Ken Kutaragi, the former chairman and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment and so-called “Father of the PlayStation”, doesn’t much rate the PSVR 2.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Kutaragi has had his say on the current push for AR and VR headsets and the wider metaverse. Suffice to say, his loyalty to the company at which he made his name appears to stop at strapping a hunk of plastic to your head.
“Headsets would isolate you from the real world, and I can’t agree with that,” he said. “Headsets are simply annoying.”
On the wider concept of the metaverse, which the virtual environment that is expected to link all of these mixed reality experiences together, Kutaragi seems similarly unconvinced.
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“Being in the real world is very important, but the metaverse is about making quasi-real in the virtual world, and I can’t see the point of doing it,” he said. “You would rather be a polished avatar instead of your real self? That’s essentially no different from anonymous messageboard sites.”
Of course, these comments might not be wholly surprising given the 71-year-old’s current position as CEO of Ascent Robotics Inc., an artificial intelligence startup with its own ideas on linking the real world with cyberspace.
The company’s ultimate goal is to do so with no clunky head-mounted gadgets and without taking you out of your immediate environment, which it will achieve by utilising a Star Wars-style hologram system.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
