PlayStation vice president Masayasu Ito has admitted that PlayStation VR won’t be as powerful as the Oculus Rift. In a recent interview with Polygon, Ito explained that their own virtual reality headset won’t be able to match the power of competing VR devices, but that their aim was never to do so.
PlayStation VR will have a lower resolution and smaller field of view in comparison to the likes of Vive or Oculus but will, however, have a 120Hz screen refresh rate. But besides all of that, Ito says the target audience for their VR hardware is vastly different to its competitors.
If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR. However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC. The biggest advantage for Sony is our headset works with PS4. It’s more for everyday use, so it has to be easy to use and it has to be affordable. This is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It’s for the mass market.
Ito’s comments will come as little surprise to anyone. It’s no secret that high-end PCs are considerably more powerful than the current generation of consoles, so PlayStation VR was never going to be on the same level as others. Industry analysts have been suggesting for a while that Sony’s biggest trump card in the so-called ‘VR wars’ will be its price point, which many are expecting to be significantly lower than others in comparison.
Let’s not forget, either, that Sony’s device will be the only one available for consoles, at least for the foreseeable future. Expect more news on PlayStation VR next week at the Game Developers Conference.
