You might remember my previous article (please include an internal link to here) where I briefly compared the various VR headsets that will be coming out this year. Suffice to say, with the information that we had back in April, it’s pretty easy to say that you’d have a much easier time if you had to pick a safe online casino than a proper VR headset (not that it’s particularly difficult to find a safe online casino, but come on, you know what I mean). Anyway, my point is that since then we’ve received some new information about Sony’s foray into the world of virtual reality, and thus far, what we’ve seen is actually very, very promising, to the point where it might actually be your best bet of entering the world of virtual reality!

Now, don’t get me wrong – if you’re looking for objective quality and nothing else, the PSVR is definitely not going to be your best bet at all. When it comes to quality, both the Oculus and the Vive are better options than the PSVR, with much higher resolution and providing a much clearer picture. However, there’s also the fact that this high graphical fidelity requires a TON of processing power, with people estimating that you need to spend at least $700-$800 on a gaming PC if you want to use VR on it… And that is if you build it yourself. If you want to buy it pre-made the price will definitely jump by a few hundred, and here we’re talking about a bare minimum. There have been certain claims online that you can build a VR-ready gaming PC for as little as $200-$300, but these claims are mostly anecdotal and, in many cases, just not true.

On the other hand, the PSVR has been designed to work with a PlayStation 4. While the VR headset has been optimized to run best on the as of yet unreleased PS4 Neo (which is expected to ship sometime next year), all VR games that were shown at E3 ran on original PS4 models, and they looked just fine. While the PS4 itself isn’t all that powerful, the PSVR comes with an additional processing unit which does the heavy lifting, boosing the console to the required level of power. According to Amazon, you can buy a brand new PS4 bundle for $350, and a used console for about $250 – which, I personally believe, is very affordable. There’s also the price of the unit itself. At $400 for the PSVR alone or $500 for PSVR, the required PS Camera, two motion controllers and a game, this is the cheapest possible way of entering the world of virtual reality, especially when compared to the $600 price tag for Oculus and $800 price tag for Vive.

And then there’s the matter of games. Sony has absolutely committed itself to not repeat the mistakes that it made with its PS Move peripheral where the unit wasn’t supported by any decent games. Currently, there’s over 230 developers working on either PSVR-exclusive games or on implementing VR features within their games. In addition, there’s over 100 games confirmed to be in development for PSVR, half of which will be released at launch when the system is released in October and the other half will be released in 2017. Some look absolutely amazing (like “Robinson”), others I’m very curious about (like the Batman VR game by Rocksteady), and some look like absolute trash (like the “Until Dawn” spin-off, which is an on-rails shooter… Because, you know, that’s what we liked most about “Until Dawn”, the shooting), but in any case, you can’t deny that Sony is very committed to supporting PSVR. Whether that support will continue in the future or if PSVR will go the way of the Vita will depend on how many people purchase the unit, but considering just how quickly pre-orders tend to dry up, I feel like there’s plenty of reasons to be optimistic. So if you’re looking for a very cheap, and yet also very effective way to experience VR, don’t go buying those cheap Google Cardboard knock-offs that hurt your eyes – PSVR just might be the way to go!