It’s been more than a year since we got our hands on the R12,500 PSVR 2, Sony’s attempt to dock a couple thousand bucks from your wallet — after you’ve already picked up a PS5, of course. We weren’t entirely surprised, therefore, when it was revealed that Sony was having trouble clearing these off the shelves just a year later. Sony has finally yielded to the painfully obvious solution that’s been staring at them in the face: PC support is coming.
Not so fast, PC Master Race
Rumours surrounding the PSVR 2’s jump to the PC Master Race have been swirling around for quite some time now. Hell, even Sony’s solution to the problem — a proprietary adapter that’ll allow the headset to hook up to a PC — leaked just a few weeks ago. It does leave us questioning Sony’s strategy to announce the adapter so soon after it held a State of Play event, which would arguably have been the place to announce such a thing.
We think we know why. Sony’s decision to let the heat from its somewhat sub-par event before letting the PSVR 2 PC adapter loose can likely be summed up in one sentence: “To start, players will need to purchase a PlayStation VR2 PC adapter, which will be available for an estimated retail price of $59.99…” the company said in a blog post. That’s roughly R1,100 in South Africa, without the usual taxes tacked on when it eventually arrives.
Players will also need a DisplayPort cable that’s compatible with DisplayPort 1.4 (that’s another R300 there), as well as a PC (duh) and a Steam account (dug, again). Sony also posted some rather basic PC system requirements necessary to get the PSVR 2’s PC ambitions off the ground. It’ll hopefully all be worth it in the end, however.
“Players will have access to buy and play Steam’s expansive library of thousands of VR games, including fan favorites like Half-Life: Alyx, Fallout 4 VR, and War Thunder,” Sony continued.
Read More: Batman: Arkham Shadow will be VR exclusive, coming later this year
There’s always a bigger catch
If the barriers to entry we’ve mentioned haven’t yet deterred you, this might just do the trick. For one thing, the PSVR 2 PC adapter isn’t available at the time of writing. You’ll need to wait until 7 August 2024 to pick one up (local pricing and availability have yet to be confirmed). For another, it’ll be missing out on some of the headset’s core features that made it such a joy to use.
“PS VR2 was designed from the ground up specifically for PS5 – so you’ll notice that some key features, like HDR, headset feedback, eye tracking, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback (other than rumble), are not available when playing on PC,” it said.
It has at least kept the 4K visuals (2000×2040 per eye), 3D audio, see-through vision and finger touch detection. How kind.