VR arrives at Tokyo Game Show, counted on to revive industry

Players at the booths are donning chunky headgear covering their eyes and ears, immersed in their own worlds, shooting imaginary monsters or dancing with virtual partners, at Makuhari Messe hall in the Tokyo suburb of Chiba.

[...] Yasuo Takahashi, director at Sony Interactive Entertainment, the game division of Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp., believes 2016 will mark VR's debut year, helping revive an industry that has languished with the advent of smart phones.

Tokyo-based Sony's PlayStation VR headgear device, going on sale next month for about $400, is the first that might put VR within reach for many regular homes, according to some analysts.

A recent survey of 635 industry experts including startup executives and investors, carried out jointly by legal company Perkins Cole and Upload, cited "lack of compelling content" as the biggest challenge for VR's future.

[...] colorful geometric designs pop up, bursting in flashes of light with the aim of the cursor or a shift of a VR player's vision.

The visual abstractness and musical focus of Mizuguchi's game contrast with other VR games that seek to more literally approximate reality, using VR's ability to convey an illusion of 3-D depth and 360-degree surroundings.

Hisakazu Hirabayashi, game analyst and president of game industry consulting firm Interact, says VR is so powerful that creators are still choosing to tone it down to minimize potential risks, including venturing into untested territory such as VR pornography.