Sony shows off hand tracking for Playstation VR 2
Sony surprises with a hand tracking demo for Playstation VR 2, raising hopes for a new PSVR 2 feature.
The first images and videos have appeared on X and elsewhere of a hand tracking demo that Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is showing at the Siggraph Asia 2024 computer graphics conference in Tokyo.
The demo consists of a mini-game in which users clean up flying virtual objects by performing various gestures.
The hand tracking seems to work very well already.
Sony provides an overview of the technology (see image below):
- Tracks the position and posture of the PS VR2 user’s hands
- The library is available with the latest SDK of Playstation 5
- No additional devices required
- Recognizes at 60 fps with low latency and displays the hands smoothly
- Information provided
- Position, posture, velocity and bounding box for each joint
- Hand scale and hand mesh
- 12 types of gesture detection
The text on the box. | Image: @PS4VRNews (X)
Is hand tracking coming to Playstation VR 2?
Sony writes that the technology is available in the latest PS5 SDK. Does this mean that developers can already implement it in their VR games? In any case, Sony has yet to make an official announcement.
Hand tracking is a key technology of virtual reality. It has been a standard feature of Meta Quest for many years and is constantly being improved, while Apple Vision Pro relies solely on hand tracking.
PlayStation VR2 hand tracking in action. #PSVR2 pic.twitter.com/THPXkuJfqg
- PlayStation VR News (@PS4VRNews) December 4, 2024
Hand tracking support would clearly benefit PlayStation VR 2. Hand tracking could be patched into existing PSVR 2 games, excellent hand tracking games from the Quest platform such as Maestro could be ported to PSVR 2, or entirely new hand tracking experiences could be created specifically for PlayStation VR 2.
The best news, however, is that Sony continues to invest in VR and is looking to the future with Playstation VR 2.
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