PlayStation VR 2 details revealed: How amazing will it be?
Virtual Reality Gaming
Speaker 1: Sony just unveiled a whole bunch of information about the PlayStation VR two it's coming this year. Here's what we know so far.
Speaker 1: There has been a previous PlayStation VR that worked with the PlayStation four and also works with the PS five. The PlayStation VR two only works with the PlayStation five and it looks like it's going to be a really fantastic up to date VR headset, but you do need that console. [00:00:30] The other things we know about this headset is that it's going to be tethered. This is a USBC connection. That's gonna connect to the PlayStation five. Now the previous PlayStation VR also was tethered, but it had really complex breakout box and a lot of cables, uh, that snaked all over the place. One USBC cable is a lot simpler to connect through the PlayStation VR two also updates a lot of its tracking and display technology, which was really needed because the PlayStation VR came out all the [00:01:00] way back in 2016, the PlayStation VR two has an OED display with 110 degree field of view and the pretty much two K by by two K per I display, which adds up to a 4k type of resolution that 2000 by 2000 ish resolution per I is kind of becoming the standard for good VR our headsets now.
Speaker 1: And that's a little step above what the Oculus quest two is, and it's go probably going to be what a lot of other headsets that [00:01:30] come out this year are going to be like, it should look really good and crisp. What interests me even more are some of the audio and feedback technologies. There's going to be 3d spatial audio on this headset. Now, if you were already played the PlayStation five, very similar in the way that the pulse headset works and 3d audio works there, the headset itself also has vibration, which is something that we haven't seen on any other VR headset and is supposed to provide some extra feedback and [00:02:00] response. When you're playing games. There's also eye tracking. Eye tracking has not been on any VR headset in the consumer market. There's been a lot of business VR headsets that have had it.
Speaker 1: We'll get into what that does in a moment. The PSV two also has external cameras, four cameras that are going to track your movement that will eliminate the need for you to put any sort of station camera bar over your TV. And it's what all major mainstream, you know, modern VR [00:02:30] headsets do to now let's get to the controllers. This is where Sony could do some really interesting stuff. They're going to be a pair of official PlayStation VR to sense controllers, which is their name. And we saw a picture of these last year. They're these, uh, split apart looking controllers that kind of look like the Oculus quest two controllers with the wraparound kind of a loop look and PlayStation controller like buttons. They're going [00:03:00] to have that similar type of a layout of PlayStation buttons on them and triggers. They're also going to have haptics, which is not surprising for feedback, USBC charging and rechargeable batteries, but they're also going to have some finger tracking, which is the type of tech that's already on the Oculus quest to be able to track your fingers using infrared, but also to be able to sense when you're touching a button with capacitive touch.
Speaker 1: And the other thing these controllers are going to have is more advanced haptics, [00:03:30] similar to what's on the dual sense controller, the triggers are gonna have that adaptive haptic technology, which could get a lot more interesting and captivating when you're playing a VR game. Cuz I find that the way that it kind of like creates the feeling that you're touching, something is already pretty amazing on PS five games. Now let's get back to the eye tracking, which I was talking about before eye tracking. The main feature of that is going to be to improve the graphics output on play a station [00:04:00] VR two, it uses a technology called foveated rendering. Now the idea is that it's going to be looking at where your eye is looking and, and technically where your eye works is that it's only going to see the highest detail where the phobia is right in the center of your eye and phobia rendering takes all of the extra detail in the scene and kind of makes it a little, so it saves on pixel processing, what it means for song already as powerful as a PlayStation five, is that it could render graphics to look really, really good.
Speaker 1: It's a all hard to [00:04:30] judge relatively because the PlayStation five is already capable of what looks like pretty spectacular graphics, but that should combine to maybe give this thing a really high end PC feel. So let's talk games. And also what we don't know about. So games Sony did tease at CS twenty twenty two one game horizon call of the mountain. This looks like it's said in the same universe as the horizon games on PlayStation, which are these like postapocalyptic worlds, very cool, these robotic dinosaurs. [00:05:00] Um, I love that that game is gonna be coming out for VR, but that's not enough. I would expect that Sony would have exclusive games. I think that's just one teaser of what's to come. Certainly what Sony needs is a whole lot more. And in the VR landscape right now, I mean, that's not just on Sony's shoulders. The rest of the industry is kind of reaching a little more a commonality and you can see that there are a lot of classic VR games like beat saber that still play really well all these years later.
Speaker 1: So I think [00:05:30] in a lot of ways, it's about Sony bolstering and boosting its library. There are already a lot of great games on PSV, but you have to bring up that clunky headset if you happen to own it. Now, hopefully all of those game games are going to be compatible with the PlayStation VR two. And it seems like that's going to be the case. The other thing that's been discussed is that maybe a lot more PlayStation, five games are going to have optional VR modes. Now I'm not sure about any of that. And it'll be really interesting to see how essential this feels [00:06:00] or how optional this VR headset feels. That gets to the other point, which is it's really hard to buy a PlayStation five right now and it's expensive. So even if you've got your hands on one of those things, now you're talking about a whole extra level of, of something to buy.
Speaker 1: And we don't know the price of this headset yet VR headsets can go across a whole wide range. The original PlayStation VR was $400 back in 2016. Now the Oculus quest two that's $300, [00:06:30] but it's, it's kind of subsidized by, by Facebook and it's, you know, I think it would cost more in normal circumstances with all the technology in this headset. And these controllers could this thing go up to like $600 or the cost of the PS five it's entirely possible. Um, I don't even know if it could get higher than that eye tracking technology is expensive to implement in headsets. And that's why we haven't really seen it on a lot of VR headsets up until now. So I don't really know the answer to all of that. [00:07:00] And it could be like buying a second console. In fact, then maybe why Sony decided to stagger the release of this, not just for availability of the PS five, but to kind of figure out the cost factor, um, and who would actually be buying it.
Speaker 1: The other thing is how easy is it to really move around with that? Us B C tether, a lot of VR games right now, especially the ones I play on the Oculus quest too, are really high motion like beats saber or a mini golf or other things will that cable get super annoying? Will it feel like it's easier [00:07:30] to play when moving around your room than the previous PlayStation VR. And that gets to kind of a wishlist thing. I really would love if Sony made it's own standalone VR headset. I mean, Sony's a massive electronics company it's totally in their power to do so. And if they made a quest like thing, they could even get into that Vita brand. I mean, why not? Sony's made gaming handholds for years. What about a Vita VR headset? Something that could play games on the go, but also connect with the PlayStation [00:08:00] five.
Speaker 1: I would love that. Of course that would also probably be a lot more expensive. Maybe that's something that Sony already has in the works at some point. Um, I would imagine the ideas cross their minds. Uh, I think that would add a lot more flexibility and then allow you to optionally buy it. That's not what the PlayStation VR two is though, for anyone who's already thinking about buying an Oculus quest two, which is self-contained know that the PlayStation VR two is going to be an accessory for an already expensive and hard to find console [00:08:30] admittedly, a great console, but that's part of the picture. I'm sure we're gonna see more on this soon, cuz it's expected in 2022 and I'm really to know more and to some day to try it out, but hopefully that breaks it down for you a little bit. If you have any comments or questions, please mention them below, uh, I'm Scott Stein. Thanks for watching.
