Random: Nintendo Switch Is Getting Its Own VR-Style Headset, Kinda

120 inch display?

Er….that's 10 feet. That's bigger than most walls for TVs.

Mmmmm... Not interested in VR in the least. Although I don’t think this can be considered real VR without motion and proper support from the Switch. It’s just an oversized screen that covers most of your vision.

@Knuckles-Fajita I think that what they mean is that it feels like a 120 inch screen while using it.

I mean, it's not VR... At all. It's a headset display. These exist, and can be had for much better prices on eBay. Most support any HDMI input.

Not VR. Clickbait, yet again.

The Switch doesn't have any motion-sensing capabilities? Really? Because I'm pretty sure that the Switch comes with two detachable controllers that feature VERY good motion sensing technology.

So you are basically strapping a TV to your head with this, I will pass.

yeah, i'll wait for Nintendo's Official VR Headset (if that ever happens.) OR get other official VR headsets instead of one not being an VR to begin with.

Having played Robot Rescue on The PSVR, I know that that level of immersion would work really well for a Mario game or something, but I don’t see Nintendo making that type of thing for awhile if at all. I’m happy to continue playing the occasional PSVR and that’s it.

PSVR is probably one of the worst and most expensive gimmicks I bought in a long time. I got it when it came out and I barely used it. It is just really uncomfortable to use and most of the games designed for it are more like a tech demo than anything else. Half the games seemed to give me motion sickness and it felt really straining. I just do not like using it and it has been collecting dust pretty much all year.

Gimmicks like this "strap a TV to your face" kinda thing are even worse, and it is nothing new. Sony had something like this a long time ago way back in the mid 1990's called the "Glasstron." I doubt anyone still remembers it but LRG covered this odd piece of history a few years back:

https://youtu.be/M-c9S3cdAe0

PS VR does the same but with a better resolution of 960 x 1080 for each eye (1920x1080 in total).
Yes, you can plug a Switch on it. Any HDMI source in fact.
And PS VR is 249€/£/$ and has its own VR games.

Well...

Not interested whatsoever.

It's basically a headset that will make you go blind. No thanks, VR is basically dead at this point. Unless you want to thrill yourself with fake demos and headache go ahead and just get the VIVE to murder those eye sights of yours.

@Damo Interesting, I wasn't aware that there was a difference. Seems like gyroscopes and accelerometers would be all you need, but I'll admit I've never looked all that seriously into VR tech since I have only one working eye and most of the "wow factor" of a 3D virtual experience is completely wasted on me.

@retro_player_22
Do you know .Hack Anime ?
Players can DIED (Really Died) by playing that game in the Anime.
VR = Grim Reaper.
Simply a killer machine.

Every time a product like this comes out people comment about how they "can't figure out what the reason is" for it to exist... And I for the life of me can't figure out what they can't figure out... Do you have 10 foot TV in your house? No? Well now you would. What's so hard to understand? That being said it better actually look good for it to be worth while and the headset better be comfortable, but still the concept... It shouldn't be that hard to understand why you'd want to play videogames on a giant TV...

Cool idea but not at that price. Use case too limited. I’d only pay $50
For this based on how often I’d actually use it. Others mileage may vary.

@Anti-Matter I know how Blanka from the Street Fighter movie feels after being blindfolded with VR for the entire film.

@JasmineDragon The console itself doesn't contain motion controls. Most basic VR experiences allow you to look around by moving your head.

If they added a joycon for head tracking then wouldnt it be VR? Kind of like the Labo robot kit.

Of course it would be totally useless as theres no software for it, but its not impossible.

So it's just a TV attached to your face...ok.

As an 80s kid I have been obsessed with VR since Gibson, lawnmower man etc. bought the oculus go and took it back after a week. It was pretty good but....do I need to spend two hours a day looking at yet another screen? No.

This could work ok, if you don’t have a big tv.

Re motion, I wonder if you could clip in the JoyCons to the side of a headset and use the pro controller , that would afford some motion control?

@Damo (#12) The hardware technology in Switch is perfectly capable of doing pretty much everything a VR headset does except it's missing the dual lenses and headset to put it on your head. If someone literally built the attachment seen below then you could basically do proper VR with the Switch exactly as is, albeit in a really low resolution:

https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/these-fan-made-nintendo-switch-vr-mockups-are-brilliant/

But, yes, you'd obviously have to make a game that's designed around VR and programmed with those specific types of inputs and stuff in mind to actually take any real advantage of it. But that's just a matter of changing some lines of code and the like, such as making the game output in stereo by rendering it side by side on the the left and right halves of the Switch's display for example, and the lenses would make you see this in stereoscopic 3D (so long as you've distorted the output image(s) slightly to compensate for the lens distortion), and could even be done on a bunch of current Switch games right now via a "simple" patch.

