As competition in the virtual reality sphere heats up, Sony has announced that its PlayStation VR headset will launch in October for $399. Sony made the announcement during a keynote at the Game Developers Conference 2016 (GDC), where the company also showed off footage of upcoming titles and more.
Sony also detailed the final hardware specs of the headset, noting a 5.7-inch OLED display running at a 120 Hz refresh rate and carrying a total resolution of 1920 x 1080 at 960 x 1080 per eye. Sony says the field of view comes in at right around 100 degrees with latency at under 18ms. The company also notes that we should expect to see around 50 games for PlayStation VR this year.
As far as pricing is concerned, PlayStation VR's $399 pricing compares to the Oculus Rift's $600 price tag and the HTC Vive's $800 price point. The Oculus Rift is due out by the end of March while the HTC Vive is expected to start shipping in April. So while Sony's offering will be late to the party, it's also significantly cheaper. However, do keep in mind that it appears the PlayStation Move camera and controllers required for tracking will cost extra, bumping that $399 price up a bit more.
One other big advantage for Sony is that PlayStation VR only requires a Playstation 4 to get started. That's compared to the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, which both require rather beefy gaming PCs that could represent a significant hurdle (and cost) for interested buyers. Add in Sony's already rather significant install base with the PlayStation 4, and it will be interesting to see if the company gets a leg up in sales.
