VR indie studio Bit Planet Games tweeted out a photo yesterday of what appears to be the first spotting of PlayStation VR 2 in the wild. The tweet has since been deleted by the studio, which claims it was faked.

Bit Planet, which is known for its series of Ultrawings VR flying games, tweeted the message “Guess what’s coming to PSVR2? (Right answers only),” implying that Ultrawings is making its way to Sony’s upcoming VR headset for PS5. Under it was ostensibly a PSVR 2 developer kit.

The tweet, which was cached and also captured by Twitter user ‘TobiasRial‘, shows it managed to garner hundreds of replies, retweets, and likes before being taken down.

Image courtesy TobiasRial

The studio claims the photo “Looks fake to us. Chair is badass though,” further stating it was a “Pro Photoshoo [sic] job.”

Image courtesy Bit Planet Games

Paradoxically, in another tweet Bit Planet also claims the image was “Not real. Just cardboard and duct tape and some wires and a lot of 3D printing.”

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United States import records from late 2021 onward show that Sony Interactive Entertainment has shipped thousands of boxes containing developer kits from Asia to the US. Although not confirmed, timing suggests those boxes are most likely carrying next-gen PlayStation VR 2 headsets.

While small, Bit Planet is a veteran VR studio which would be an ideal early partner for Sony, as the company is no doubt looking to not only stock new exclusive content for PSVR 2, but also a back catalogue of recent games that have been successful on other platforms.

Provided the image is authentic, it’s likely in violation of the studios non-disclosure agreement (NDA) which is required when platform holders loan out developer kits to studios.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Andrew Jakobs

    Ofcourse it wasn’t fake. I just hope the PSVR2 is also backwards compatible with PSVR games otherwise it will have a very small library, and I would be pissed if I already bought a lot of games which I couldn’t play on a newer headset.

    • Tommy

      Why is that Sony’s responsibility, besides their first party games? The devs need to update their games to support the newer tracking system. Some devs already are/have like Hello Games and Firesprite.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Because it’s Sony who wrote the drivers, and supporting BC is up to Sony to just match the API of the original drivers to the new hardware. Just like many hardware vendors do with their drivers.
        Yes, if software developers want to take advantage of the new features of the PSVR2 they should natively support the new SDK, but for current PSVR SDK it’s up to Sony to make the PSVR2 compatible with that SDK, it’s just a conversion layer. I’m a software developer myself, so I know how much trouble/easy it is to write such layers.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          A problem is that many PSVR games actually relied on the PS4 controller and used inputs that have no equivalent on the PSVR2 controllers. In Resident Evil 7 clicking the trackpad brings up the map, while the D-pad is used for quick slots. So Sony offering the same API on PSVR2 isn’t enough, developers might have to adapt their input schemes. Which may be one of the reasons why Sony hasn’t said anything about backwards compatibility yet.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Which is why Sony is able to create an emulation layer. It could have a special menu where you can reassign buttons from the controller, just like you can with SteamVR, which is highly unlikely as assigning buttons yourself is something that’s missing from many console games, so not usually done. OR it could just hardcode their own settings based on games or know controllers, it’s not a very long list.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I agree that they could and I really hope they will, but usability is most likely the real issue here. Even if I love the unlimited configurability of Steam Input, Sony will be very hesitant to tell people to configure anything or make it a second grade experience.

            Some apps could work right out of the box without modifications, some will work with a hard coded or configurable remapping, and some will require developers to significantly change their input methods to be usable. If Sony is going for backwards compatibility, I’d expect them to go for this type of tiered compatibility, with games rated on how well they work, and some not working at all without being updated first. And they will most likely avoid the term “backwards compatibility”, because users would expect pretty much all their existing games to just run as before, which isn’t going to work.

          • Malkmus

            Seems most likely that gamepad games from the first PSVR such as RE7 would just use the PS5 gamepad, rather than the PSVR2 controllers.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Unfortunately that doesn’t work either, because the PS5 controller doesn’t support 3D tracking. On the PS4 the LEDs on the controller could be tracked the same way as the PSVR and the PS Move controllers from the camera, but with Sony now switching to an inside out tracking for PSVR2, there is no more camera, and they removed any bright tracking LEDs from the controller.

            In theory there could be covered IR LEDs inside it that could be tracked from the PSVR2 itself, but AFAIK teardowns have found nothing. If you currently want to play PSVR 1 games on PS5, you need an adapter, connect the PS4 camera, the PSVR 1 and a PS4 controller.

          • Malkmus

            I don’t recall RE7 using the motion tracking on the controller. I’m pretty sure it could be played with a PS5 gamepad as all the controls used standard buttons and joysticks.

          • Tommy

            It did use motion tracking but was very limited

          • Malkmus

            I don’t recall RE7 using the motion tracking on the controller. I’m pretty sure it could be played with a PS5 gamepad as all the controls used standard buttons and joysticks.

          • Malkmus

            I don’t recall RE7 using the motion tracking on the controller. I’m pretty sure it could be played with a PS5 gamepad as all the controls used standard buttons and joysticks.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Didn’t you have to lift your arms/controller in the early scene that was also part of the demo so that the TV guy could cut the rope with which your hands were tied, just before he got stabbed by Mia?

          • Malkmus

            I don’t recall RE7 using the motion tracking on the controller. I’m pretty sure it could be played with a PS5 gamepad as all the controls used standard buttons and joysticks.

  • Sven Viking

    Posting it was unwise but I hope they don’t get into too much trouble. With official renders published already, just seeing it on a chair doesn’t change much.

    • Anonmon

      If anything, actually seeing real photos of a real device from someone that’s NOT Sony helps a ton for those consumers who refuse to believe anything is real until there’s 3rd party conformation it is in fact legit, and not just vaporware and fancy CG renders and promo shots from the company it’s coming from. Sometimes it works out to be like that (DecaGear) and sometimes it doesn’t (Tundra Trackers, if you didn’t back the Kickstarter).

  • tc tazyiksavar

    This is not fake at all..

  • Nepenthe

    Not sure what the big deal is. Looks exactly as expected.

  • Wow, I want this “Photoshoo” program too, considering that can make super-realistic renders of objects

  • wowgivemeabreak

    It’s sad they would blatantly lie by claiming it is fake and insult people by such a blatant lie. Just stay silent rather than make a blatant lie. Of course this is real. Looks just like the product photos claim it will look.

    I don’t even know why this is a story or why they were forced to delete the picture. Again, looks just like the photos and anyone with an IQ above room temp knows devs have some of these to work on right now so what’s the big deal to Sony?

    • Malkmus

      Seems obvious that what happened is they goofed by posting it, and swiftly received a letter from Sony stating they were in breach of their NDA (no matter how dumb we may think that is) otherwise they lose their contract. So they deleted it and made up a dumb lie to cover their asses.

      • Cless

        Funny how people don’t think its exactly that immediately. I’m pretty sure the same would have happened if I had leaked ps5 devkits on goddamn twitter on the company account back when we got them.