Headsets and Haptics on debut at E3 2019
June 2019 – The upcoming E3 gaming expo is undergoing a major transition. As eSports takes on a life of its own and some of the major developers and platforms are seeking focused attention with their own events in the rapidly growing marketplace. The companies providing peripherals to enhance the game play are now choosing the show the showcase their market specific accessories as an alternative or supplement to the CES announcement audience.
The major hardware trends, outside of the plethora of VR display platforms and the much anticipated Google Streaming Console are designed for the player experience. This is focused on new headphone and headset technologies, along with haptic feed back devices.
The trend in headphones is the inclusion of multi-planar surround sound. While the technology for the spatial placement of sounds has existed for many years in the space of the multi-driver over the ear headphones, the SDKs to develop the experience and tie them to the gaming software did not reach market penetration until about 2 years back. These products, that incorporate smart crossovers and spatial placement along with games from major developers that conform to their SDK and APIs are now being released.
This means that both Major brand names – Turtle Beach, Razor, Plantronics, PDP, HyperX, Alienware and others are now being joined by new companies that are featuring the same chipsets and APIs. This will enable the game player to have a much larger price selection, as well visual selection on their “gamer look” while allowing them to tailor their gaming sound experience to the type and style of their preference. The new price points also allow the gamers to be able to have multiple headsets for different purposed and looks depending on the game they are playing – it is no longer a “save up your funds for one solution” the competition has lowered price points on most of these products.
In order to enhance the VR and console immersive experiences – haptics are making a big entrance as third party peripherals that are supplemental to the hand controller feedback already in place. These include new torso worn devices from Woojer as well as other body, arm, leg and head feed systems being shown.
The haptics are there to enhance the increased realism of the games that are now possible visually with the enhanced graphics on the current generation consoles and the improved graphics on the PC with the addition of real time ray tracing graphics cards.
This year’s E3 should be an exciting release of both hardware and software to satisfy any gamer.
