Even for a VR avatar, standing onstage at a private concert with world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell, blasting 500 feet into the air propelled only by a bouncy beach ball, and dogfighting like there's no tomorrow in a pre-release version of Eve: Valkyrie is a lot for one afternoon.
But it was all possible at Sony's special event at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where the PlayStation maker unveiled the pricing and availability for its much-anticipated PlayStation VR.
We've already had a couple opportunities to try out pre-release versions of Sony's VR headset, but the scale of this event was a bit different. Dozens of the more than 230 developers Sony has lined up to produce content for PlayStation VR were on hand to demo their games. There was even some non-game VR content, something Sony engineers acknowledge they can do better to promote.
Up first was a private concert from Joshua Bell, a classical musician always eager to experiment. He once gave up his $1,000-a-minute typical salary to play for tips in a Washington, D.C. Metro station, and it turns out he is also a VR fan.
"He approached us," said Ken Inagaki, director of product development at Sony Computer Entertainment. Venues were arranged, a pianist was sourced, a Hungarian dance was selected, cameras were set up, and in July 2015 the concert was recorded.
Not only did Sony film it in VR, but it also captured 360-degree audio. The result is that you stand virtually between Bell and the pianist with your headset and headphones on, and when you turn to face one musician, the other's music fades into your right or left ear. It's truly an immersive experience.
The headset itself is very similar to the HTC Vive, with excellent (for VR) image quality and latency. The experience is leaps and bounds over what you'd expect from Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, or other phone-powered headsets. In fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're looking at a giant HD display in real life.
How comfortable it is will obviously depend on how long your sessions are and how well you adjust it. In our hands-on demos of about five minutes each, we didn't experience any discomfort, and certainly didn't feel as if we'd been "raccooned" after taking the headset off.
Audio quality of the stereo headphones (which will come included when PlayStation VR ships in October) is good. They're perfectly acceptable for game soundtracks and realistic-sounding effects, though a true audiophile might have had some quibbles with their reproduction of the Joshua Bell performance.
After the concert came a quirky demo of the Move controller's capabilities (PlayStation VR uses already-available Move controllers as well as the more conventional DualShock 4). The Move controllers are two white sticks with glowing color orbs attached to one end. They're equipped with thumb and trigger buttons, and of course are motion sensitive in a Wii-esque way.
A Sony employee led us through the demo. First, we learned how to squeeze the controller's buttons so our avatar's hands and face would react. Squeeze one controller and you get a thumbs up and a smirk. Squeeze both and you get two thumbs up and a wide grin. Repeat the process with the controllers flipped over and you get a thumbs down and a scowl.
It's gimmicky, but again, very immersive. In fact, we spent more than five minutes traipsing around the virtual playground, set on a tropical beach, in awe. At one point, we were told to grab and hold a beach ball under our avatar's feet. After a few seconds, the ball exploded, launching the avatar hundreds of feet above the beach.
Unfortunately, that nauseating experience left us with little desire to try out some of the real video games Sony's developer partners were eager to show. We did, however, spot demos of multiple upcoming titles, including Eve: Valkyrie, Megaton Rainfall, and Drive Club.
Sony also hinted at a special Star Wars experience called Star Wars: Battlefront VR, though there was no demo and details about its release were scarce.
The eagerness of the whole event belied Sony's apparent anxiousness at entering the VR market. Inagaki was quick to ask questions like "What do you think?" and "Should we do more of this?"
Ultimately, Sony will have to do a lot more of this if it is to compete with the formidable Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and several other VR sets that will come to market in 2016. But it already has a captive audience in the millions of PlayStation owners whose consoles will be compatible with the $399 PlayStation VR; no additional hardware needed.
For now, we're going to practice our thumbs-up skills in anticipation.