“Headsets Are Simply Annoying”: Playstation Inventor Says He “Can’t See The Point” Of VR And The Metaverse

The inventor of the PlayStation – one of the best and most widely known gaming consoles – doesn’t think too much about VR or the metaverse.

Ken Kutaragi, who is responsible for Sony’s popular console, says that VR and AR “divide” the real and virtual realms, rather than unifying them, according to a new interview with Bloomberg. 

Kutaragi, who is now 71 years old, told Bloomberg: “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 continued: “You would rather be a polished avatar instead of your real self? That’s essentially no different from anonymous messageboard sites.”

Kutaragi is now the chief executive officer of Ascent Robotics, which seeks to blend the real world with cyberspace. 

“Headsets would isolate you from the real world, and I can’t agree with that. Headsets are simply annoying,” he told Bloomberg. 

His company, Ascent, is instead focusing on technology that transforms real world objects into computer-readable data, the interview said. It seeks to help retail and logistics customers. The company is “secretive about the details of its long-term plans,” Bloomberg added. 

“Current robots do not have software and sensors that can match humans in understanding the real world and reacting to things they see for the first time, and our short-term goal is to offer a solution to that,” he continued.

“Because you want robots to be able to create a variety of things, not just countless units of the same thing,” he added. 

Commenting on his ambitions of utilizing visual data collected by Ascent’s robots to reproduce digital scenes in the real world, he concluded: “I don’t plan to spend a decade or two on making my dreams a reality. I’m 71 and time is short.”