During an event at the West Hollywood House of Blues last night, Starbreeze Studios unveiled StarVR, their new virtual reality headset, alongside a new Walking Dead game being developed by Overkill (developers of the Payday series.) StarVR joins an ever growing catalog of virtual reality devices.So how does Starbreeze hope to differentiate the device from Oculus Rift, Morpheus, and its other competitors?

Well, first, StarVR is angling to be a "high end" VR solution. And there's no debating the thing's power. StarVR's website is filled with comparison to "other" VR devices, and I'd be lying if I said that the headset's specs weren't impressive: 210 Vertical FOV, 130 Horizontal FOV, dual 5.5 inch LCD panels, 360 degree headtracking, and a massive 5120x1440 resolution. Now, I'm not sure that I'm in the right income bracket to be able to afford a computer that can actually run VR games at that resolution, but I know that there is a large demographic of PC users that pride themselves on having the most powerful hardware available, so I'm sure the StarVR is looking really attractive to them.

The second way that Starbreeze seeks to separate StarVR from its competitors is in terms of software:

Through the acquisition, Starbreeze becomes one of the first technology companies to publish and develop both the software and hardware components of VR, allowing for a holistic approach covering all the dimensions involved.

This isn't a bad point at all. It has been a common refrain that for VR to really catch on it's going to need games that convince consumers to drop money on expensive hardware. And, I admit, a VR sequel to Starbreeze's Syndicate could be incredible.

But Starbreeze turned to Payday developer Overkill to show off the capabilities of the new headset, demonstrating a new first person Walking Dead game. The game is an on-rail shooter (think House of the Dead), and yes, believe it or not, it does include a light gun. Over on Polygon, Phil Kollar shares his hands on impressions:

About halfway through the demo, I was handed a shotgun. Both in the game and in real life. In a moment that reminded me of the weird dual realities I was currently existing in, a Starbreeze rep places a plastic toy shotgun into my hands, just as a character handed me a virtual shotgun in the game. The "real" fake shotgun had special sensors attached to it so that the game could track it. As I aimed in the real world, I aimed in the game.

Which... Huh. The image of someone wearing a VR headset and holding a plastic shotgun sounds like something ripped out of a bad X-Files episode, but hey, maybe that works in our weird, dystopic present. It also makes a strange pairing with the high-power rhetoric of the rest of StarVR's announcement. I understand it: Making a good demo is hard enough, and making a VR demo must be even harder. But there feels like there's a disconnect here. All the power in the world, but I can't leave the rails.

Starbreeze's entry into the VR race was a bit of a surprise, but now that I've given it some thought, I suspect we'll see headsets from a lot of different companies in the coming years. If I'm being pessimistic, then it's easy to imagine VR as the new MMO or new motion controls: A pipe dream that floods the market with tons of mediocre products. But it is possible that the introduction of VR will be more like the debut of dedicated 3D graphics cards in the 90s: A real shift in the way people make and play games.

good luck don't get bunkrupt

Haha, my first thought.

Certainly the most unexpected news of this E3 so far.

Waiting for ZyngaVR.

When is Tiger Electronics announcing their VR set-up?

Leveraging that brothers money

I read the specs and my jaw dropped... I read the demo description and started laughing. That's cute starbreeze; if that's your vision with the price tag I'm suspecting then you can move along.

I think a comparison to MMOs or motion controls is quite generous: Those innovations produced some successes.

Because the best move in a new, untested market is to make your device as expensive and cost prohibitive to most people as possible.

Damn it Austin, now it's stuck in my head!

Welp, that's it folks. VR is over. The format war is gonna burn it all to the ground.

Why? Just, why? They're the smallest fish in the biggest fucking ocean.

Since when does Starbreeze have money...?

An exclusive quote from Mya on the state of VR on GiantBomb.com is something I never thought I needed until this moment. Thank you Austin, thank you.

Activision, take note. This is how you get back into taking up store shelves worldwide.

I cannot imagine this will end well for them.

I just don't get it, I don't want to sit there with something on my head, I just wanna lay down and relax.

This is either

1. A shitty attempt to drive up stock or IPO to get bought out by a hedge fund that dosent know any better.

2. Something meant for theme park ride

3. Someone losing there mind thinking this will work even in the most niche market before 2020.

With the resolution in mind, how many will they sell? 10? Titan x 3x SLI any one?

That article thumbnail through me off. I thought it meant, "Starbreeze is making a Kill la Kill game.' Which I was thinking Awesome!

But to hear it's yet another VR Headset. This whole thing feels like the higher end Home Andorid Micro Console race all over again. These things are going to destroy these companies, Starbreeze in particular.

I'm skeptical but intrigued. The display may be awesome on paper, but I wonder about the ergonomics of a dual-screen HMD, and also the response of LCD for VR (recalling the smeary quality of the original Kickstarter Rift DK1). The current Rift, DK2, doesn't have a particularly wide horizontal field of vision (84°) or resolution (1080p pentile matrix), so I'm interested in reading some hands-on impressions.

Dud or not, it's important to have competitors to push the envelope. I don't want Oculus singularly defining what VR can/should be. Their consumer Rift seems to be playing it safe, so there's plenty of space for a maximalistic HMD.

