Sony today announced that its next-generation VR headset is coming—not in 2021, but it’s definitely a thing. In an interview with GQ, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says dev kit headsets are close to landing in the hands of developers.
Ryan tells GQ in an interview that the still unnamed headset will be “a completely new VR format for PS5.”
From what we’ve learned so far, those new features will include a single-cord setup, higher resolution, larger field of view, better tracking, and more ergonomic VR controllers housing some of the same tech as DualSense.
“We think there are two themes that you’re going to see: us capturing the technological progress that has taken place since the present VR system came to market and a considerable amount of lessons learned,” Ryan says.
Ryan mentions that one of those lessons was reducing the entire cable setup to a single cord, saying that “many other similar learnings” are making their ways to the company’s next VR headset. Considering however that dev kits are “about to go out,” Ryan reveals, it’s likely many of the most important bits are already baked in.
Ryan reconfirms SIE’s commitment to VR, saying the continuation of its console-based VR hardware is “a very logical step to take.”
“We believe in VR and have been extremely happy with the results with the present PlayStation VR and think that we will do good business with our new VR system for PlayStation 5. More importantly, we see it as something beyond this coming iteration that really could be really big and really important. We like to innovate; we think our community likes us to innovate. I’d turn around the question and say, “Why not?” For us, it’s a very logical step to take. We’re very excited by it and we think that people who are going to make VR games for our new VR system are going to be very excited too.”
Ryan was mum on two important bits however. There’s no official naming scheme for the headset yet, and the company isn’t announcing anything specific about developer support, or anything regarding partner studios. Still, he says SIE will “launch our new VR system with appropriate software support.”
As one of the oldest, lowest resolution VR headsets still available to consumers, it’s exciting to see Sony reconfirm their commitment (and financial backing) to the medium. Despite aging hardware specs, there are a host of awesome first and third-party games for PSVR such as Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Tetris Effect, Blood & Truth, Moss, Beat Saber, and Resident Evil 7 biohazard. If Sony is putting their full weight behind its next-gen VR headset, we’re hopefully looking forward to a new class of VR games that take advantage of all that PS5 has to offer.