Sony Playstation VR starts price war with FB's Oculus Rift, HTC Vive

Sony has announced that its Playstation VR – a device that will take on rivals such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift and HTC Vive – will start selling from October.

The company has priced the gadget at $399, well below that of Oculus Rift, which is priced at $599 and HTC Vive at $799.

“Ever since we unveiled PS VR during the 2014 Game Developers Conference, we’ve received a tremendous response from gamers and developers alike,” said Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

“To make sure that we are able to prepare and deliver enough units of PS VR and a wide variety of software titles to consumers worldwide, we have decided to launch PS VR in October 2016.”

The device will be launched  in October 2016 in Japan, North America, Europe and Asia.

It said more than 230 developers and publishers are working on PS VR software titles totalling more than 160 with over 50 of those titles. The titles, including Eagle Flight (Ubisoft), EVE: Valkyrie (CCP Games), Headmaster (Frame Interactive), Rez Infinite (Enhance Games), Wayward Sky (Uber Entertainment), RIGS: Mechanized Combat League, Tumble VR, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and Playstation VR Worlds (SCE WWS), are expected to launch by the end of this year.

The company also announced that it is partnering with Tools & Middleware companies to expand the PS VR software line-up.

While both Oculus and HTC Vive are more powerful in terms of specs compared to Playstation VR, Sony has an advantage as it can well combine the gaming experience on its VR, thanks to Playstation ’s closed wall system.

According to Sony, the Playstation VR also has a cinematic mode, which lets users enjoy a variety of content in a large virtual screen 6 while wearing the headset.

Supported content for the cinematic mode includes standard PS4 games and videos as well as variety of PS4 features including Share Play and Live from Playstation .

Users will also be able to enjoy 360 degrees photos and videos captured by devices such as omnidirectional cameras on PS VR via PS4 Media Player, which will let them feel as if they are physically inside the captured scene.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, Hirokazu Ishizuka, Corporate Vice President Global Sales Development, Sony Mobile Communications, said the Playstation VR will prove to be a massive success and will totally belong to the Playstation team and independent of the mobile phone division. He however added that the company would be working towards improving the user experience of Sony smartphone users using various IOT devices and that would include the Playstation VR.

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