In Unity the display part alone is literally a simple toggle (I did it with my friend's non-VR fps game the other day in a matter of seconds-minutes by changing that little output toggle to "VR" mode), and while it won't be perfect out-the-gate, it will literally allow you to look around in say Wolfenstein on Switch in a VR headset as is, without any change to the code whatsoever. Even basic moving around will still work too as you'd just press the analog stick and you will move in VR, but obviously the developer would need to add some extra code if they wanted to let the player use the Joy-Con as proper VR motion controllers with one in each hand moving/pointing each of their hands in VR and shooting independently and stuff like that.

Not an official Nintendo product so who cares?

This is how people got fat in Wall-E...

@Damo But not as much as you think.

Like I said, you could literally take any first-person Switch games that are already built in Unity* right now and click the "VR" output/build button (instead of the Switch output/build button) and have them running in full stereoscopic 3D and displayed in 360 degrees all around you on one of the current VR headsets in a matter of seconds, with full head tracking too (Note: I'd be playing them on my Rift here seeing as an actual Switch VR headset doesn't exist right now). It's just the control stuff that would require a bit of work as it's generally only ever been mapped to a controller for those games and wouldn't allow you the full dual-handed motion control you'd ideally want with most VR games.

My friend made a traditional non-VR Unity fps for Steam recently, then I took it and I just selected the "VR" mode in Unity to output it and had it working on my Oculus Rift minutes later, fully playable with me freely and physically looking around in first person (albeit a bit clunky in terms of the aiming controls since they weren't mapped correctly for VR).

With a physical headset that has the lenses and stuff, like the example I linked above, it's a really small step to making Switch a fully working VR machine--other than the abysmally low resolution you'd have to put up with due to the 1280 x 720p Switch display output being divided in two vertically to produce the stereoscopic effect through the two lenses (you'd end up with games running in 640 x 720 resolution, which really is tiny for VR).

*Obviously any non-Unity games will require a different process to get working with VR, but I imagine something like Unreal Engine also has a similarly quick and simple way of outputting games on stereoscopic 3D VR mode too.

@bydavidrosen Looking at a giant HDTV and having a small screen strapped to your face are two very different experiences. As a PSVR owner there is no way I would advertise it as being like a giant HDTV because that is simply dishonest.

@JayJ like I said it better look good to make it worth it, but the people questioning this don't seem like they'd understand it if it was 8k per eye resolution haha. The CONCEPT is fantastic and not that hard to grasp.

@bydavidrosen The concept is not that great, like I said Sony did this over 20 years ago and abandoned it for good reasons. Strapping a screen to your face is uncomfortable, the screen is straining for most people, and the effect is never like watching a massive TV which is how they always tried to market these devices.

It's like if you sit way too close to a small TV, does that make it seem exactly like watching a huge TV? The fact is being really close to a screen isn't like having a large TV.

Anyone who buys this hoping it will give them the same effect as a giant HDTV is going to be very disappointed and probably dealing with some eye strain.

@JayJ Again the concept is great. They only have to get it to the point of being a great product. I'm not saying this is the one. But I've done enough VR stuff to know that watching shows or playing games on a virtual gigantic screen as a concept rules. Eventually like everything, it will be perfected and be comfortable and look great and not have any kind of eye strain. I think people are too busy talking down this product to stop and think about whether the concept is cool, and it is. Then again what do I know, I still pay extra to see IMAX and Dolby movies while everyone else apparently watches movies on their phones...

'no motion-sensing capabilities whatsoever (which should be pretty obvious as the Switch doesn't have any VR capabilities that would allow for this)'

@Damo Are we talking about the same device? Because the Switch most certainly has those capabilities with the right Joystick and motion controls.
They could've easily replicated the gyro of the Joycons/Pro Controller with the headset. That's exactly what VR headsets do.

Its a private screen!! Not bad.
Maybe not really for Switch Users but this is a great concept. (Maybe a bit on the expensive side)

I'm all set already, I've got a PSVR and it works with the Switch. It's cool as it is for things, but, playing Splatoon 2 with it is just perfect. Normally, when you're playing the game you have to recenter the camera, but, you never have to in VR, because you can spin around 360 degrees, not stuck looking in the direction of your TV. I'm pretty sure my skills are improved when I play like that.

In the past, I've also used a cheap android all in one portable vr unit, and that thing was really uncomfortable, so, I hope that's been worked out here.

@Damo That makes more sense.

