PlayStation VR, Sony's virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4, will launch worldwide this October for $399, the company announced at a special event at this week's Game Developers Conference.
The platform formerly known as Project Morpheus will sell for less than some other VR headsets launching this year, namely the $599 Oculus Rift and the $799 HTC Vive.
In Europe and the U.K., PlayStation VR will cost €399 and £349, respectively. In Japan, the PS4 headset will cost 44,980 yen.
Andrew House, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, showed the final retail version of the PlayStation VR headset, and confirmed the platform's hardware specifications. PlayStation VR will ship with a 5.7-inch OLED screen at 1920 x 1080 resolution — 960 x 1080 per eye — that supports refresh rates of 120 Hz and 90 Hz. The VR headset will support a field of view of approximately 100 degrees, feature 360-degree tracking and offer latency of less than 18 ms.
Sony provided some additional technical specifications in a press release. With the PlayStation VR's headband at its shortest, the headset's approximate dimensions are 7.36 inches wide by 7.28 inches high by 10.91 inches long. Its required processor unit is a small square box that looks like a PS4, and measures 5.63 inches wide by 1.42 inches high by 5.63 inches deep. The headset weighs about 610 grams (1.34 pounds), while the processing box weighs 12.875 ounches.
House's presentation offered a look at the contents of the PlayStation VR box. The package will not include PlayStation Move controllers or the PlayStation Camera. The camera is required; it follows the LEDs on the outside of the headset, as well as Move wands and DualShock 4 controllers, to provide positional tracking. The box comes with the PlayStation VR headset, the processor unit, a connection cable for the headset, an HDMI cable, a USB cable, stereo headphones, an AC adapter and a power cord.
House said that more than 230 developers are currently making content for PlayStation VR, including more than 160 software titles. Sony expects 50 games to be available for PlayStation VR between the platform's launch in October and the end of 2016. House also confirmed the existence of a version of EA's Star Wars Battlefront for PlayStation VR.
For more on PlayStation VR, read Polygon's feature on the making of Sony's venture in virtual reality for its current home console.
