Oculus Rift vs PlayStation VR

Oculus Rift vs PSVR Reviews!

When you buy something, you must make sure it’s worth all your money. Especially when you invest it in something as expensive as virtual reality. You must consider everything – performance, convenience, and its long-term use.


So, in this post, we’re going to compare two high-end VR systems. It’s going to be Oculus Rift vs PlayStation VR. And this is going to be an interesting battle.

Design

If you’re an intense gamer and have ended up playing for hours together, you’d know that comfort is everything. This makes the design of the VR headsets an important criterion to consider. The Oculus Rift is made of fabric and is comfy to wear. It might look heavy but is lightweight. It"s got an adjustable strap to wear it around your head. It"s smooth, plastic body is a final touch to its urbane design. The PlayStation VR takes a different approach. It looks like something you’d see in a sci-fi movie (this itself attracts a lot of gamers).


It positions some of its technical parts in a helmet-like portion above the goggles. It’s an all-white headset with blue side panels. It also distributes its weight so that it is not concentrated around the nose-cheek region. It does not have built-in headphones like the Rift but has an audio jack where you can plug in your own headphones. It weighs about 140 g more than the Rift but honestly, doesn’t feel massive.

Specs

The PlayStation VR has a 5.7- inch OLED display with a 960 x 1080 resolution with a 100-degree field of view. Its 2nd prototype also added RGB sub-pixels to smoothen out the image. The Oculus Rift beats it here with a 1080 x 1200 resolution with an 110-degree field of view. However, when it comes refresh rate, the PlayStation VR (120 Hz) beats the Rift (90 Hz). The PlayStation also has an extra piece of headset that connects the interface of the headset with the PS4 console. When it comes to compatibility, the PlayStation VR can be easily connected to the PS4 which is a very standard home console today.


If you’re a gamer, you’ve probably got one of this at home.All you need is a PlayStation Camera to complete your setup. But with the Oculus Rift, it’s a little more complex. The Rift requires a PC rig to run, and the criteria that this PC rig must meet include an 8GB memory, a NVIDIA GTX 970/AMD R9 290 graphics card, an Intel i5-4590 processor, input USB ports and output HDMI ports. The monster PC meets these standards and no one except the hardcore gamers, and the graphic designers own these kinds of PCs.

Audio and Controls

The Oculus Rift’s controls still must be released, but its half-moon sort of structure holding a joystick button together is a decent controller. The Rift has an integrated audio. The company has announced that it was going to boost up the Rift with an audio SDK that would permit the use of Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) tech along with the Rift’s tracking to create a real sense of sound and immerse the user into a virtual world, speaking sound wise. Now for the PlayStation VR, they’re these comfortable to hold, long cylindrical type controllers that are designed to be spatially aware and are tracked by the PlayStation camera. Sony’s PlayStation VR is known for its Hi-fi Minidisc players which used a huge sound studio to create a 3D positional audio engine specifically for its VR device. These are so detailed that you could even hear footsteps and the sound of the wind in the virtual world.

Tracking

To track the relative position of your hands and legs, and your body as a whole is the most important part of the mechanism. Both, Rift and PlayStation stereoscopically render objects and keep track of the position of the headset in the physical space of the real world, as well as the user’s hand and leg movements. The PlayStation’s AMD graphics processor was built to handle 3D stereoscopic processing. Sony also has an additional box which connects the PS4 via USB and HDMI ports which include an HDMI-out to connect to the screen and see what the user is experiencing without any distortion or falsification. These ports are used to handle specifics of the PlayStation VR. The PlayStation camera is used for tracking not only the front of the use’s head but also the back. The GDC 2015 also announced a model that increased the number of LEDs in the headset from 6 to 9. For the Rift, a tiny webcam is used to track the LEDs present in the headset. This is called the Constellation tracking system which has been upgraded from the webcam version to a microphone-style sensor version that sits on your desk and tracks your movements.

Price

Hold your horses and prepare for impact. Loosen up your wallets a little. Now the price for the two headsets is almost neck and neck. The Rift costs $599 plus you get a couple of free games and an Xbox one control pad. The Sony PS VR is more affordable. You’d get the Sony headset, PlayStation camera, two move controllers, and Playroom VR digital download in exchange for $499.



Both these VR systems are good, high-end ones. But to decide on one, it depends on what hardware you already own, and what sort of games you’re into. If you already own a PS4, it is only reasonable to pick the Sony PS VR. If you own a monster PC, then you’d rather invest in the Oculus Rift. If you like games like Half-life and Team Fortress 2, these are guaranteed Rift-ready games. Oculus is investing $10 million in indie game development. If you like firing guns and swinging golf clubs, you should probably pick the PS VR. Games such as The London Heist, Batman Arkham VR, and The Deep are getting rave reviews when tested on the PlayStation VR. So, in conclusion to the Oculus Rift vs PlayStation war, the two of them have their pros and cons. Weigh them out, see which one suits you better, and get immersed.

Do I miss anything? What is on your mind, good information is like nutrition to our brain, share your thoughts with our readers here!

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