Virtual Reality doesn’t come cheap, and at more than the price of the PS4, the A549.95 PlayStation VR will arrive in October 2016. While the price may seem steep, it is worth noting, Sony have managed to keep the price hundreds of dollars under the Oculus Rift.
While other VR devices position themselves as education and experience opportunities, gaming is clearly one of the biggest opportunities for immersive gaming. This is where Sony is playing to it’s strengths, leveraging a large developer community (1st and 3rd party) that can develop for the platform.
Normally a gaming experience happens at a distance, usually 3-5 metres and as we’ve increased the size of our TVs, we’ve felt increasingly immersed in the gameplay. The fact is that a lot of our peripheral vision still contains the coffee table, the other chairs and people in the room, the floor the ceiling and basically a lot of non-game content. With the PlayStation VR, the display takes up around 100 degrees of your vision, but more importantly, there’s nothing else to look and to take you out of the experience.
The PlayStationVR has a 1920×1080 resolution or 960×1080 per eye for a 5.7″ screen, its similar to the Gear VR in size. The PVR also leverages the familiar game controller PlayStation fans already know and love, so there’s no weird new hand controllers to learn. Use the headset to control the camera also frees up one of the controller sticks for additional functions. Imagine driving a tank, with the left stick controlling the direction of the tank, the right controlling the turret and you still can look in another direction while all that happens.
That simple change takes gaming a lot closer to reality.
Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc said,
“To make sure that we are able to prepare and deliver enough units of PS VR and a wide variety of software titles to consumers worldwide, we have decided to launch PS VR in October 2016. For those who are looking forward to its launch, we would like to thank everyone for their patience and continued support. We are beyond excited to deliver to consumers the amazing experience that PS VR offers.”
PlayStation says there are currently more than 230 developers and publishers are working on PS VR software titles, from smaller independent teams to larger studios at the industry’s top publishers such as 2K Games and Ubisoft. Software titles in development for PS VR from these developers and publishers as well as from SCE Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) are now totaling to more than 160 titles, and over 50 of those titles including the following list are expected to launch by the end of this year.
- Eagle Flight (Ubisoft),
- EVE: Valkyrie (CCP Games),
- Headmaster (Frame Interactive),
- Rez Infinite (Enhance Games),
- Wayward Sky (Uber Entertainment),
- RIGS: Mechanized Combat League,
- Tumble VR,
- Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
- PlayStation VR WORLDS (SCE WWS)
The PlayStation VR is now available for pre-order from EB Games, JB Hi-Fi, Target and Big W.
You can head over to PlayStation.com/PSVR for more details
