Mark Cerny, the lead systems architect at Sony, revealed details today about PlayStation 5 in a exclusive interview with Wired. In the interview, he confirmed that the console would retain support for the current VR headset.
However, if you were looking forward to a new VR headset being released along side the PlayStation 5, you are in for a disappointment. Dominic Mallinson, global head of Research and Development for PlayStation, stated he didn’t want gamers to be bombarded with multiple new pieces of hardware at the same time.
In the interview, Dominic went on to say that “From the point of view of the consumer, to be bombarded with many many things – oh, you have to buy this, you have to buy that – is a message that we don’t want to send.”
Mark Cerny supported what Dominic Mallinson said – ” I wont 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.”
The PlayStation VR had recently hit a 4.2 million unit milestone so this is great news for early adopters of the PSVR. Although whether or not the entire back catalog of current PSVR games will be supported isn’t 100% confirmed yet.
However, in the same interview, it was stated that, “because the new console is based in part on the PS4’s architecture, it will be backward-compatible with games from that console.”
Although there were previous patents released in April that shed a little light on what to expect with the new PSVR. It was indicated that the follow up to the PSVR headset would be completely wireless and comfortably accommodate users who wear glasses. As well as a patent that would combat simulation sickness.
PlayStation 5 has already been confirmed to have big performance improvements over the PlayStation 4 and the PS4 Pro, and that could mean a graphical leap for the current PSVR headset. The previous headset will still be limited by the low resolution it currently has so it would be interesting to see how PSVR support for new games on Playstation 5 plays out.
