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2 Reasons to Buy PlayStation VR, 2 Reasons Not To

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Sony’s PlayStation VR headset is the stuff that good holiday shopping seasons are made of. Everyone dreams of purchasing a magical gift for the holiday season, something that the entire family will be able to appreciate on its own merits. PlayStation VR is that purchase for gamers this holiday season. Sure, it’s setup will be a bit complicated and it’s expensive. It’s easy for even the casual gamer to understand though. By dawning a PlayStation VR headset, you can feel like you’re living in your games, not merely someone controlling a person on a flat screen in front of you.

Sony announced PlayStation VR pre-orders had arrived again earlier this week, warning users that failure to place a pre-order for the accessory could absolutely result in them not having a headset before on launch day. Naturally, the move has some gamers asking themselves whether purchasing the PlayStation VR is a good idea. There are some valid arguments for and against buying the PlayStation VR.

What you need to know about the PlayStation VR release date and price.

Read: PlayStation VR Release Date: 7 Things Buyers Need to Know

Don’t Buy PlayStation VR: It’s Expensive

For all work that Sony seems to have put into making the PlayStation VR a reasonably priced accessory, the truth is that it takes a big cash investment to get started with it. We’re not talking as much money as it would be to get started with an Oculus and a capable gaming PC, but the price tag associated with the PS VR is still big.

There are two PlayStation VR bundles available for purchase. One of those bundles includes nothing but the headset itself and its related cables for $399. $499 gets users the other items that they need besides the headset. There’s two PlayStation Move controllers and a PlayStation Camera, plus a copy of PlayStation VR Worlds. You’ll need the Move controllers and the camera, if you don’t have them already.

Add in the $349.99 cost of a base PS4 and you’ve got a big purchase ahead of you. If you’re starting fresh without the console, you’re looking at over $850. That’s a lot to invest on a new platform.

Do Buy a PlayStation VR: The Games

One thing that should make anyone nervous is game selection. Sony and Microsoft both tried motion gaming with the Xbox 360 and PS3. Luckily for Sony, they were able to use the same underlying technology to help power the PlayStation Move experience. Both experiments with motion gaming flamed out in large part because there were no exciting games in development.

Sony learned its lesson. For PlayStation VR, the company is planning an extensive line-up of titles. Star Wars Battlefront will get its own PlayStation VR specific mission sometime this year. Batman Arkham VR will let players actually see through the eyes of Batman. It’s a PlayStation VR exclusive. Battlezone puts PlayStation VR players in control of a futuristic tank. There’s a version of Eve coming too.

Farpoint

Farpoint

Read: 8 Exciting 2016 PlayStation VR Games

Sony has a pretty impressive assortment of titles coming to the device. If you’re worried about not having anything interesting in the first two years of it being available, it’s safe to say the company has you covered.

Don’t Buy a PlayStation VR: If You Don’t Like Motion Gaming or Motion in General

There’s something to be said for Sony building on top of past technologies to get to the point where PlayStation VR would be a viable device. PlayStation Move and PlayStation Camera are instrumental in this new device.

Here’s the thing though. Some of the games available with PlayStation VR are might require a specific controller. Some of them include the Move controllers for arm tracking. If you weren’t fond of PlayStation Move controllers before, stay away from those games, at the very least. The standard DualShock 4 controller is compatible with PlayStation VR games too.

Eve Valkyrie

Eve Valkyrie

It should also be said that anyone who gets easily disoriented when moving around, might want to strongly consider testing out the PlayStation VR at a local retail store before they place a pre-order for the accessory. The games, by their very nature, are fast-paced and can easily disorient players.

Do Buy a PlayStation VR: It Appears to Be the Future

Every so often it gets a bit easier to see where gaming is headed. Just a few years ago, digital video games and consoles that supported video sharing where all that folks could dream about. Before those things, there was motion gaming.

Read: 8 Ways the PS4 is Unique: Vue, SharePlay & More

We don’t know if PlayStation VR will ultimately by a huge success for Sony. Price and how quickly its partners can get decent games out will decide Sony’s fate in the space. What we do know is that the gaming industry as a whole is moving to embrace digital gaming in a big way. Oculus, Valve, Ubisoft and more are putting lots of resources behind creating VR games.

Ultimately, the decision to purchase PlayStation VR is yours alone. Just be sure to take everything into consideration before you make your decision. PlayStation VR launches on October 13th.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Marko Polo

    07/01/2016 at 12:32 am

    I honestly could care less about most of the VR games…the main selling feature for me is the “CINEMATIC MODE”

    hello 225″ screen :) yes it may lose some resolution but who cares!! the immersion is going to be freakin amazing….and the fact that you can forget all of the outside world with the headset and earphones is beautful

  2. Carl Vancil

    07/02/2016 at 7:39 am

    I’m looking forward to PSVR is a big way, and have wanted a quality VR system ever since 1994, so to me… as a life-long (44yo) gamer, PSVR is like a dream come-true.

    I know that there will be quite a few hits-and-misses while developers are finding what works vs what doesn’t, but this is the true beginning of a whole new era of entertainment, and could be seen in the long-run as a point in time that changed human technology as profoundly as Radio, TV, Computers, and the Internet itself.

    If you look at the root of each era in which each of the aforementioned technological leaps occurred, they weren’t so much leaps as much as they were beginnings of a new process of refinement –which over time, became staple tech in any civilized nation, worldwide. I believe VR will be much the same. We start with HMDs, some 20 years or so after the advent of the technology. In another 20 years, might we achieve “Caprica’s holoband”? In the series, the Holoband was ‘as-immersive’ as the very invasive technology on display in “The Matrix”, but without any ‘wetware’ requirements, such as a neural interface… though… over a century or more, neural interfaces may be required implants at birth, as per Terran Federation Law, depending on how geopolitics proceed.

    Either way, I think we truly live in a golden age, to be the ones alive during a time in which these technologies develop. Consider how wide spread video screens are today vs a century ago, the think of that applied to the VR Explosion of 2016.

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