Sam Machkovech
A new generation of PlayStation VR hardware, including a new controller designed specifically for VR, will arrive on the PlayStation 5 sometime after this year, Sony announced today.
The brief announcement is light in detail and does not include a photo or prototype of the new headset or controller. But he mentions that the next PlayStation VR will include a higher resolution and field of view than the 2016 original, which is stuck at a somewhat dated 1920×1080 resolution.
For context, last year’s $ 299 Oculus Quest 2 came with a full resolution of 3664×1600, and that for a standalone wireless headset with much less power than the PS5. Valve’s state-of-the-art Index headphones, in turn, have a 135 degree field of view, much wider than ~ 100 degrees on the PSVR (cheaper modern headphones generally have fields of view close to 90 to 100 degrees).
In addition to the redesigned ergonomics, Sony says the next PSVR controller “will incorporate some of the key features found in the DualSense wireless controller”. This can include the precise haptics, variable resistance triggers and crisp built-in speakers that have already been used to great effect in some standard PS5 games.
This would represent a major improvement over PlayStation Move controllers that many PSVR games currently use for manual tracking. They were originally released in 2010, long before consumer virtual reality was a concern, and are generally seen as a more accurate response to the wavy controls on the Nintendo Wii and Xbox Kinect for flat-screen games. A controller developed specifically for VR can improve fidelity or even eliminate the need for an external camera for tracking.
Existing PlayStation VR owners can use the headset and controllers with the PlayStation 5, but a special adapter is required to connect the old PS4 camera (the PS5 “PlayStation HD camera” itself is not compatible with the PlayStation Current VR). Ars’ own tests at the launch of the system also found that PSVR games generally did not see a noticeable increase in fidelity on PS5, like some other backward compatible games.
Before today, Sony was not prepared to comment directly on the future of virtual reality hardware on the PS5. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan told The Washington Post in October that “PlayStation believes in VR. Sony believes in VR, and we definitely believe that at some point in the future VR will represent a significant component of interactive entertainment. this year? No. Will it be next year? No. But will it come sometime? We believe that. “
Sony has sold more than 5 million PlayStation VR headsets since 2016, after exceeding 4.2 million sales in early 2019. This makes the PSVR one of the best-selling virtual reality headsets so far, although in recent years months the old hardware has been surpassed by Oculus’ independent Quest headset, according to estimates by the analyst firm Superdata.