There was no shortage of exciting virtual reality (VR) news at Sony’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference in Los Angeles yesterday with the company revealing some interesting exclusives that will launch with the Playstation VR headset in October this year.
A particularly interesting exclusive was first person space shooter Farpoint which is being used to showcase a brand new Playstation VR accessory, the PSVR Aim Controller. The Aim Controller a redesign of the Playstation Move shooting adapter that was created for the Playstation 3 a few years ago, though it’s very clearly a massive improvement upon it. We recall an early version of the Aim Controller being shown behind closed doors at E3 a few years ago with a demo that we assume was Farpoint in the early stages of development.
The most promising difference between the Aim Controller and the older Playstation Move gun is that, packed as it is with motion and navigation sensors, the Aim Controller will feature direct 1:1 tracking, something that the Playstation Move attachment failed to achieve. This means that wherever you point your controller, your in-game gun will point the same way allowing for what will hopefully be a truly natural first person shooter experience in VR.
As a sci-fi first person shooter, it makes perfect sense that Sony has picked Farpoint to showcase this peripheral and although the title will work with the standard Playstation Dualshock 4 the best experience will of course come from using the peripheral for which the game has been designed.
The Aim Controller is also an exciting opportunity for Farpoint’s developer Impulse Gear. Farpoint is the developer’s first title and by working with Sony to develop the Aim Controller they could really make their title stand out from any other first person shooter experience and even the other Playstation VR exclusives. The Aim Controller could drastically change the experience of the first person shooter genre if other studios are given the chance to build upon Impulse Gear’s work.
There hasn’t been any release date or price announced for the Playstation VR Aim Controller just yet but VRFocus will report any news as it comes in.
