Leaked Image of Possible New PICO Controllers
An image has surfaced on Baidu Tieba (Read: Chinese Reddit) that appears to show a new controller design for the PICO VR system. Speculation has already begun to stir about what that could mean for the ByteDance-owned VR platform. Is this an early glimpse at a prototype of the PICO 5?
The controllers are notably missing one key feature: the oh-so-familiar tracking ring. It’s that circle of plastic that you smack yourself in the face with whenever you’re slashing colorful blocks to EDM. The conspicuous absence of these rings leaves us with more questions than answers, however. Without tracking rings, how are the controllers... you know… tracking?
It’s been done (or at least tried) before.
Meta’s Touch Pro controllers have cameras built into them and perform inside-out tracking on their own, much like a headset. It tends to be a little more expensive, but it works. But no cameras are visible on the controllers in the leaked images. And the PICO is historically marketed as an economical option, so extra cost doesn’t exactly check out with their track record.
The imminent Quest 3 will be released with under-face infrared controller nodes that will work in tandem with other controller inputs to maintain stable tracking. It’s possible these controllers could rely on something similar. However, with no confirmation of a PICO 5 on the horizon and no image of any correlated headset, we are left to merely speculate. Maybe it’s magnets. Maybe it’s magic. Maybe it’s a series of tubes.
But there could be another reason.
ByteDance is reportedly pushing for more controller-free content internally, and they’re not alone. In fact, all of the major VR hardware companies are developing– or at least experimenting with– hand tracking. As VR porn viewers, we can all understand the intrinsic benefit of having unburdened hands (or at least one unburdened hand) during a VR session. While the technical challenges of this approach make it impractical for many use cases, it could actually be a better input option for the VR porn market and for VR video streaming in general.
So what if-- and brace yourself for a hot take here-- they're just bad? Just straight-up bad controllers? Vestigial little wagglers for us to shake hands with before we put them down for good and wave goodbye with perfect, no-latency hand tracking. A transitional feature, aging gracefully, making way for the next technological generation. They're not old, they're legacy.
"I remember when you had to hold a plastic stick with bad batteries to play the lightsaber game," we will say, feeling acutely geriatric.
"Okay, grandpa," the young folk will say, "let's get you back to bed."
But really, it wouldn’t make much financial sense to pour a ton of money into developing and shipping new-and-improved controllers under the helm of a company that is overtly moving toward a completely controller-free ecosystem. So maybe they’re just… let’s say “economical?”
Until we actually see how this leak pans out, we are empty-handed aside from speculation.