That said, it would've been really cool if the headset had a gyro for games like Splatoon.

This thing is useless, none of the Switch games I have would work with VR.

@BumpkinRich But the console isn't what you're strapping on your head. This is a headset with its own screen, feeding from the Switch itself. One would think they could have made it able to slot one Joy-Con into the headset like a Labo construct, which would turn it into a motion controlled headset.

Obviously this would involve a fair bit of programming, but it seems like something just about any game developer would be able to do if these guys actually wanted to make "Switch VR".

@impurekind first time I saw that fan made mockup my mind was blown and suddenly all the strange design decisions of the Switch made sense – I really expected something like that for the launch of Mario Odissey, because of the Cappy thing...

I still think it makes perfect sense and anyway, nothing can be more lo-res than the 3DS hehehe

@Zuljaras it’s not Nintendo’s product, it’s a third party manufacturer that has nothing to do with them. Heck, you can even use it with any USB-C enabled device.

Focus on reading the articles instead of spewing out negative nonsense.

@bydavidrosen Getting hyped up over marketing gimmicks for overpriced tech accessories doesn't do anyone any good in the end. I feel like it is the kind of things that kids would do anyways due to their lack of experience and low standards. Anyone who has any experience with this sort of thing knows all too well how the reality is at odds with the marketing material.

The whole "virtual gigantic screen" thing is ridiculous marketing to the max. I mean for one there is nothing more or less virtual about this than any other screen, it is just a small screen that you strap to your face. Unless you think holding a phone directly in front of your eyes gives you a "huge virtual screen" experience I doubt this is going to be any different.

I mean what exactly makes a screen "virtual" in the first place? Virtual is defined as: "almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition." So I guess like anything can be virtual if you apply it loosely enough.

@JayJ haha sounds like you REALLY hate this idea... Anyway no, it's not the same as holding the phone in front of your face. I can't explain it well but the lenses and the rest or the "VR" process turn it into what looks like a screen far away from you. I'm sure you know that already, but since you're equating it to holding a phone in front of your face I guess it's necessary to bring it up.

You cannot actually go blind or suffer long-term damage from anything like this. Even sitting close to the TV doesn't "hurt" your eyes. One can suffer from eye-strain, yes, but nothing permanent.

@JasmineDragon The motion controls aren't what control the viewpoint in the Switch games though. Take BOTW for example. You wanna look left or right, you move the left joystick in the appropriate direction, not by tilting or rotating the joy cons (unless you're using the scope, but that's not as often as controlling the camera). Yes the Switch has motion controls, but even if they were implemented in a headset such as this, it wouldn't do you much good and they definitely wouldn't give you the VR experience wherein you look (move your head) in one direction, and the view changes in kind.

What would give this a leg up for me would be if they had some kind of on-board 2D-to-3D image processor and were able to deliver separate content to each eye creating a more immersive world. You're not getting true VR by moving your head and your view changes with this anyway, so that would be a neat way to do "immersion" differently. A lot of 3D TVs (such as mine) can do an acceptable job of converting 2D signals into 3D. Just my 2 cents.

@jmh363905
thats is a great idea man:)

i actualy posted metroid VR months before the release of the nintendo, in the miiverse community.
nintendo should have designed the nintendo switch capable for VR. (you dont have to like it, but its there)

that game is the only game in excistence that is worth any vr device.
picture yourself in that world on a mysterious planet, with that music and epic bosses.
should have been released by nintendo as demopod in gamestores.
sale figures of the switch would be above 30 million by now.

but allas, nintendo lacks a set of balls.

I reckon this accessory is for people who are into screen doors.

Meh, could work for shooter like Doom.

I would buy it, just to see how it works

Should at least have two separate displays for 3-d effect. But then any games you play would have to be coded for two slightly different scenes to make it work for true 3-d. Otherwise it’s just like strapping you’re switch to your face. Why would anyone want to do that?

@bydavidrosen I already made it pretty clear how I own a PSVR which is a superior take on this concept. I should be the kind of person who understands what this is like, and based upon my personal experience with VR headsets it is nothing like watching a huge HDTV. It is like having a small screen strapped to your face, and while it can be immersive with VR, it isn't really that appealing on it's own.

In any case you are starting to sound like a shill when you try to push marketing material like it is gospel.

@JayJ Would you say that if they made a new version of the PSVR with even better fidelity, less wires, more comfort, better in every way, and you could hook up your Switch to play games on what looks like a 10ft tv would be cool? Then you understand the concept like I do. If you don't think that would be cool... You've gotta just not be understanding the concept haha, I have no idea how else to put it.

