Sony has finally unveiled the specs for its upcoming VR system for the PlayStation 5. The PlayStation VR 2 looks set to be surprisingly powerful, with a 4K OLED display, high refresh rates, eye tracking and a more robust movement tracking system. The first game for the platform has been unveiled too, set in the Horizon universe.
When the displays are mere inches from your eyes, resolution is everything. The PS VR2 packs 2000 x 2040 pixels per eye, which combines to a greater than 4K resolution over the entire field of view. That’s more than double the resolution of the original hardware, and actually puts it up there with the best in the industry at the moment – it’s better than the Oculus Quest 2 and the HTC Vive Cosmos.
The displays are OLED too, with high dynamic range (HDR), refresh rates of up to 120 Hz and a 110-degree field of view. Altogether, those specs should eliminate the screen door effect that still plagues the first generation PSVR.
Another major issue is also solved – tracking. The original PSVR had one of the worst tracking systems of any VR headset, with a stationary camera watching from one direction that lost sight of you as soon as you turned your back. It made play a mostly seated, eyes-forward kind of experience. But PS VR2 uses inside-out tracking, with four cameras embedded in the headset itself to watch a user’s surroundings and the controllers in their hands, which should enable room-scale VR.
There’s a couple of other features jammed in there too. An eye tracking system detects the motion of your eyes, which could make for easier menu navigation or other inputs. A haptic motor is also built in, to give new sensory feedback straight to the skull.
The headset plugs into the PS5 with a single USB-C cable, which is an improvement over the clunky tangle of cords on the old PSVR but still feels a little antiquated compared to the freedom of wireless VR systems.
Sony also revealed the first game made specifically for the PS VR2 – Horizon Call of the Mountain. We don’t yet know much about this new game, except that it’s set in the robot-dinosaur-dominated future of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, and puts players in the shoes of a new protagonist.
With all of that in mind, plus the revamped controllers unveiled last March, it looks like the PS VR2 is in a pretty good position. That said, there are still a few major things we don’t yet know about the PS VR2, such as how much it’ll cost, when it’ll be released, and of course what the damn thing even looks like. Those details will no doubt be drip-fed to us over the coming months.
Check out the teaser trailer for Horizon Call of the Mountain below.
Source: PlayStation blog
