PlayStation VR Review: 8 Early Reactions You Need To Know
4. The PS Camera Can Lose Track Of You Very Easily
"[PS VR] knows what you’re looking at in the virtual world by using the camera to monitor the positioning of the headset’s blue lights in the real world. This obviously means that you need to be in a position that the camera can reliably see you.
The official guidelines say that you need to be at least 2ft from the camera and no more than 9.6ft away, and that you’ve got about 1.9m of width to play with. It’s a bit too easy to stretch beyond the camera’s vision and find something's out of your reach. It doesn’t happen all of the time, but when it does, it shatters the illusion created by an otherwise all-consuming virtual world." - Tom Parsons, Stuff.tv.
"The tracking leaves much to be desired [...] First you could have the controllers in front of you, and they could be jittering and moving around, off from where your actual hands are. They're often pointing slightly wrong, or they're in a different position." - Tested.
Apologies for the amount of negative points contained within this writeup, but in many respects, once you get past the whole "Holy sh*t, it's like I'm there" reaction stuff, these are what come back around, especially considering the amount of money you'll be investing. Just ask someone with a 3D TV...
Without going so far as to compare the PS VR to Microsoft's disastrous Kinect, this launch window and footage that comes alongside is invaluable. Where the Kinect's first few weeks were dogged my the hardware refusing to acknowledge users, so to are tons of livestreams showing users attempt to get their PS VR's calibrated, only for nothing but a black screen to pop up instead.
It's entirely probable that you could semi-naturally develop the ability to subconsciously prevent yourself from venturing out of the camera's line of sight over time, but for every time a great big "You've left the area/OUT OF RANGE" prompt appears, it's disastrous.
To be clear: the PS Camera tracks the lights on the PS VR's head to know where you are. Obscure them or turn away too fast/much, and it immediately halts everything.