Overview: PlayStation VR

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

PlayStation’s take on the Virtual Reality (VR) experience is a notable ‘tweener’ solution that sits right in between the high end tower-hungry PC-based rigs like Oculus Rift and the more popular HTC Vive and the smartphone-powered VR experiences like Google Daydream and Samsung’s Gear VR. 

The great thing about PlayStation VR is that if you already own a PS4, you’re halfway there. The addition of the VR Headset, controllers, camera and connector box is all you need to jump head first into the immersive and awe-inspiring VR experiences.

The not so great thing is the amount of stuff you need to get this working. PlayStation VR isn’t just the headset and the controllers, its a bunch of wires, power adaptors, splitters and dongles needed to get the thing working.

 

Sony makes this easy, there are a lot of instructions and they have made sure you won’t plug the wrong thing at the wrong end. After around 20 minutes of clearing up my living room and installing the seemingly endless array of wires and plugs, I was good to go.

PlayStation VR was the first complete VR solution I had experienced in my own home and it was brilliant. The included test disc which had an Ocean. Adventure diving simulation was very convincing and really enforced the reality that I was trapped in a shark cage plunging into the depths of the sea where a sunken nuclear sub and hungry sharks provided a constant threat of danger.

 

Another stunning demo was PlayStation’s Playroom VR, which really leverages Sony’s knowledge of video games, immersive experiences and which provided an overload of cuteness. In this experience, you assume various personalities, one is a sea monster out to tear apart a city and terrorize the citizens. Non VR headset users can play as the superhero defenders and what they see on TV is the opposite of what you’re experiencing in the VR world. It was a very cool demo. 

Sony definitely gets VR, my time with the PlayStation VR proved that one can have immersive experiences without necessarily needing a super-high end gaming PC. The key for me was the great game design, amazing sound and credible experiences that helped frame the illusion of VR.

 

Did my time with Sony PlayStation VR make me want to run out and purchase my own set, not really. I still feel that the number of items an connections needed for it to work are a bit of an inconvenience. This might not be an issue if I had a dedicated room for gaming and VR but since our living room is a general area where the whole family congregates, it’s just a messy proposition for me right now.

 

I’m still very impressed at what Sony has been able to do to add to an existing console, PlayStation VR is a definite contender if the games and experiences appeal to you and if you feel there’s ample replay value to justify the cost. As someone who jumped in the last big gaming innovation (Microsoft’s Kinect), I’m still wary that this will have the longevity to become a staple in most gamer’s lives.