Let’s cut to the chase: PlayStation VR should be better. At its best, Sony’s new virtual reality headset manages to conjure the astonishing, immersive wonder of modern virtual reality. Just as often it is frustratingly held back by outdated hardware that can’t quite do what’s being asked of it.
PlayStation VR is Sony’s answer to cutting-edge VR headsets like the Facebook-backed Oculus Rift and the Valve-backed HTC Vive. On paper, it offers much the same experience as its competitors at a lower price, powered not by an expensive gaming PC but by a somewhat less expensive PlayStation 4 console.
I’ve been using the PSVR for the better part of a week and have played a handful of the games that will be available at launch. I’ve been impressed by some things, turned off by others, and made nauseous by a few. Throughout that time I’ve also been disappointed. Sony’s lovely, well designed headset is consistently undermined by inferior motion controllers, an underpowered console, and a lackluster camera.
THE BASICS
PLAYSTATION VR LAUNCH BUNDLE is out next week on October 13. If you buy one, it’ll run you $400 for the headset, or you can opt for the $500 bundle, which includes a couple of Move controllers and a PlayStation camera.
The Move controllers are a known quantity. They came out in 2010 for the PlayStation 3 and work like Wii Remotes. Sony’s push for the Move came and went a long time ago, but the controllers still work with the PS4. The camera is familiar, too—it launched alongside the PS4 and has existed as an odd, underutilized peripheral ever since.
The headset, of course, is new, as is the ambitious attempt to use the PS4 to tie all three pieces of technology together into a coherent VR system. Let’s talk about what this thing does well and what it does less well.
It offers a cheaper, still impressive version of modern VR.
We’ve got three major VR headsets at this point, with more on the way. Each one stands on its own as an entertainment device, and each also makes a particular sales pitch for VR as a new way to experience virtual worlds. While each headset puts its unique spin on that pitch, the basic trajectory remains the same.
VR is fundamentally cool. Once you’ve used one of these headsets, you’ll probably want your friends to see it. At times, it makes you feel like you’re “there.” A giant shark will loom toward you out of dark water, and your adrenaline will spike. You’ll peer out over a precipitous drop and your guts will do a backflip. A cute little critter will run up to your feet and you’ll instinctively try to pet it. You’ll use a motion controller pick up an object off of a nearby table and turn it over in your hand, marveling at how part of your brain really thinks you’re holding it.
PlayStation VR manages all those feats, albeit with more suspension of disbelief required than the competition. It will initially feel familiar to anyone who has tried out an Oculus Rift or an HTC Vive. If you’ve never tried either of those two headsets, you’ll probably be more immediately impressed. You won’t notice the funky head tracking. You won’t mind that your in-game hands are constantly stuttering. You won’t be as put off by the blurry graphics or frame-rate dips.
In fact, there are probably people for whom that will be enough. To its credit, PSVR does convincingly convey the niftiness of modern virtual reality, and it does so powered not by an expensive gaming PC, but by a game console that millions of people already own.
Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s still very expensive.
Most people will have to pay $500 for PSVR, which is the price of the Move + camera bundle. That bundle comes with a disc containing demos of several VR games, as well as PlayStation VR Worlds. You’ll have to buy other games separately.
At $500, PSVR is indeed a more affordable option than the competition. The Oculus Rift costs $600 and will cost even more once its Touch controllers launch later this year. The HTC Vive, which comes with its own handheld controllers, costs $800. Moreover, the Rift and Vive both require powerful gaming PCs that can cost two or three times as much as a PS4, if not more.
But let’s not kid ourselves: A relatively cheap VR headset is still awfully expensive. You could buy a new gaming console for $500 and still have enough cash left over for a few games. You could buy a cutting-edge smartphone and have enough left over for a year of online storage and streaming music. You could buy a secondhand ticket to Hamilton.
One of the best launch games, Super Hypercube, will cost you $30, and most of the other games are in the $20-40 range. The multiplayer tank-wars game Battlezone costs a whopping $60, which certainly seems high for what I’ve played of it.
So, some perspective. PSVR may be the cheapest of the big three VR headsets, but that only means it’s the cheapest of three very expensive things.
It’s pretty easy to set up, but requires some adjusting.
The PSVR isn’t all that difficult to set up. You run a passthrough HDMI cable from the small new PSVR receiver box to your TV, and another HDMI cable to your PS4. You plug a USB cable from the box into your PS4. You plug the headset into the box. You sync the two Move controllers and plug in the camera. You put the camera on top of your TV. You run a quick calibration, and that’s pretty much it.
However, I’ve found that the PS4 can require an annoying amount of adjusting in between games. I’ve yet to find a sweet spot where I can play any game standing up, sitting down, or anything in between. A few times, if I’ve wanted to sit for one game and stand for another, I’ve had to adjust my camera so that my head stays set within a small box. Other games have told me I’m leaned too far back, out of the play area.
You can reset the orientation by holding down the Options button mid-game, which resets the horizontal and vertical orientation of the game. Weirdly, I’ve found that some games begin to rotate ever so slightly to the left or right as I play, an annoyance that the Options button appears powerless to fix. At one point my Battlezone cockpit rotated until I was sitting at an angle on my couch, seemingly unable to make the game point me back forward. It wasn’t until I started a new game that it went back to normal.
When you turn the headset on, your PS4 dashboard immediately pops up in the headset and you’re off to the races. The ease with which I can go from “not playing VR” to “playing VR” is admirable, and makes it much easier to decide on a whim to put on the headset and play some games, or show it to friends I’ve invited over. Whatever annoying calibration steps are required, PSVR does remove a lot of barriers between you and playing a game.
The headset is great.
The headset is a nice piece of electronics, smartly designed and comfortable for extended periods of time. It also plays well with glasses—even my big chunkers—though if given the option I’d still prefer to wear contacts.
Rather than strapping to the front of your face, the PSVR eyepiece hangs down from a plastic halo-hat that goes around the crown of your head. You can easily open the halo by pressing a release button on the back. Once you’ve got it on, you can fine-tune the fit by turning a knob next to the button. You can also press a second button to independently slide the face-mask forward and backward, which makes it a cinch to fit over your glasses without smushing them into your face.
The optics themselves fit comfortably and are framed by soft rubber blinders that gently block out most outside light from around your eyes and nose. It breathes well, and my face rarely feels crowded by the PSVR in the way it often does by other VR headsets. As a bonus, it’s easy to scratch your eye or nose while playing. (Seemingly a small thing, but actually very nice!) I do find that my hair frequently falls down into my eyes and obscures my vision, but I guess I need a haircut anyway.
I can’t tell you exact numbers, but the headset’s field of vision feels open. In a given VR game I rarely noticed the black binocular effect happening outside of the visible area. In-headset visuals are clear, and the blurriness and frame-rate issues some games have are likely more due to underpowered graphics processing hardware than any deficiency in the headset.
