UploadVR has some exciting rumors about what Sony will be including on the next-gen VR headset it’s announced for the PS5: it’ll apparently include 4K resolution, eye-tracking, and a vibration motor in the headset for haptic feedback (to complement the controllers with haptic triggers).
According to UploadVR, the new headset should have a total resolution of 4000 x 2040, giving each eye 2000 x 2040 pixels. The original PlayStation VR had a resolution of 960 x 1080 pixels per eye, for comparison, so this would be nearly double in each direction. The Oculus Quest 2 has 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye, slightly less than Sony’s headset is rumored to have — in both cases, the high resolution can help to avoid the “screen-door effect” that can often keep VR headsets from providing a clear image.
It is worth noting, though, that unlike the Quest 2, Sony had previously announced the PlayStation headset will still be wired, using a single cable to connect to the PS5 system. It’ll be a USB-C cable, according to UploadVR, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Sony conspicuously placed one on the front of the PS5.
UploadVR also has interesting information about how the PlayStation VR successor will fill its additional pixels. Its sources say that the headset will track the users’ eyes so it can do foveated rendering, where the image will only be fully sharp where you’re looking, and be blurrier in your peripheral vision. This simulates how your eyes actually perceive the world and lets the computer (or in this case, console) work more efficiently by not having to fully render things at high resolution that you aren’t looking at anyhow. There are, of course, other neat things you can do with eye-tracking (including creating more lifelike player avatars), but it’s currently unclear what Sony plans to do along those lines.
UploadVR also claims that the next-gen headset will use inside-out tracking, which would certainly be an upgrade from the re-purposed PlayStation Move system of the original, which required a fixed camera that could only properly track your head and hands if you held a pair of glowing sticks in a fairly small area between you and the console. Inside-out tracking typically uses cameras mounted on the outside of the headset itself to figure out where you are inside a room.
If these rumors turn out to be true, it sounds like it could be a promising accessory for those lucky enough to get their hands on a PS5. While it’d be nice to see a cable-free Quest 2 competitor, it’s hard to blame Sony for focusing on something that will complement its console. Personally, I’m already sold, and am starting to set aside some pennies (okay, more realistically, twenties).
Correction: the rumored resolution for the headset is 4000 x 2040, is nearly double the original in each direction. UploadVR’s original story had a typo pegging the resolution to 4000 x 2080, which has also been corrected.
