PS4 VR (PS4 Pro)

I bought the second version of the PS4 VR Black Friday 2018. In case you're wondering what the differences are between the first and second versions, the main difference is support for HDR pass-through. For more info, the second has model code CUH-ZVR2 and complete technical specs are available on Sony's PS4 VR website.

Physical setup

There are a lot of wires you'll be connecting, and a separate box that the headset uses, what Sony is calling a 'Processor Unit'. I was curious about why VR would require an additional box of electronics, with a fan in it, to augment a PS4 Pro. After some Googling, the non-official answer is this box handles some user interface layering on top of the console output. Take that with a grain of salt. My best guess is that the VR and PS4 software departments at Sony didn't get along, and the VR team just went ahead with a separate box to speed up time to market despite the cost.

After connecting all the wires, you'll have to calibrate movement tracking, and affix the headset so that things don't look blurry. This is all pretty easy and straight forward.

Actually wearing the headset is pretty comfortable for a couple hours. Although the padding did leave a checkered imprint on my forehead. I haven't tried it with glasses, I can imaging that situation being cumbersome though.

Gaming

There are lots of free demos on the PS store for VR, I decided to avoid these and buy a couple games. I bought Astrobot Rescue Mission and Tetris Effect.  For both games, the graphics were at a lower resolution but looked pretty good. I'll be reviewing both in-depth after I have a few more hours of playtime, but my initial impressions after about five hours in each:

Astrobot is very fun. Movement tracking is accurate, the puzzles are innovative and VR movement tracking is built into the core mechanics of the game. I was looking around corners, smashing my head through virtual walls, and shooting grappling hooks from my controller. It was great.

Tetris Effect is also fun, but Astrobot was the clear winner if the goal is to experience what the PS4 VR has to offer. The only real benefit of Tetris Effect in VR is that if you've got distractions around you, like somebody talking on the phone or pets running around, you'll have an easier time focusing on the game without hearing or seeing anything else.

Video

Watching Youtube VR was super disappointing. The resolution was worse than VHS quality at times. I would consider this functionality completely broken.

Other uses

The PS4 VR can be hooked up to any HDMI output and be used as a personal display. Resolution is kind of low, but acceptable. I've used it a couple times to play games from my Steam library.

After some research, it looks like there may be third party drivers to get movement tracking working on the PC. I haven't tried these though, they'll be a followup post most likely.

Conclusion

For purpose-built VR games on the PS4, the PS4 VR is super fun. There's not a huge library, hopefully more cool games like Astrobot come out in the future. For everything else, it's kind of disappointing.

It costs a lot for what it is, 6/10.