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PlayStation VR

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PlayStation VR

The PlayStation VR (PS VR) is a virtual reality headset developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which was released in October 2016. The headset works with the company's PlayStation 4 video game console and is forward compatible with PlayStation 5. Sony released its successor, PlayStation VR2, in 2023, having sold at least 5 million PlayStation VR units worldwide.

The PlayStation VR has a 5.7 inch OLED panel, with a display resolution of 1080p. The headset also has a processor box which enables the Social Screen video output to the television, as well as process the 3D audio effect, and uses a 3.5mm headphone jack. The headset also has nine positional LEDs on its surface for the PlayStation Camera to track 360 degree head movement.

In certain games and demos for the VR, the player wearing the headset acts separately from other players without the headset. The PlayStation VR system can output a picture to both the PlayStation VR headset and a television simultaneously, with the television either mirroring the picture displayed on the headset, or displaying a separate image for competitive or cooperative gameplay. PlayStation VR works with either the standard DualShock 4 controller, PlayStation Move controllers or the PlayStation VR Aim controller.

Sony's interest in head-mounted display technology dates back to the 1990s. Its first commercial unit, the Glasstron, was released in 1997. One application of this technology was in the game MechWarrior 2, which permitted users of the Glasstron or Virtual I/O's iGlasses to adopt a visual perspective from inside the cockpit of the craft, using their own eyes as visual and seeing the battlefield through their craft's own cockpit.

The PlayStation VR was code named Project Morpheus during development. In early 2014, Sony Interactive Entertainment research and development engineer Anton Mikhailov said his team had been working on Project Morpheus for more than three years. According to Mikhailov, the PlayStation 3 Move peripheral, itself revealed in June 2009, was designed with unspecified, future head-mounted technology in mind. "We specced it and built it to be a VR controller, even though VR wasn't a commodity. As engineers, we just said it was the right thing to do. At the time, we didn't have a consumer-grade project that we could work on, but it was definitely designed with that vision in mind." Shuhei Yoshida, the president of Sony's worldwide studios, also said the project started as "grassroots" activity among engineers and programmers, which came into focus in 2010 once the Move controller had been released. Sony also went on record to say it is mandatory for all games to have no less than 60 frames per second at all times.

Project Morpheus was first announced at The 2014 Game Developers Conference. SIE Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida introduced the device on March 18, 2014, and stated Project Morpheus was "the next innovation from PlayStation that will [shape] the future of games."

On September 15, 2015, it was announced that Project Morpheus would be officially named PlayStation VR. Later in 2015, Sony acquired SoftKinetic, a tech startup whose focus includes visual depth-sensing gesture recognition, for an undisclosed amount.

On October 13, 2016, Sony released the PlayStation VR with the price of $399 in the US, €399 in Europe, £349 in the UK, and ¥44,980 in Japan.

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