PlayStation VR Gets Permanent Price Reduction

[kcarbotte]

Sony today revealed a new price for the PlayStation VR headset. Starting tomorrow, the HMD should be available for as little as $299 across the U.S. and $379 in Canada.

PlayStation VR Gets Permanent Price Reduction : Read more

 

[cryoburner]

Its resolution is much lower than every other tethered VR HMD on the market today...

This isn't exactly true. The PSVR might have a slightly lower internal resolution, but its display actually offers more subpixel elements than either the Vive or Rift. That's because it uses full RGB panels with 3 subpixels per pixel, as opposed to the Vive and Rift's pentile displays, with only 2 subpixels per pixel. On such displays, each pixel has a green element, but every other pixel alternates between having a red element or a blue one. So while the Vive and Rift might be rendering at a higher resolution, a lot of subpixel detail is lost when displayed by their screens.

As far as numbers go, the Rift and Vive's screens offer a total resolution of 2160x1200, or about 2.59 megapixels, compared to the PSVR's 1920x1080, or 2.07 megapixels. That may be 25% more pixels, but it's not taking subpixel elements into account. With that in mind, the PSVR's displays have 6,220,800 total subpixels, while the Vive and Rift only have 5,184,000 subpixels. Now, human vision tends to discern more detail in green light compared to red or blue, so that doesn't mean the PSVR will necessarily appear sharper, but it does likely make up for much, if not all of its lower rendered resolution.

Of course, I haven't done a comparison between headsets to know firsthand which appears sharper, and it's possible that different lens and display arrangements could utilize those available pixels better on one headset or another, but from what I've heard, the PSVR's resolution tends to look fairly similar to the Vive or Rift, and at the very least shouldn't appear "much lower".

 

[bit_user]

I'm still waiting for a PS4 Pro that has everything in one chassis. Also, it should have the VR HMD connectors on the front.