@bydavidrosen So now we are just talking about theoretical products? I own one of the best versions of this product that is on the market, I am clearly not the type of person who can't imagine what it is like. I have extensive personal experience with it, and that is why I understand how it does not live up to the way they are marketing it. It has it's uses, but the whole "virtual 120" HDTV" thing is just ridiculous marketing material.

@JayJ I've literally been saying concept the whole time so yes, theoretical products. The idea of what this (probably crappy) product is supposed to be is awesome. I have a PSVR too and it's pretty cool but I never bother to play it haha, so it's funny I'm even arguing for a new sorta-VR headset

I already don't want this.

@bolt05
thats ok.
i think nintendo will never make any vr device anymore. they trew it on anti-social or something. quit suprising though, cause they happen to be an inovating company.
maybe they are waiting for the right moment, when technology becomes cheaper and better, who knows.
but i hope one day i could play metroid in vr.

That picture of the guy on the bed is just killing me, lol. I almost want to try it, just to see if my reaction would be the same.

2 spooky

@Damo
It's definitely clickbait. It's not VR-style in any logical direct sense. If I said Sony was getting it's very own Super Mario-styled game, but there's a catch and then said well, the game is actually a first person shooter and has nothing to do with Mario, but the main character is fat and wears overalls, that would be clickbait. This headset isn't VR at all and isn't VR styled. The only thing even remotely similar is it goes on your face. Sunglasses and ViewMasters do too, but that doesn't make them VR styled. The goal was to make people think, hope, suspect that maybe just maybe the Switch had VR coming, which is patently false and you know that. It seems fairly clear this was intentionally misleading, also, which is what makes it clickbait.

Adding but there's a catch just makes it all the more clickbait and makes Nintendo Life look like one of those terrible news sites (like Express) where every article is named this way. You may want to consider recalibraring your naming conventions for articles.

Without any actual VR involved, this is just an expensive piece of plastic that does little more than the Switch already does in handheld mode, and what little it does do is probably less healthy for your eyes.

@JasmineDragon

The Joycons have a great IR sensor but they are a bit lacking in the tracking department. It isn't as good as PS Move in that sense.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a753339a92cfbc3bbac8b2b2f746801295e929a84b496376982fb805d581ea4.jpg

@bydavidrosen Yeah I mean who knows one day they might have this all figured out, but for now most of these claims have just been ridiculous marketing gimmicks.

@retro_player_22 It's a shame that you're so uninformed. Playing on VR is actually better for your eyes than a screen would be because your eyes focus at a much greater length. This puts less strain on your eyes. And to claim it as dead is the same as saying Nintendo is dead during the Wii U launch. What a silly claim to be making.

@JasmineDragon VR works just like real life, totally different to 3D glasses. So one eye means it works just fine.

@bydavidrosen
But what you seem to be describing is an actual VR headset. Even mobile VR works by splitting the display into 2 images so you can process it as 3-d imagery. When it’s done that way, it works great. But this article doesn’t lead me to believe that this headset is capable of doing that. I imagine it must have some kind of lens to change your plain of focus, just like vr lenses would. But if you only see one image through the display, it won’t be the same experience as any other type of even the cheapest and most basic vr. And if it does split it, the aspect ratio of your game environment would change. I think games that are designed for vr kind of have to be designed with that in mind. It’s not like you can just drop into a game like BotW and have it look and play the same.

@BlueformFactor
Real life and VR both works like 3-d glasses. The concept of all 3 involve putting 2 2-d images that are from slightly different viewpoints into each eye separately. You’re brain does the rest of the work of making it into one coherent 3-d image. You can use VR with only one eye, but then the imagery wouldn’t be in stereoscopic 3-d. Same is true if you lose an eye. You lose binocular vision. That’s why people who lose an eye have poor depth perception.

@JayJ What makes it a marketing gimmick? Sure for devices that only do this like the one in the article, but in VR, the idea of virtual screens is very ideal since they are more convenient, infinitely reproducible, shareable to friends across the world, resizable, reshapable, built-in better than IMAX 3D.

It turns out that there is very little reason to have physical displays around once you have a comfortable AR / VR headset hybrid in a small form factor.

There are so many benefits to virtual screens that they will be seen as hugely beneficial and definitely not marketing gimmicks. When the 2nd gen headsets release in 1-2 years, they will be capable of representing virtual screens around the 1080p range, so good enough for the average person.

@Flipbot Yeah, but my point is that there will be no difference to what that person experiences in real life. If you're playing games on Switch with one eye, then you play games in VR with one eye, or if you just travel around the (real) world with one eye, it's all the same. Everything is perceived in the same way, so there is no reason to write VR off for that reason.

