I know some will say that just makes me a hater. Within 10 seconds of putting on Sony’s biggest hardware effort in years, I couldn’t help thinking “So VR is still like this, huh?” Even at its most seamless and convincing, VR is a sweaty, uncomfortable, artificial-feeling experience like sitting under a blanket looking at a 3D TV through a screen door. So why do I still hesitate to recommend it?īecause VR gaming - as magical as it can be - is itself still a compromise. A variety of games are available on day one, including a Horizon: Zero Dawn spinoff and a Resident Evil title, and others in less-intense genres. It’s a piece of cake to set up and accommodates room-scale as well as sitting and standing play styles. With a 4K OLED screen working at 120Hz, inside-out sensing (meaning no mounted cameras or emitters), and a pair of controllers cribbed from others and improved on, it seemed to embody a best of breed, its primary drawback being that it is a single-platform device.Īnd really, in practice that is exactly what PSVR2 is: best of breed, without meaningful compromise in hardware beyond having a single cable. With a retail price of $550 all in, it struck a balance between the increasingly decent entry-level headsets (Oculus Quest 2) and more expensive, complex PC-bound ones (Vive Pro 2).
Last year the PSVR2 was announced, and based on specs alone it generally led the pack, with a few exceptions here and there. Still, it demonstrated that VR had a future in gaming, and that Sony was approaching it with an eye to accessibility and ease of use. The PSVR was one of the first really consumer-accessible VR headsets, and was simple to set up for its time, but also relied on outdated controls in the instantly obsolete Move controllers and a TV-mounted camera. It’s the best VR has ever been, and I still can’t bring myself to recommend it to anybody who wasn’t already on board. Well-specced, easy to set up and reasonably light and comfortable, Sony’s latest still can’t shake the fundamental issues that have prevented VR from going mainstream: a lack of compelling content and despite a brand new 4K OLED display, distracting image fidelity. The PlayStation VR2 is a simultaneously exciting and disappointing development in the virtual reality space.
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