Director Steven Spielberg is still making the promotional rounds for his latest film, Ready Player One, which pays homage to all things classic video games, while telling a fun story from Ernest Cline dealing with retrieving a magical Easter egg in the center of a creator’s universe.
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One of his recent stops was with Kyodo (translated via Google), where he talked about his experiences with virtual reality, and building the world within Ready Player One.
But it’s during this interview that Spielberg made a rather interesting comment, noting that he somehow played a Mario game on the PlayStation VR.
When the interviewer asked (again, via Translate) about if he actually played with a VR game, Spielberg reportedly replied, “I played ‘Mario’ etc. at PlayStation. I did not want to remove goggles when I first did it (laugh). When I removed the goggles, I did not like the disappointment that ‘What is the earth?’ In VR, 360 degrees, I experienced every direction, so I thought that it was an unbelievable world and I was fascinated.”
So…what’s going on here? Did a Mario game actually become available for PlayStation VR? Not the last time we checked.
What could’ve happened then? Probably one of several things.
First off, maybe the interview wasn’t translated that well. Spielberg could’ve been talking about playing Mario and games on PlayStation VR, to get an idea of the experience.
Also, there is the possibility that he used VR to play the Mario Kart VR game that Samsung released a while ago. That is actually a real thing, and, from what we’ve heard, pretty fascinating. A U.S. release would certainly be nice.
Finally, it’s easy to think that maybe Spielberg might have just gotten his recollection a little confused. It happens, especially as you go on an elaborate press tour for a movie that’s been running for the past few weeks now. So, yeah, we totally get it, Steven.
But sorry, PlayStation owners, you won’t be enjoying Mario in VR. But if Sony did make a 3D platformer on that level, wouldn’t it be something? What we wouldn’t give to play Jumping Flash! in a virtual reality set-up. Or, hey, Crash!
Ready Player One is in theaters now.
