It didn’t take long for Sony to sell me on virtual reality.
I wanted the headset as soon as the announcement they were working on it, and I was completely sold on the technology the first time I used it.
I have been playing video games for close to 40 years, and virtual reality is the most immersive way to play a game that I have ever experienced. PSVR is a great piece of technology, but it does have some shortfalls.
Some games hide it better than others, but just about every game has some level of a screen door affect (where it looks like the game is being viewed behind a screen door because the resolution is not high enough to render the image without it). The bigger issue for me, which I’ve written about before, is the reliance on the old PlayStation Move controllers designed for the PlayStation 3. The controllers weren’t designed with VR in mind and lack the analog sticks that modern games rely on to control movement.
So there’s room for improvement. And we now know that improvements are on the way. Sony announced late last month that it was hard at work designing and building the next generation of PSVR, which I’m going to call PSVR2 for simplicity, although its official name hasn’t been released.
“We’re taking what we’ve learned since launching PS VR on PS4 to develop a next-gen VR system that enhances everything from resolution and field of view to tracking and input,” Hideaki Nishino, senior vice president of Platform Planning & Management for PlayStation, wrote on the PlayStation Blog announcing the PSVR2.
Also announced in the blog is that Sony is designing a new controller specifically for the PSVR2. Nishino wrote in the blogpost that the new controller was being designed to incorporate some of the new features found in the PlayStation 5’s DualSense wireless controller. Hopefully, this means the DualSense’s incredible adaptive triggers will be included, along with analog sticks.
Set up for the PSVR2 also sounds like it’s going to be a lot easier than the current headset, which has its own processing unit that connects the headset to the console. Although not confirmed, it sounds like the PSVR2 will not require a separate processing unit.
Game developers have started receiving development kits so they can start work designing games for the new headset. Sony did say the new headset would not be available this year, but hopefully it will launch sometime in 2022.
As far as games go, “Half Life: Alyx” released on most PC VR headsets last year is considered by many to be the greatest VR game made (so far). It’s graphics and physics would have to be downgraded quite a bit to run on the current PSVR, but hopefully it could be a launch game for the next iteration.
Another game I would love to see available on day one would be “Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge,” another VR game released last year on Oculus headsets that takes place primarily on the planet Batuu, the planet that is brought to life at the Galaxy’s Edge attractions at Disney World and Disneyland.
Dusty Ricketts can be reached at dricketts@thedestinlog.com. He is currently playing “Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury” and “Control: Ultimate Edition.” You can find him to play online through his PlayStation Network ID: DustRAG316.
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