According to the YouTube channel PSVR Without Parole, and confirmed by UploadVR’s sources, Sony yesterday held a “closed door summit” to brief PS5 developers on its upcoming PSVR 2 hardware, and what it was looking for from its partners.
Before we get on to hardware, it’s worth noting that Sony is looking to encourage all triple-A PS5 game developers to include support for VR as an alternative way of playing the game, in the same way that Resident Evil 7, Hitman 3 and No Man’s Sky did on PS4 at different points in the console’s life.
Apparently gamers will be able to choose whether to download the VR or ‘flat’ version of each game upon release, with Sony looking to move developers away from short-lived experiences and towards fully fledged VR games.
At this point it’s not clear whether the new hardware will be backwards compatible with PS4 PSVR titles, but apparently there will be a “big push” to remaster last-gen titles for the new hardware in some capacity.
Onto the hardware itself, and it sounds like Sony will be absorbing features tested on other headsets like the Oculus Quest 2. The headset will reportedly offer a 110-degree field of view – 10 degrees wider than the first-generation headset – with fresnel OLED screens offering a resolution of 2000 x 2040 per eye.
That’s the equivalent of a 4K resolution which is unquestionably demanding from a hardware perspective, even given the impressive specs of the PS5. For that reason, Sony apparently intends to use flexible scaling resolution alongside another couple of tricks to ensure the hardware can keep up. PSVR 2 will apparently use foveated rendering which will only render what you’re directly looking at – something it will be able to know via built-in eye tracking.
Along with adaptive triggers, the bundled controllers will apparently feature capacitive touch sensors that are not only aware when they’re being touched, but can estimate how far fingers are away from them at any given time.
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No pricing or release date was mentioned, but it won’t be a 2021 product. Sony will reportedly reveal more details in early 2022, which suggests a release at Christmas that year, or further into 2023.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
