Those luminous colors, the same as the light on the DualShock 4 controller or glowing ping pong orbs at the ends of Sony’s optional PlayStation Move wands, help the PlayStation Eye camera track your head’s twists and turns. That’s not mere stylistic license, either. It looks properly futuristic, in other words. Contrasted with HTC and Oculus’s anodyne-black plastic, PlayStation VR looks like a proper pulp sci-fi visor, tiny parabolas of translucent plastic punctuating its space-shuttle-white frame, each glowing the PlayStation 4’s signature electric-cerulean blue. This is probably as good as first wave VR’s going to get as a fashion accessory, too. Design like this makes you understand why Steve Jobs said he wanted to turn Apple into the “ Sony of the computer business” when he returned to the company he founded in 1998. That’s probably because Playstation VR is the lithely machined and beveled progeny of a multi-billion-dollar global firm’s decades of consumer electronics know-how. Even the slender connection cable’s been deftly managed, appearing along the headset’s side but reinforced to extend as if from the rear, so that it’s completely out of the way. This lets you position your head in a second or two, while a dial along the back lets you ratchet the headset to a snugger fit. Instead of the Rift or Vive’s cheap straps or velcro fasteners that can leave you blindly fumbling to adjust them, PlayStation VR distills adjustments to a pair of buttons-one up front and another at the rear. By contrast with other headsets in the “just over a pound” range, it’s almost luxuriously comfortable, a welcome bit of indulgence for an experience that depends largely on how fast you can slip these headpieces on and get your visual field un-fuzzed. The PlayStation VR’s headpiece is effectively a crown of thick plastic inside which Sony’s laid a soft rubber-sheathed bumper of thick but pliable foam. Pluck PlayStation VR from its oblong box and the first thing you’ll notice is that it feels solid in a way the floppier cranial moorings the Rift and Vive employ don’t. It’s still the same low-fi, cable-spaghetti, eyes-in-a-box immersion we saw earlier this year, most likely to appeal to enthusiasts who already own a PlayStation 4 but haven’t yet sprung for a Rift or Vive. PlayStation VR brings no game-changing surprises to the table, makes no audiovisual zigs or interactive zags.
You’re either dazzled or disinterested, inspired or unmoved. Sony’s PlayStation VR, due October 13, won’t change your mind if your opinion’s coalesced around the tech based on this spring’s dueling headsets from HTC and Oculus. Maybe feeling “present” in someone else’s imaginarium, with all its head-mounted headaches and bridal veil’s worth of cabling, isn’t enough to move your needle. Maybe you find it too visually crude and ergonomically strange-picture what someone playing pin the tail on the donkey would look like if their blindfold had a tether and weighed over a pound. Maybe you think virtual reality circa 2016 is a fad, a trumped up way of looking at otherwise ordinary games.