Sony’s PlayStation VR has finally released, bringing virtual reality to gaming consoles. As the cheapest mainstream VR gaming headset currently on the market, it has the potential to bring this first generation of virtual reality gaming to the masses, like the PlayStation 2 before it put early DVD players into people’s homes. Unlike the Wii generation’s motion control experiment, though, the three mainstream VR headsets — the HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift and the PlayStation VR — seem primed to succeed, at least on some level.
Each of the big three headsets got their start in different, important ways. The most notable origin story, that of the Oculus Rift, began as a successful Kickstarter project that happened to poach the famed John Carmack from id Software. Around two years after being funded, Facebook bought Oculus VR to the tune of $2 billion. Valve’s headset, the Vive, was born from a partnership between two unlikely parties: Valve, a PC game developer and distribution company, and HTC, a mobile device designer and manufacturer. The PlayStation VR is an internal piece of hardware developed by the manufacturer of the the best-selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2, and the best-selling console of the current generation, the PlayStation 4. All three VR headsets have a claim to fame, and enough backing and development and design pedigree to achieve that fame, but what’re the technical differences and similarities between the headsets other than the obvious console-PC divide?
The PlayStation VR has the price locked down, and considering its plug-and-play console nature, is also the easiest and quickest to get up and running. The Vive is the most expensive by a mile, but, considering the amount of early access and fully released VR-compatible games available on Steam, has the largest gaming library at the moment. The Oculus was the first headset of this generation to make waves — and is mostly responsible for this VR trend – but ever since Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook, the headset’s mystique fell by the wayside even though the Vive and Rift are compatible with many of the same games.
Each of the big three headsets got their start in different, important ways. The most notable origin story, that of the Oculus Rift, began as a successful Kickstarter project that happened to poach the famed John Carmack from id Software. Around two years after being funded, Facebook bought Oculus VR to the tune of $2 billion. Valve’s headset, the Vive, was born from a partnership between two unlikely parties: Valve, a PC game developer and distribution company, and HTC, a mobile device designer and manufacturer. The PlayStation VR is an internal piece of hardware developed by the manufacturer of the the best-selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2, and the best-selling console of the current generation, the PlayStation 4. All three VR headsets have a claim to fame, and enough backing and development and design pedigree to achieve that fame, but what’re the technical differences and similarities between the headsets other than the obvious console-PC divide?
The PlayStation VR has the price locked down, and considering its plug-and-play console nature, is also the easiest and quickest to get up and running. The Vive is the most expensive by a mile, but, considering the amount of early access and fully released VR-compatible games available on Steam, has the largest gaming library at the moment. The Oculus was the first headset of this generation to make waves — and is mostly responsible for this VR trend – but ever since Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook, the headset’s mystique fell by the wayside even though the Vive and Rift are compatible with many of the same games.
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