Sony has unveiled the design of the PSVR 2 headset

With a blog post just published, Sony has finally unveiled the design and some features of the upcoming PSVR 2 headset. Here you are the amazing pictures that have just been shared:

Design

It’s clearly visible from these pictures that the company has worked a lot in designing the headset so that it was beautiful to be seen. Both the headset and the controller follow a similar pattern for what concern both the colors and the shapes, and all of them are made of round surfaces. There is a reason for that: the orb shape of all the devices has been chosen because the orb “represents the 360-degree view that players feel when they enter the virtual reality world”, so it has a symbolic meaning. The curvy design is also better suited to be worn by people, it is more human and feels less techy, according to the company.

I’m pleasantly surprised by this design: the dual-color, which we have already appreciated in the Pico Neo headsets, helps in giving a more colorful touch to the HMD and the controllers, and the round shape makes it more classy. For sure it is more beautiful than the Quest 2.

Ergonomics

Sony Interactive Entertainment has invested a lot of time to offer optimal ergonomics to PSVR 2 users. PSVR has always been praised for its great comfort, and the company wanted players to have the same experience with PSVR 2. They state to have “conducted extensive testing to ensure a comfortable feel for a variety of head sizes“, and this is great news, but from my experience, this statement has to be verified when the headset gets distributed in the wild.

The fitting mechanism will be similar to the one of PSVR with an adjustable headband, together with “other features such as the headset’s adjustable scope that places the scope area closer or further away from the face. Placement of the stereo headphone jack also remain the same, so players will be familiar with it”. There will also be mechanical IPD adjustment.

The company has also paid close attention to the problem of the face getting warm while you are in VR and has designed a vent that makes sure that you will always stay fresh during your prolonged VR sessions.

All of these features come with a reduced size and weight of the device if compared with the previous unit, but the company has not revealed exact numbers.

Functionalities

As was already revealed, the PSVR2 features an internal motor to offer haptic feedback on the head, something that is quite exciting when you play action games. I’ve tried something similar with bHaptics facemask some years ago, and I found it fun, especially when you get headshot by another player. It’s great such functionality is going to be implemented into a consumer headset.

Zooming the lenses of the picture it is also possible to see the tracking rings of the eye-tracking sensors installed on the device.

Talking about features that have not been unveiled, we have no information about audio. The blog post mentions an audio jack, but it doesn’t talk about the characteristics of the embedded speakers, not even if there will be embedded speakers (I truly hope so). The only thing we can see is that PSVR 2 won’t follow the “over-the-year-speakers” design of the Valve Index.

Price and release date

We still have no info on the price and release date.

Impressions

I’m excited by PSVR 2. Everything that gets unveiled shows a headset that is incredibly polished: the attention to the shape and the colors of this device is rarely seen on a VR headset, where usually the only thing companies care about are price and performances. It has many features that the community was requesting on a headset: eye-tracking, HDR, comfort, ergonomic controllers, improved haptics. It is also paired with a powerful machine like PS5, which is comparable to a high-end PC. And I’m sure that it will be released together with some amazing games from Sony’s catalog. Quest 2 will have a more mainstream appeal, but I’m sure the gaming community is going to love this device.

Further Info

You can read the blog post where Sony has unveiled this information at this link: https://blog.playstation.com/2022/02/22/first-look-the-headset-design-for-playstation-vr2/#sf253727454

Don’t forget to let me know what you think about it!

(Thanks to Louis Cacciuttolo for the tip!)