Does Sony's Playstation VR 2 work on a PC?
Sony is about to launch the PSVR 2. The hardware has already received a lot of international praise. This makes PC gamers curious. What happens when Sony's VR headset is plugged into a PC?
The short and somewhat disappointing answer is: Not much. You cannot play games with the PSVR 2 right now. Whether this will be the case forever remains to be seen. The PSVR 1 is at least unofficially supported on PC.
The Verge tested Sony's new VR headset via the USB-C port on a Windows PC with an AMD Radeon RX 6800XT GPU. The operating system recognized the device as a second display.
However, interaction with SteamVR did not work. SteamVR did not recognize the PSVR 2 and prompted the user to connect a VR headset. Similarly, the PSVR 2's controllers were connected to the PC via USB in the test and recognized as hardware, but could not be used.
For those who want to use the PSVR 2 on a PC, the test still has something positive to say: The hardware is recognized in principle. The video signal over USB is not encrypted. The problem seems to be the lack of driver support.
PSVR 2 is officially only compatible with the Playstation 5, and Sony has many good reasons for that
Sony itself has not yet commented on a possible support of the PSVR 2 on PC. Although the company now regularly brings major console games to PC, officially we are talking about a VR headset for Playstation 5.
And there is no reason to believe that this will change in the foreseeable future: Sony wants VR exclusivity to be an additional selling point for the Playstation 5. Furthermore, Sony makes most of its money from the games it sells, and the maximum margin is only generated by the PlayStation Store. In addition, Sony would have to provide support if the PSVR 2 is officially sold for PCs - that would mean additional effort for drivers and the like.
This means that interested PC gamers can only hope for a solution similar to that of the PSVR 1. Third-party providers such as Trinus PSVR or iVRy have made it possible to use Sony's first VR headset with SteamVR. However, this required considerable effort on the part of the developers.
With PSVR 2, there are other potential hurdles, such as eye tracking, which is likely to either complicate driver programming or be unusable. For now, virtual reality with PSVR 2 will remain an exclusive experience for Playstation gamers.
Note: Links to online stores in articles can be so-called affiliate links. If you buy through this link, MIXED receives a commission from the provider. For you the price does not change.