@Flipbot I gotta imagine it is the full VR style setup just limited to one app... A TV screen app. How else would it create a 10ft screen? There's simply no way the headset no matter how bad it is is just a little screen in front of your face with no lenses and no effect of even being in a simplistic vr experience. And if the whole point is to see a giant screen why would you need a more advanced PSVR style experience?

@nagash Actually, in VR the Switch's screens would look quite a bit lower-res than a 3DS to your eyes because of how large an area of you vision and field of view the pixels are spread over. It's basically stretching a 720p resolution image onto something the size of a very large cinema screen.

@BlueformFactor "Virtual screen" is just a marketing gimmick used to sell headsets. It is very subjective on it's application and most people find that to not be the case. It is like saying "I think it could be like this." That is not an objective capability to rate it's performance off of.

Lol VR. Until tech reaches Sword Art Online levels, all this is is junk in my opinion. Wearing the screen on your face with a motion sensor strapped to your head isn't Virtual reality.

It can still be a neat gimmick, but that is all it will ever be to me. Certainly not worth hundreds of dollars of extra cost in addition to the console or PC.

It might be fun playing Metroid Prime 4 with this.

@JayJ What kind of headsets, VR or this? The application is huge in VR, it just needs resolution / comfort improvements. Other than that it feels just like a real screen.

@Heavyarms55 Lol at anyone who thinks this. There's only one type of person that says this type of nonsense, and it's someone who has never tried VR, at least nothing worthwhile. it is VR whether you agree or not, since it makes you believe you are somewhere else.

VR headsets over time will replace thousands of dollars worth of equipment by simulating better experiences than the equipment and that's before including everything VR does uniquely.

@BlueformFactor I know that dual-display VR would work for me. But it's not something that's worth spending hundreds of dollars on when one of the technology's biggest selling points simply doesn't apply to me.

It's also just not a good idea to risk any excessive strain or injury to my one working eye. I don't have a spare like most people do, and I already have enough problems with the one that works.

Wow! Just imagine how blurry Switch games will look in your face! I am serious, people already complain about PS4 VR resolution and fps.

$100 got me an hd projector that does a 50+ inch display I have aimed at my ceiling. Nothing better then laying in bed with wife and playing video games on your ceiling. We even watch some Netflix since it’s hooked to a Roku as well. I have an ihome for decent sound too. Almost beats the 65inch in the main room. But as for this, my eyes just couldn’t take staring at screen 2 inches from my face for more then 10 minutes.

@Zuljaras Er, this is 3rd party nonsense - nothing to do with nintendo -

My eyes are hurting already by reading this. Can't imagine how it will be using it

Anyone who thinks 'VR is a gimmick' needs to play Pavlov VR, then try playing a regular console FPS after. Here's a really good video that summarises what I'm talking about: link.

@BlueformFactor lol someone drank his koolaid today. Do they pay you to make comments like that?

I want to try it.. really hope you select me. I love free stuff...

I did want one until you said $205 & 800p. I could get a normal size HDTV for that (32 or 40 in on sale) or a good down payment on a 4k HDR HDTV. I'm not impressed if all it does is take the place of a screen, on top of needing enough adapters that you can tell it wasn't made with Switch in mind (they just added an adapter after it was built), kinda like all these stands "for the Switch" that were actually designed for tablets & cell phones well before Switch released, but incorporated "for Switch" into their advertising once it was out. I got a stand that was still great even though it wasn't designed for Switch, so maybe this will surprise me.

WTF is this poo? Would be cool if NL can write a comprehensive story vs. mumbo jumbo.

You know, you can just attach a 3rd joycon in your VR headset and you are good to go.. maybe slot the switch itself if its works? Haha

You guys gotta review this just for the sake of it lol

VR at 1280x800 resolution at a price of 200 dollars?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Isn't there something out now that uses hdmi?

@Knuckles-Fajita Key word being “virtual” display... ie, it simulates the look of a 120” screen...

I make my own NINTENDO SWITCH VR HEADSET like NINTENDO LABO does have make it easier made of CARDBOARD VR HEADSET. XD.

Please don't refer to something like this as "VR" or "VR-style" thank you.

I already found the resolution of my Note 8 + Gear VR lacking but that ther is likew 1/4 of it.

"But There's A Catch"

You have to play it like the dude in the promo pic.

Someone can GIVE me one, but that's about it...

Nice idea Nintendo, but you should be focusing on improving the Switch console. You could start by adding SD card save backup in a sytem update. I as well as a lot of fans would greatly appreciate it. But your ideas are always creative.