Is the PS5 VR Headset (PSVR 2) Worth it?

Sony’s PSVR 2 is the culmination of nearly seven years of growth within the virtual reality space. Lessons learned from the original PSVR and from other headsets currently on the market heavily influenced Sony’s development of what could be one of the best VR headsets available when it releases. Virtual reality has become more complex, more innovative, and more expensive all at the same time. As the technology has continued to develop, headsets have started to get larger or smaller depending on whether you’re using them for work, or for play. The technology needed to track your body and represent your movement in VR has gotten simpler when looking at a headset like the Oculus Quest 2.

Visual quality in virtual reality has increased across the board as well. The original Oculus Rift had a resolution of 1080 x 1200 per eye, meaning that each eye had its own display to look at instead of having one singular panel displaying images to both eyes at the same time. When comparing the original Oculus Rift to the Vive Pro 2 with a resolution of 2448 x 2448 per eye, it’s easy to see just how far VR has come since its first mainstream adoption in 2016. The high scale of growth and progression of the VR industry is exactly why the PSVR 2 is such an impressive headset. I say this as someone that owns both the Oculus Quest 2 and the original PSVR, and someone that has been using VR headsets since the original Oculus Rift was released in 2016.

The PSVR 2 manages to take the best features and innovations from across the VR landscape and put them together in one cohesive package that provides an incredible VR experience while also maintaining affordability.

How Much Does the PSVR 2 Cost?

Let’s be honest, VR is expensive. If you want a quality experience, you’re going to be spending quite a bit of money. For example, the Meta Quest 2 costs $400, or $500 depending on how much storage you want.

The tech in VR is so expensive that companies often can’t afford to price their products under $600 to $800 to be able to break even on manufacturing costs, much less make a profit. Meta can afford that low price point due to its market position, and just how much money the company brings in from its other ventures such as Facebook. Companies like Valve that have released the Valve Index, HTC, and Pimax can’t afford such aggressive pricing, or to take a loss on their investments the way Meta can.

The higher costs of most mainstream VR sets is why the PSVR 2 is such an attractive option to consumers. While its price point of $550 isn’t cheap, it’s far cheaper than alternatives like the Valve Index that’s priced at $999 before tax. The index also requires a powerful gaming PC to be able to run, a PC of that nature can easily cost between $1500 and $2000 because of the system requirements necessary to play games like Half Life Alyx, or run Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR.

All you need to use a PSVR 2 headset is a PS5 console, no other expensive hardware, no spending thousands of dollars on a computer. You don’t need to buy an expensive headset like the Vive Pro or Vive Cosmos for about $800 and then spend hundreds of dollars more on tracking base stations, controllers, or other accessories

Everything integral to the PSVR 2 experience comes in the box. Spending $500 on a PS5 console and $550 on a headset can certainly be a drain on your wallet as a consumer, but it’s a far cheaper option than most other VR solutions.

What Are You Getting For The Money?

With a high price point comes high expectations, and the PSVR 2 doesn’t disappoint. Instead of cutting costs and going with an LCD display, Sony has chosen to go with two individual OLED displays inside the headset that will output a resolution of 2000 x 2040 or 4K. It has a variable refresh rate of 90Hz that can scale up to 120Hz in games that support it. This high resolution leads to a smoother gaming experience that helps cut down on the possibility of getting motion sick when moving around. The lenses are adjustable and able to be moved to different locations for easy reconfiguring and user comfort, and the headset has an extremely wide field of view of 110 degrees.

The PSVR 2 also takes cues from the PS5’s Dualsense controller by providing haptic feedback that simulates the experiences you’re having in game such as explosions going off. There are also internal IR sensors for each eye that track the wearer’s eye position at all times and use that data to determine what to show and when to show it to give wearers the next experience while in game.

Finally, Sony built the tracking solution directly into the headset by placing cameras on it that gauge the space around you and determine your position in that space in real time and use that information to help inform and elevate your gaming experience. So while the price point of $550 is expensive, it’s well worth it given all the features that Sony includes in terms of both software and hardware. The price point is even more justified when looking at headsets such as the Vive Pro 2 that are $800 or more and much less feature-rich.

What Can You Do With The PSVR 2?

Having lots of cool features like haptic feedback and an extremely high resolution is great, but those things mean nothing in a VR headset if you don’t have a quality slate of games to pair with them.

Luckily, Sony decided to put its best foot forward when it comes to the gaming experiences that will be on display. There are over twenty new games that will be released alongside the PSVR 2 that will be a mix of old games such as Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil 8 that will be completely redone to include virtual reality support.

There will also be a slate of new games, including exclusives like Horizon Call of The Mountain and The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR. The price point for PSVR 2 games will also be cheaper than most mainstream games, with prices ranging from $25 to $60 depending on what title you’re looking at.

Final Thoughts On The PSVR 2

The PSVR 2 is shaping up to be something special. While there is competition in the VR space, quite a bit of competition, Sony has found its niche and appealed to console gamers in the best way possible, by creating and providing what looks to be an absolutely unparalleled experience for the money. Between the sophisticated hardware and the depth of its early game library, the PSVR 2 will be going on consumers heads for the first time on February 22nd, 2023, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be coming off of them for quite a while.