The Playstation VR headset has received pretty positive attention from the press, and puts the PS4 in a rather unique position in the current crop of consoles. It will be the only system with Virtual Reality support; and Sony are keen on pushing as many units out to customers as possible.
During Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE)’s Executive Vice President Masayasu Ito’s recent interview with the respected Japanese newspaper the Nikkei, it was revealed the Playstation VR may be supported on the PC in the future.
Ito didn’t elaborate on any time scales, pointing out that for now Sony were happily focusing purely on games for the Playstation VR system and extending support to developers working on projects.
The possibility of the device working cross platform would certainly be a major positive for the hardware; making it more flexible than both the Oculus Rift (which has officially launched today) or the upcoming HTC Vive. Not only would it work on both Sony’s ecosystem and the PC, but the pricing of Sony’s headset is cheaper and because the resolution of the headset is lower, the GPU needed to power the system would presumably be lower than what’s needed to power say, the Vive.
Recently, other rumors have emerged that the Playstation VR’s upcoming release may be the biggest factor of Sony considering a Playstation 4.5, the upgraded PS4 model which sports a faster graphics processor (and potentially other components.
Another report also suggest this new upgraded PS4 will launch in time for Holiday 2016, and be priced at $400 dollars.
The Playstation VR headset will be launched this year in October, so the timings of its launch and the upgraded Playstation 4K (as its been unofficially dubbed) do tie in rather neatly.
Lastly, if the Playstation VR does receive support on the PC, it will be an excellent headset for even primarily PC gamer’s – particularly with those who occasionally dabble in the PS4. It would also make a lot of sense, with the PS4’s basic hardware very similar to that of a PC, Sony would do well to encourage PSVR development by having a headset which is “unified” across platforms.
They could essentially enter the market with a device and developers would be happy to support it, because functionality would be similar whether it’s powered by the PS4 (upgraded or not) or PC, just with graphical differences across the systems.
