Chapter 881: The Budget VR Edition
As September arrived, major titles began to appear in droves.
Many games were scrambling to build hype before their release, terrified that they wouldn’t garner enough attention and would end up flopping.
As for *The Legend of Zelda*, it stood out completely from those flashy, attention-seeking titles.
How so?
*The Legend of Zelda* didn’t promote itself at all.
After releasing a single concept image, there was absolutely no news from them.
Players were utterly baffled. To this day, they had no clue about the development progress of *The Legend of Zelda*...
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In front of Chen Mo were two Sito devices, both connected to the highest-resolution televisions available, used to test the performance of these two machines.
In reality, *The Legend of Zelda* was running on the older Sito model for a trial playthrough.
After a brief loading screen, the image of *The Legend of Zelda* appeared on the matrix glasses.
At first glance, the visuals looked quite similar to those in the VR gaming pod, but a closer look revealed the differences.
First, the graphics quality was significantly lower. After all, the matrix glasses were just a smart wearable device. Even the flagship version with the latest technology was far behind the configuration of a VR gaming pod.
However, the game being played was *The Legend of Zelda*. Because its art style wasn’t realistic, it consumed very few rendering resources. So, even at TV-level graphics output, the matrix glasses delivered a fairly satisfactory performance.
Additionally, the matrix glasses version of *The Legend of Zelda* only supported a third-person perspective, with a higher and farther camera angle compared to the handheld or VR modes. This artificially increased the distance of the visuals, making the graphics quality more acceptable.
Moreover, the matrix glasses could capture the player’s conscious intent, so the combination of the Sitch Pro and the matrix glasses essentially achieved a lower-quality VR experience, with an operation mode largely identical to that of the VR gaming pod.
Chen Mo controlled Link as he ran, jumped, and set fires across the plains, testing whether this “budget VR” effect was smooth.
The results pleased him.
All operations were identical to those in the VR gaming pod. Although the graphics were heavily downgraded and there was no haptic feedback, the fun of the game was preserved.
The movement was also quite smooth. Even during scenes with large flame effects, the frame rate remained stable without any stuttering.
And most importantly, the combination of the Sitch Pro and the flagship matrix glasses made VR gaming portable. While the experience was far inferior, at least... players could enjoy the VR version of *The Legend of Zelda* anytime, anywhere.
In reality, with breakthroughs in miniature conscious-intent capture devices, the size of VR gaming pods had been rapidly shrinking. The latest pods from manufacturers were generally about 30% smaller than their predecessors.
But the problem was that VR gaming pods needed to provide full-body haptic feedback, and there had been no major breakthroughs in configuration or performance. So no matter how much they shrank, it was hard to make them smaller than a person, making true portability impossible.
Under these circumstances, the combination of the Sitch Pro and the flagship matrix glasses had actually achieved “portable VR gaming” first.
Even though... it was heavily stripped down.
But regardless, being able to play smoothly and being VR was already enough of a gimmick.
Many people might wonder: why release the flagship matrix glasses alongside the Sitch Pro? These were clearly two unrelated products.
The answer was right here.
Of course, the Sitch Pro and matrix glasses could run VR effects mainly because *The Legend of Zelda* had relatively low requirements. For other realistic-style games, like *Uncharted*, the performance of these two devices would struggle to run smoothly, and the flagship matrix glasses’ display quality would also be poor.
But *The Legend of Zelda*’s art style meant it wasn’t demanding on performance. A little clever optimization could ensure a good gaming experience, much like in Chen Mo’s previous life, where many people happily played *The Legend of Zelda* on a handheld in 720p mode.
Chen Mo took off the matrix glasses and said to Zhou Jiangping, “It’s completely fine. I think we can release the promotional trailer to build hype.”
Zhou Jiangping’s face lit up with joy. “That’s great! I was a bit uncertain about these two new products, but having a new game to back them up is perfect. At the product launch event the other day, the audience’s reaction was so lukewarm that I started to feel unsure myself.”
Chen Mo smiled. “No need to worry. If you have the time, you’d be better off stocking up more inventory. It’s too embarrassing to have the entire stock sell out within minutes of release every single time.”
Zhou Jiangping coughed dryly. “Ahem, don’t worry. This time, the stock is more than enough!”