PlayStation VR 2 owners who’ve spent the last year watching their very nice but criminally under-served virtual reality headsets gather huge amounts of dust just got a big, long-requested win today. From August, the PSVR 2 headset will become compatible with PC, allowing owners to use it with cross-platform VR titles like almost any other headset. Unlike almost any other VR headset, PlayStation appears to have done everything it can to make the PSVR 2 a tightly controlled experience on PC.
The catch? Sony would like to sell you an adapter, because of course it would. And reader, you may, quite fairly, be asking why? The PSVR 2 connects to the PS5 via a USB-C cable and does not require an adapter of any kind. Why would the PC not also be plug-and-play?
PlayStation’s press materials make it fairly clear that it’s making the PSVR 2 compatible with PC as a secondary option. Even if you purchase the adapter, you’ll still need to pick up a DisplayPort 1.4 compatible cable to use it (a necessary cable that is, of course, sold separately). You also don’t get to enjoy many of the PSVR 2’s vaunted box features — HDR, headset feedback, and eye tracking are all disabled. So are the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback (not including rumble) on the controllers. Sony, it appears, wants those features to remain exclusive to the PS5. Set your stopwatches to see how long it takes modders to turn all those features back on.
Once the PSVR 2 and the adapter and the DisplayPort cable are connected to your PC, you’ll need to make sure you have the PlayStation VR and Steam VR apps downloaded from Steam. Once those are installed and set up, you can start to use your PSVR 2 with your PC. There is no word about its useability beyond the Steam ecosystem. Again, I am sure the modders will make short work of that.
It sucks that Sony has slapped a stack of terms and conditions on something that could do an awful lot for its ailing VR headset. I am glad the PSVR 2 is getting PC support! It should have had that from day one. I understand Sony wanting to tempt users toward the PS5 by keeping all its favourite bells and whistles within the walled garden. But I also think it’s baffling to charge the better part of $100 for connectivity on a device interested users probably already own and then keep a tranche of important features at arm’s length. That’s to say nothing of charging that much and not including all the necessary cables.
Swing and a miss on this one, Sony.
The PlayStation VR 2 PC Adaptor will launch in Australia on August 7. It will set you back $94.95 AUD.
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