Sony Exec Admits PlayStation VR May Not Match Oculus Rift in Terms of Quality

2016 is poised to be the year that virtual reality really kicks off, as PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive are all scheduled to come out this year. Now, Sony Computer Entertainment vice president Masayasu Ito has spoken up to compare the PlayStation 4 VR headset to Oculus Rift, giving Facebook's device the edge when it comes to technical quality.

But whereas Rift (and Vive) require a PC in the $1,000 range, PlayStation VR will work with any of the 36 million PS4 consoles already in the market. It's aiming to be a mass-market device.

"If you just talk about the high-end quality, yes, I would admit that Oculus may have better VR," Ito said in an interview with Polygon. "However, it requires a very expensive and very fast PC. The biggest advantage for Sony is our headset works with PS4. It's more for everyday use, so it has to be easy to use and it has to be affordable. This is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It's for the mass market."

The full Poygon interview goes into a lot more depth on the origins of PlayStation VR and Sony's goals and ambitions for the device. You can read the story here.

PlayStation VR is officially scheduled to arrive in the first half of 2016, though a GameStop executive recently said the release date may be pushed to fall 2016. Sony will hold a PlayStation VR-focused event at the Game Developers Conference next week where we may finally learn the system's price and release date, though this is not confirmed at this point.

In other PlayStation VR news, Sony has announced that children under 12 should not use the device.