to have powerful gaming rigs and are also into VR but also don't want to buy a better PCVR headset?

It's just a weird, weird move. It's better that it exists than that it doesn't, but I still can't figure out if the adapter is meant to benefit anyone, or if it's just there to give another reason to help sell out of remaining headsets because there's not enough PS5 owners interested in it to get rid of them.