On February 22, the new Sony virtual reality glasses for PS5 will arrive in stores, some PlayStation VR2 that will improve the user experience compared to those of PS4 and that promise a qualitative leap in terms of playable technology (including its price of 599 euros). So some have wondered if they can dream of seeing them running on a PC for Steam VR and stuff like that. And what do you think they said?
The old dream of interoperability
In a world of video games where hardware manufacturers fight to have exclusive content, it is hard to imagine in an opening exercise that the Japanese allow a device like this PlayStation VR2 to work on a PC. A place where virtual reality has had a broader and more constant journey for decades, when the first devices began to arrive after the successful explosion of the mythical Oculus.
Right now leaving the PC aside, only Sony on PlayStation 5 seems focused on offering a VR alternative to its users, although many of those who like this type of game have both platforms and do not want to spend more trying to feed them separately. It is better to acquire a model of glasses in one and take it from PC to consoles depending on the moment or the releases that can be found in each one.
So it was a matter of time before someone wondered if the PlayStation VR2 could connect to a PCsince it will (according to the Japanese) through a single USB-C cable that will eliminate all the mess of connectors, modules and cameras from the previous generation.
we already have the answer
Thus, it has been Reddit that has cleared our doubts by appearing in one of its threads a developer who has had deep contact with the new PlayStation VR2 and that you can state emphatically if they can be used on a PC. And the answer is very specific: “it will be very difficult” for them to connect to a computer using alternatives such as the PC iVRy driver for Steam VR.
“You would be wasting your money, since there are no guarantees that you can use them on a PC and there’s a good chance you can’t.” As an example of this difficulty, he explains what happened with the first generation of Sony glasses for PS4: “the original PSVR is [electrónicamente] equivalent to a monitor, so it is relatively easy to get a video signal from it. Reading sensors etc required a lot of reverse engineering and it took at least a year from release before anyone noticed […] But it took a couple more before it could be used as a PC VR headset.”
That apparent success is not so much because tracking sensors and motion controls have not yet been made compatible so we have a set that is not 100% operational. So with a more complex PlayStation VR2, with many more sensors and built-in cameras, expecting compatibility quickly seems almost impossible. Although there are times when miracles happen, right?
