PlayStation VR

Sony has recently announced that its much anticipated VR headset for the PS4 is set to be released in October of this year.  The price for this tasty bit of kit will be $399 USD, 399 Euro and £349 if you live in the UK.  At this moment in time there are 230 developers and publishers currently working on software for Sony's new baby, with around 50 titles set to be released by the end of this.

As I live in Europe, the 399 Euro price tag seems very very attractive to me but unfortunately it doesn't tell the whole story. You see, PlayStation VR also needs the PlayStation's 4 camera to work and for some titles that are set to be released on it, you'll also need one or maybe more Move Controllers and of course you'll need a PS4 too, you can't just take it home and plug it into the toaster.  Now if you already have a PS4, then you should be able to pick up the camera for probably less than 50  Euro's, same applies for a pair of Move Controllers to.  This takes the total price closer to the 500 Euro mark or the 900 Euro mark if you have to purchase a PS4 on top of that.

Now Sony has done very well on the pricing in my opinion, its got some pretty stiff competition coming its way when it finally hits the shelves later this year.  Oculus Rift will be priced higher at $599 USD and the HTC Vive at $799 USD and you have to take into account that both the Rift and Vive require pretty decent PC's to get the most out of them.  Another important point to keep in mind here to is that both the Rift and the Vive are rumoured to be a much higher spec than the PlayStation VR, this also might reflect the low price that Sony have applied to their new VR system.

So where does all this leave Microsoft and the Xbox One?  Well, nowhere to be completely honest with you, it seems that the mighty Microsoft have no interest at all in VR and instead are focusing all its attention on its augmented reality headset HoloLens.  For one, i'm glad they are going down a different route, the VR space is going to be very crowded soon and I believe there will be enough choice to cater to everyone's taste and budget without Microsoft getting involved to.  

I'm looking forward to the launch of PlayStation VR, even though this might be an Xbox blog, ill still be picking one up later this year to see for myself what all the hype is about, i'm all about new experiences in gaming and I think that if done right, VR could be the best thing to happen to this industry ever.

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