At a PlayStation VR session today at GDC, Sony stated that first-party PSVR titles with support for the new Aim peripheral are in development.

Sony’s curious looking Aim controller may not be the coolest looking peripheral out there (a dubious accolade at any rate), but after our hands-on with the device and its first supported title Farpoint was quite positive. The question however, as with any peripheral ever made, is: What will the software support be like? The answer to which defines whether the device will thrive or, as with so many before it, will die a slow lonely death.

Well it seems that, in addition to Farpoint – which we now know will release alongside the Aim controller on May 16th – Sony have now indicated the we can expect first party developed titles built for and using the new device.

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Hands-on: 'PSVR Aim' Controller Debuts with 'Farpoint' FPS

At a PlayStation VR focused session at GDC yesterday, Technical Product Manager at PlayStation, Tom Bruckbock, was asked about Sony’s plans on software support for the new peripheral. In response, Bruckbock stated that the company was indeed working on entirely new titles built with the device as a foundation.

When asked if that meant retro-active support for existing PSVR games like PlayStation VR Worlds, the company confirmed that it had entirely new titles in the works, although precisely what those titles were and when they might arrive is still a mystery. However, Bruckbock also confirmed that zombie shooter The Brookhaven Experiment will receive Aim controller support.

 

 

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.

  • It’d be great to see support for the Aim Controller with Doom, along with a VR patch to make Doom fully immersive.

    More so, I’m curious as to whether I’ll be able to buy the Aim Controller separately –I prefer to buy all of my software as direct-downloads now because I got sick of discs that are prone to data-rot over time caused by the natural half-life of the chemicals used in the manufacturing process… to me it just makes more sense to download the games direct to hard drive, and then occasionally make a backup of my drive. As long as the system is functional, the games will continue to work, so that’s good enough for me –and besides, I’ve upgraded my PS4 to use a 4TB drive and plan to add a 4TB external as soon as the new firmware launches that adds that support.

    Anyway… yeah, I want to be able to buy the PS-Aim Controller separately so that I can buy the game digitally, and not have to dig out a scratch-sensitive disc every time I want to play. If disc-based games would register themselves with the Sony store, where the PS+ store would recognize that I’ve made a purchase of physical media and still allow me to play the game without inserting a disc, that would be fine too. But I understand the reasoning behind the way things are, being that it’s an anti-piracy measure –albeit one that harms the legitimate end user more really than any pirates.

    • Multiplataformgamerz

      a neat idea would be reporting a disc as damaged to allow the game remain as digital, and locking the serial number of the disc forever, or give it up before selling it to someone else

    • Brandon Smith

      I buy too many games digitally, I decided. The way I bought my psvr was by trading in all my old games along with my PS3. I could have had a lot more in trade-in value but I bought so many games via digital download. I’m annoyed with myself a little for that.

      • I can see that being one of (possibly) a few drawbacks to going all-digital. Like you, I used to sell all of the console games I was no longer playing –all the way up to and including the Xbox 360; though on that system, I kept it and added an external USB hard drive, then re-downloaded all of my purchases to it and kept my XBL-Gold account going (still); Over the course of the past 2 years since I did that, I’ve gotten around 230GBs of XB360 games, and play them all from the USB drive (which is actually a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue drive that I salvaged from a laptop and attached via a ThermalTake SATA-to-USB converter-bay).

        I’m at a point in my life now where the likelihood of reselling any of my systems or software is very low –as opposed to a decade ago, when that was standard operating procedure. To date, I’ve only kept the systems that were unsellable due to some physical issue, such as (1) my original Xbox which no longer has it’s chassis-top because I removed it around 8 years ago after repairing a problem with the CD-Drive catching on the chassis upon trying to open it, or (2) my PS2 that has been opened several times to recondition the system. I still have 2 Xbox 360s remaining, one being the older arcade-edition, and the other being a charcoal model with the older chassis style (this one is stored for safe keeping in case the other one goes belly-up). I haven’t yet needed to open up my PS4, but I foresee that coming in the next 6 months… I’ve worked on computers since the mid-1980s, and have reconditioned all of my game consoles going all the way back to the NES; it keeps the systems running like new for many years. Just for example, the PS2 I have is now nearly 17 years old, having bought it within the first few months after it was originally released; It’s been reconditioned about 6 times now and still runs perfectly.

