abyss-like 復習
幕張メッセでTOKYO GAME SHOW 2016が行われています。
Tokyo Game Show begins with focus on virtual reality
Virtual reality has arrived for real at the Tokyo Game Show, one of the world’s biggest exhibitions for the latest in fun and games.
That’s evident everywhere. Players at the booths are donning chunky headgear covering their eyes and ears, immersed in their own worlds, shooting imaginary monsters or dancing with virtual partners, at Makuhari Messe hall in Chiba Prefecture.
The show, which gave a preview to reporters Thursday ahead of its opening to the public over the weekend, features 614 companies demonstrating more than 1,500 game software titles.
It’s still anyone’s guess how VR will play out as a business in years ahead. But most everyone agrees that’s the way of the future. And Yasuo Takahashi, director at Sony Interactive
Entertainment, the game division of Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp., believes 2016 will mark VR’s debut year, helping revive an industry that has languished with the advent of smart phones.
“Up to now games were played on a TV set. With VR, players can enter the worlds portrayed in games. It’s a totally new experience,” he said at Sony’s booth at the show, stressing that VR can’t really be played on a cell phone. That also meant VR’s impact will be widespread, in genres such as movies and virtual travel, he added.
One reason for Sony’s high hopes for VR: Tokyo-based Sony’s PlayStation VR headgear device, going on sale next month for about $400, is the first that might put VR within reach for many regular homes, according to some analysts. Rival VR headsets cost more: Oculus Rift goes for about $600, and HTC Vive $800.
Although VR’s applications vary from job training and real-estate previews to news reporting and education, it’s expected to take off in games first.
A recent survey of 635 industry experts including startup executives and investors, carried out jointly by legal company Perkins Cole and Upload, cited “lack of compelling content” as the biggest challenge for VR’s future. But respondents were most focused on games.
They also cited obstacles to VR’s popularity, such as cost, bulky hardware and technical glitches. But most respondents were planning to invest in VR, if cautiously at first.
Tetsuya Mizuguchi, founder and president of the game software maker Enhance, believes VR is exactly the kind of technology his game “Rez Infinite” has been waiting for. The game’s original version went on sale in 2001 for an earlier console called Sega Dreamcast.
The new VR version of the game, one of the highlights of the Tokyo Game Show, delivers an immersive, dreamlike experience.
Once players put on the headgear and earphones, they find themselves virtually flying through an abyss-like universe resembling outer space or the bottom of the ocean, a black that seems to spread in all directions.
（以下省略）
今回取り上げる単語は、abyss-likeです。
Oxford Dictionary of English (Second Edition Reserved, Oxford University Press)によると、 “abyss”で “a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm”とのことでした。
『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版，大修館）で調べたところ、「どん底，底知れない割れ目，[人間・グループ間の]大きな隔たり」などが載っておりました。
記事内では語尾にlikeが付けたされております。これにより今回は形容詞として使われております。
ちなみに同英和辞典によると、 “abyssal”で「深海底の」、 “abysmal”で「ひどく悪い，最悪の」という意味だそうです。（Gomez）
