Get ready to clear some space: PlayStation VR asks for 60 square feet to play
New documentation details some serious space requirements to set up Sony's VR accessory.
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
You might want to think about moving the furniture.
Stand clear!
According to documentation for Sony's upcoming PlayStation VR headset, the suggested play space is a whopping 9.8 feet by 6.2 feet (3.0m x 1.9m), which works out to 60.8 square feet, or 5.6 square meters. Those dimensions come from a posting on Sony's asia.playstation.com website, which was first spotted by gaming news website Polygon.
In the various demo sessions of PlayStation VR we've tried over the past two years, the vast majority were either seated experiences or standing ones that required the player to stay in one spot. It seems likely, then, that a play area this large wouldn't be needed for most games. The HTC Vive virtual reality system, by comparison, is built around having a large "room scale" space, but many games can be played with only a small area to stand in.
The PlayStation VR costs $399, £349 or AU$550, and it's scheduled to arrive on October 13.