        But anyways, I understand where you’re coming from. If you plan on being able to recoup some of your investment after a console has run it’s cycle in the market, it’s worth a lot more to be able to drop a ton of software with it, and if I were to resell one of my newer decks where I’m using purely digital downloading, I’d have to wipe those games out along with the user profile in order to keep the next owner from using *my* account and licenses. Yeah… that’d be quite a loss of value.

    • Torreth1

      Ive got an excellent fix that will help with the scratch problem . Its faster than download from psn. I call it the “PLACE DISC BACK IN CASE WHEN You are done ” method .

      • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

        Download isn’t any faster with the disc. Disc is just a key. Same file size as digital. Really no reason to go physical these days other than possible returns/trade-ins or letting friends borrow the game.

        • exactly *my* point. The main cause of my games getting scratched in the past wasn’t from lack of care on my part, but rather from friends that borrowed games that didn’t take as good of care of them as I did.

          Once I could go to purely downloading my games, I stopped buying discs altogether. The way I looked at it, it’s not economically feasible for me to allow my friends to borrow my games at any point and those games come back scratched, so it’s better in that case to just do away with physical media altogether and eliminate the problem. Now, if one of my friends wants to play a game that I have, they have to buy their own copy… and I’m not shedding a tear over that. ;)

          • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

            Too bad Fallout New Vegas didn’t have a digital copy. My buddy has had it for like 8 months and can’t find it, and he has moved since I let him borrow it so who knows if he even has it haha. I actually have a 2nd PS4 Pro and let my brother play all my digital games by having that PS4 as my primary. He doesn’t need a PS Plus Subscription either. Any user can play any digital content and play online on your primary console. You can also activate/deactivate in 2 seconds so on PS3 I had a few friends who would activate my account when we wanted to play online games, then they would deactivate after we were done. Life hack.

          • Same thing happened here… I loaned one out and it didn’t come back to me, and then I loaned a separate title to another friend, and that one came back looking like his kid had used it for skating on their hardwood-floors (the disc-surface was totally thrashed). That pretty much ended any further loaning of anything.

          • torreth

            All you are doing is admitting that taking care of your disks is still a better fix. If you loan out your copy to people who dont respect your stuff it doesnt change the fact that its easily preventable “human error”.

        • torreth

          If you are saying that the PS4 cant read data from a bluray disk and store it faster than a digital download on PSN, you are a HUGE LIAR.

          • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

            Haha well that.. or the more obvious reason that I could just be wrong. I mean u sound pretty certain so ill test it out later. I own Black Ops 3 physical and can check how long it takes compared to digital. Guess ive never timed it myself and I just assumed same file size, same power, same time to download.. but it would make sense if disc download is faster now that u mention it. U dont need internet connection for that so guess it must be done entirely from the disc other than updates. Either way digital is still by far the best way to own regardless of a longer download, which u rarely have to do. Better things taking more time doesnt make them not better. Most things are only better if more time is put into them in the first place. Games can get damaged while in cases so ur suggestion is still overly simple. Shit happens and cases can get pressure put on them, and cases arent built to protect against that. Sure u can be safe but why worry? Just to have a less convenient way to game? Why have to put different games in when u can store as many games digital as physical, and game so much more conveniently? Plus if ur a huge gamer and own mad games, 100’s of discs and cartridges from SNES, Sega Gen, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, PS1, Xbox, PS2, 360, Ps3, XB1, PS4, and soon Switch.. that will take up a lot of space and u cant go on like that forever before the inconvenience is too much. Things are all going digital for a reason. It’s so much more efficient. I can appreciate if u have ur own preferences but doesnt change the reality.

      • I don’t have that problem because *like I said*, I don’t buy discs –and on my 100Mbit net connection, downloading isn’t slow at all.

        I get that some of you have slow net connections and that makes downloading a pain in those cases… but I’m not affected by slow net speeds, so that’s not an issue for me.

        • torreth

          HAHAAA!!! As if the speed that the PS4 and PS4 Pro download speed themselves have no limit. I can see that you want to promote digital downloads, but you should at least admit the truth.

  • NooYawker

    Let’s get a move on Valve!

  • Torreth1

    Its just good news Sony is actually planning to support the device instead of forcing us to keep dealing with low quality indie games for the rest of the systems lifecycle.