Sony’s virtual reality headset may be coming to the VR party a little late, but it’s going to be a lot more approachable than the competition from Oculus and HTC, thanks to a significantly lower price point announced today at the Game Developers Conference.
The Playstation VR will go on sale in October for $399. That’s compared to $599 for the Oculus Rift or $799 for the HTC Vive. But it’s also launching half-a-year after those other headsets, which ship later this month and next month respectively.
PlayStation VR update from Andrew House, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc #GDC16https://t.co/2dYE4ucALE
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) March 15, 2016
Playstation’s VR solution also has another advantage for some: users will be able to run the Playstation VR off their $299 Playstation 4, not a powerful, thousand-dollar PC. However, they’ll also need the $59.99 Playstation camera, bringing the price for Sony’s full VR setup to nearly $760 at a minimum, not including games.
That’s just with the stock Dualshock controller; users who want more gesture control will have to dish out another $50 for the Move controller. While the camera and Move controller are both available for less at many retailers, it’s still a lot of extra little costs to jump into virtual reality.
The headset includes a 5.7-inch, 1080×1920 OLED screen, capable of refreshing 120 times per second with a 100-degree field of view. While the refresh rate is a little faster than the HTC Vive or the Rift, the field of view and resolution aren’t quite as good.
The Playstation VR also has a large tracking area like the HTC Vive, thanks to its nine embedded LEDs that the Playstation camera uses to track you in 3D space.
Sony said today that they plan to have 50 games on the virtual reality platform by the end of the year, including an exclusive VR version of Star Wars: Battlefront. The company said more than 230 developers are building for the platform, including indie shops and larger studios alike.