Your avatar is so good.

@dan_citi: just trying to represent the newest/greatest American hero

The DK2's resolution is woefully inadequate, and the FOV claustrophobic. That's why the retail version will be using dual-screens just like the HTC Vive does, which are in fact 2160×1200 at 90Hz. I worry even that is not enough.

As someone who has used the DK1 and DK2, obviously the concern here with Starbreeze's unit is that it's very likely they won't tackle the latency and tracking anywhere near as well as Oculus or Valve, but that 5k screen sounds necessary to me after seeing how poor 1080p is on a VR headset.

@bollard: Yeah. The StarVR may have the same perceptual clarity of the DK2 considering how wide its field of vision is. Having owned the DK1 & DK2 myself, greater clarity is my biggest want from these HMDs. If the consumer Rift ditches the pentile matrix then I hope that's enough of a bump, because on paper 1080p (DK2) to 1200p (unconfirmed?) isn't that much.

VR is the new 3D.

@renzu: Indeed, but that's 2160x1200 per eye. The DK2 has an effective resolution of only 960x1080 per eye. And here's a source for you: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/oculus-rift-s-recommended-pc-specs-resolution-anno/1100-6427370/

@bollard: Your link says the opposite actually. "In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second."

2160 * 1200 * 90 = 233M

1080×1200 per eye

@renzu: Misread that! That's indeed the same as the Vive though. I'm still dubious that's enough, but it is a marked improvement at least.

I don't mind lots of VR headsets in principal.. but I too am concerned just how much market fragmentation we're going to see in the mad dash to stand out from the competition.

Also this one kind of looks like an Alienware device, which is a turnoff off the bat. Impressive specs though.

This is DoA. Companies better learn very quickly they call can't make their own VR headset, or else there is going to be a lot of wasted money on the market.

There are a ton of crappy MMOs but there are also 1 or 2 really good super popular ones. I feel bad about companies losing their shirts but competition in the VR headset space is gonna spur better products.

Seriously. Whatever smooth talker straight-up bamboozled some investor into dumping cash into this deserves a raise...and then prompt termination as the company goes under trying to play catch up with Oculus et al.

I jest, of course, but this is somewhat surprising.

This is insane. VR is going to die before it even takes off. If VR is to succeed it'll not only need the hardcore gamers money, but the mainstream as well and with so many on the market and all of them probably super expensive the sales are just going to be spread way too thin. Especially all of the ones that are going to work on PC only and will need at least a GTX 980 to work properly.

That's a $500 graphics card and a $500-1000 VR headset. And I still haven't even bought a case, RAM, motherboard, processor etc.

This is a death sentence for Starbreeze by the looks of it. I really hope they don't THQ themselves with this one. I was way more excited when it was just Oculus and Morpheus. Don't get me wrong, I'm still SUPER excited, but I'm skeptical because I'm excited and I don't want VR to bomb in sales and then devs not make games for it.

Nice to see someone completely misunderstanding VR and going the Rock Band route of hardware/software bundles. What the??

This isn't how it was supposed to pan out. I will NOT have multiple VR headsets, and I will NOT buy a VR headset from a software company if there is competition from proven actors in the field..

Can't wait for the VR wars.

this VR shit is going to be a fucking nightmare

Idiots, not a single vr headset has graced a store shelf yet and they're making one in 4K at twice if not three times the cost most likely. It's like telltale deciding they should make a console with an nvidia titan inside before the xbone and ps4 went up for sale. The market might not even exist for such a product.

StarVR master race?

It sticks out like a sore thumb that they're slapping around all those big specs and not mentioning the refresh rate those displays will be running at.

I'm not sure anybody wants all those nice things if it turns out to run at 60hz and makes people vomit.

This sounds like an april fools joke, no offense to the excellent studio that is Starbreeze. But the thought that a smallish studio could/can put out a vr headset like this sounds baffling!

See I don't get what all the hubub is about on this VR stuff I still have my first VR headset it works fine.

WHY

Really interesting they are going for the top end of the market. Why not though? Oculus will be cost prohibitive as it is, so why not get out and say 'hey it will only work on mega PC's but it will be the best VR headset in the world'. I'm calling this as a smart move.

@austin_walker A small mistake in the article, you got the FOV's the wrong way around. It's 210 Horizontal and 130 Vertical.

Oh, look everybody, it's Betamax all over again.

There are lots of monitor manufacturers and nobody is moaning about a monitor format war.

If there was an actual monitor format war I'd sign up to fight for 16:10. Those extra vertical pixels are worth killing for.

Thing is also that monitors are just monitors. They take some amount out of the 4 availble cable types a monitor can take, and they work with anything. There's no need for patches and software specifically written for it, unless you're talking diagnostics monitors for radiographers and things like that.

There's no reason to believe a game made specifically for this thing will work on the Vive or the Rift without a lot of work. And vice versa. It's not really the same thing.

Dunno about this StarVR, but the other games-oriented VR options (Valve, Oculus, Sony maybe) seem to be coordinating on writing compatible APIs and standards. So for the average game, where you want to play sitting down with a normal controller, you don't have to worry about a format war. It should just work (or at least if it doesn't just work, it won't be because you got a Vive game for your Oculus headset).