If you’ve bought a PSVR (PlayStation Virtual Reality) headset for your PS4, you may be wondering if it will work with the PlayStation 5 when it comes out later this year.
The answer is “yes”, to cut to the chase quickly, however it might still not be the version you want to use for the long haul…
Will PSVR work on PS5?
The PlayStation 5 remains, for the most part, a bit of a mystery, but one of the earliest reveals via Wired was that PSVR will indeed work on PS5.
“I won’t go into the details of our VR strategy today, beyond saying that VR is very important to us and that the current PSVR headset is compatible with the new console,” Marc Cerny told the site. And he would know, given he’s the lead system architect on PS5 at Sony.
So, case closed then? Well, yes and no.
Will there be a new PSVR headset?
Yes, PSVR will work on PS5, but it’s important to remember that Sony’s new console is also backwards compatible. That means that the current PSVR headset may just be for playing your existing library on the new hardware. Sony, notably, has said nothing about new VR products for PS5 – which isn’t surprising, given it hasn’t said much about anything involving the new console.
However, we do know that Sony has also been patenting VR technology.
Back in 2018, Sony patented something that would allow multiple VR headsets to be used with a single device, while another document from 2019 seems to show a PSVR-alike device with a camera mounted in the back.
Not exactly a guarantee a new one will be coming, of course (especially as the console in the diagrams looks suspiciously like a PS3), but it does suggest that Sony may at least be considering something a bit more advanced than the current hardware.
So what does that mean?
If – and it’s a big ‘if’ – Sony is indeed coming up with a new PSVR with better tracking, it would dramatically change the kind of experiences possible with the hardware.
Currently, PSVR is tracked by a single camera plugged in to the PS4, which means it struggles to track you if you turn around. An improved version could lead to more room-scale experiences as seen on PC with the Vive or Oculus Rift.
If that’s the case, then certain experiences may be off limits to first-generation PSVR owners. So perhaps the question shouldn’t be “will PSVR work on PS5” but “will PSVR work well on PS5”…
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