About a month ago, gamescom gave me the opportunity to meet some marketing people from Pico. For half an hour, on Wednesday at the end of the day, I was welcomed in a small room hidden in the middle of the public stand. Confidentiality ensured by a simple curtain, the bass of disco music shaking the wooden walls, this is the environment in which I discovered this exclusivity: a new version of their virtual reality headset.
I confess that, until I received the appointment proposal, I did not know the Pico brand at all. I had missed the launch of the previous generation, the Neo3 Link, available since April. However, this version, inspired by the Meta Quest 2, already brings notable innovations, with a system based on a Snapdragon XR2 chip designed for virtual reality, a 4K display of 3664 x 1920 pixels (1,832 x 1,920 per eye) and a rate refresh rate up to 90 Hz.
The new version that I was able to discover goes even further. Adjustable lenses. Four SLAM cameras. A 16 MP RGB camera. Reduced weight (265 grams). Improved portability. Thanks to a Wifi 6 dongle plugged into the computer (sold for an additional €49), the headset does without its Display Port cable to manage the SteamVR catalog wirelessly. And, if you don't have the machine capable of handling virtual reality, no problem. The Pico catalog brings together a multitude of games that load directly into the memory of the headset, thanks to an application available on your phone. You can find everything there, from free mini games to premium titles at around twenty euros. The battery gives an average of two hours of autonomy.
The controllers have also been redesigned to improve handling. The kind of crown that surrounds the hand is reduced. Now glued to the back of the hand, it avoids collisions, for refined gestures, without sacrificing recognition accuracy.
This helmet is launched with four main targets. The game is, and will remain, number one. For the occasion, the brand offers an exclusive that will cause a stir: Just Dance from Ubisoft! Other games are planned such as Peaky Blinders The King's Ransom, Ultimechs, or The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution. The second target is fitness, the controllers already include a calorie burner tracker. In addition, a special €49 accessory improves sports management, created in partnership with the fitness company LesMills. Third come videos, with films, but also concerts. How about sporting events? The objective is to offer as many experiences as possible, live or not, to live events in virtual reality in partnership with Wave, a company specializing in virtual entertainment. Finally, the headset incorporates a unique social component, Pico Worlds, with a notion of avatar and virtual world, a virtual identity that can be reused in all compatible games. Players allergic to this style of intrusion may decide to avoid it.
I had the chance to test the new headset on two games. The first, Ragnarök (thanks Kyotenshi) is a rhythm game, asking you to hit the drums of a galley at the right time. Fun for a few minutes, it quickly bored me, especially because of the surrounding noise which prevented me from enjoying it. I could only get on the beat with the visual cues. On the other hand, the second, SUPERHOT VR, blew me away, with a gameplay based on the movement of the player's body, which accelerates the rhythm of the opponents. You have to find the right rhythm between moving and acting. Moving too much rushes things, it's the risk of not having time to dodge a bullet. But staying still is also the insurance to take damage.
In both cases, the headset is very precise, light enough not to be a bother (at least on a game session of about fifteen minutes), and above all I appreciate playing without the hindrance of the wire . Special note for the return in the helmet which switches to an outside vision of the room when leaving the game safe zone. Perfect to avoid killing someone with a clumsy gesture!
The price to conclude: €429 in its 128 GB version. €499 in 256 GB. This makes it a relatively affordable virtual reality headset compared to its competitors. With this big difference for PC gamers that it does not require to have a super hardware configuration to enjoy its games. Could this finally be the helmet that would allow virtual reality to take off? I don't have a crystal ball, but if there is a technology that can find its place in this sector that is struggling to take off, it is undoubtedly the PICO 4.
The PICO 4 will be available on October 18 in thirteen European countries. Members of the Neo3 Link Beta program will be able to pre-order the PICO 4 starting September 23 through Bestware, VR Expert, XR Shop, and System Active. Pre-orders will be open to the general public in October via Amazon, Mediamarkt and Saturn, among others.
