Review: PlayStation VR 2

destructoid.com:

The first time I encountered “VR” was at a county fair in the ’90s. It was for a racing game demo, and basically amounted to putting a TV on your head…I think I lost some of my eyesight that day. It was an absolutely fascinating experience all the same, and I’ve kept my eye on the tech ever since.

Once the first consumer-grade Oculus Rift headset launched, I was there, and saw all of the advancements of the subsequent two decades since the TV-helmet at once: but there was so much more work to do. For the past seven years or so, VR has struggled to balance power and comfort. The Oculus Quest 2 is comfortable, but not super powerful. Other headsets focus on power at the expense of clunk, like multiple finnicky tracking devices. The PlayStation VR 2 is a good compromise combined with great tech: with the obvious hurdle of the price point. Let’s talk about it.

Product: PlayStation VR 2 Manufacturer: Sony Input: USB-C MSRP: $549.99 (base PSVR 2 unit with two Sense controllers)

Let’s get the specs out of the way first:

Having unboxed every major consumer-centric VR headset since the original Rift, I was shocked at how dead simple the PSVR 2 unpacking process was. You get the headset itself with a USB-C cable to plug it in (more on that later), a USB cable for the controllers, earbud headphones, and two PSVR Sense controllers. That’s all you need. There are no sensor towers (like several other headsets, that’s baked into the device itself), and there’s no gigantic converter box like the original PSVR.

The PSVR 2 is a paragon of VR setup experiences. To really hit home how much easier it is to setup the PSVR 2 is compared to its predecessor, just take a look at the comparison photos I shot below. On the left is the PSVR 2 (one