The VR platform has been officially out since the release of Oculus Rift (March 2016) and HTC Vive (April 2016), but only for the PC platform — which surely you need to have a hefty rig with a lot of power to run these babies. But Sony is not getting late in terms of VR as they have officially stated the release date and price for Project Morpheus, a.k.a PlayStation VR. It didn’t stop Alvin Wang Graylin, the head of the Chinese VR division in HTC, from saying that the price of Sony’s PSVR is misleading. In a Spanish blog post, Wang said “the price set by Sony for PlayStation VR, 399 euros, may seem economical for users but is misleading.”
Wang has also stated his experience with PSVR saying “tried the product but not just been entirely comfortable after ten minutes.” while adding that the technology used by Sony is “already available six years back and were created to compete with the Wii.” But according to Sony, the reason behind the base price for PSVR is because that some PS4 owners might already have PS Move and the PS Camera. It’s good to note that they are opting options for consumers to buy the base PSVR headset only if they own a PS Move and PS Camera, and another option to buy a package with the PSVR base along with the PS Move and PS Camera if you don’t own any of the peripherals needed for PSVR.
Strong words from the head of the Chinse VR division in HTC, but that wouldn’t stop Sony from releasing PSVR and it wouldn’t affect the PSVR’s pre-orders are it did sold out after the first few hours when the pre-orders were made available.
According to an interview with SIE’s Vice President, Masayasu Ito, by Polygon “If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR.” and added “However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC.”
President Ito also stated that the PSVR will be affordable to everyone who owns a PS4 wants to experience VR. By the looks of it, Sony is targeting consumers with the “right” price for them to afford to experience VR.
Sirus Gaming EIC: I already pre-ordered the headset as we want to tackle about VR, we’ll be able to get our hands on with PSVR this October 2016. But I do not think the price is misleading because Sony has options for the consumers who own a PS Move and Camera and to those who doesn’t. It’s a good move from Sony, but we’ll see if the statement from Wang about Sony’s PSVR technology dates back 6 years ago and competes with the Wii.