PlayStation VR is, of course, anticipated to be the most successful VR solution that is launching this year- a large reason for this is because it does not need a high end PC to run, and because it is expected to be cheaper than Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.
One of the reasons for that latter reason is that it is, in the end, not quite expected to match Oculus or Vive in terms their high end quality- something that a Sony executive admitted today.
“If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR,”Sony Computer Entertainment vice president Masayasu Ito said in an interview with Polygon. “However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC. The biggest advantage for Sony is our headset works with PS4. It’s more for everyday use, so it has to be easy to use and it has to be affordable. This is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It’s for the mass market.”
In the end, I think Sony may have the right idea here- as long as the PlayStation VR meets certain standards of fidelity and visuals (so the games look great and don’t cause motion sickness), I think the product can certainly do well with the masses- the Wii, for example, proved this last generation.
The PlayStation VR is due out later this year.