How Does the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro Compare to PSVR2?

Man, I get that it runs games on its own but 1.5k seems ridiculous.

If Sony's new set is under $1500, now would be a good time to announce it!

@BartoxAbrasiveness If it's costing more than 400€, Sony surely makes big profit on these. Remember that the Quest 2 has a processor, battery and memory, as the article above states.

Outside of the facial expression, PSVR2 looks better in most ways. A PS5 and a PSVR2 will cost less than this. And 1-2 hours? Forgot about it. That’s not even gonna work well for the workplace. This just seems a premium headset that isn’t that premium for the price.

@BartoxAbrasiveness Yeah VR1 was 399€ in Europe at launch, without the Move Controller lol

@BartoxAbrasiveness: Sony thinks they can sell 2M units at launch. So, they are at least convinced that the price will be attractive enough for quite a large number of people.

Main difference is that the PSVR2 has the far, far, more powerful PS5 available, which is almost on another stratosphere to a mobile chip.

For this it sacrifices making people have a lightweight cable trail behind them. For me that’s definitely the right decision. Others may vocally disagree.

Im guessing VR2 is going to launch at least £399 in the UK but that is going to be a VERY hard sell for anyone, esp if the winter is predicted to be as bad as it will be, disposable income will pretty much be non-existent for a lot of people, who knows, maybe Sony will shock us all with a £299 launch price, but after they've bumped up the price of the PS5, thats not likely.

Can't see psvr2 being any cheaper than a ps5 console

@get2sammyb "1800x1920 per eye 1832x1920 per eye"

Did they really make the resolution 32 pixels worse on their $1500 headset or is that a typo type of rounding error?

$1500 for 1-2 hour battery life is kinda nuts for what reads very similarly to the lighter cheaper better battery life Quest headset.

Did you make that graph or copy it? I can't imagine Meta put that out w/ the Pro looking so similar w/ worse qualities at nearly 4x the price. I think w/ tax it actually would be 4x the price in the US, well at least in NYC w/ close to 10%. 🤑

@BartoxAbrasiveness
Meh, first adopters won’t care too much. Hopefully it won’t be loads above £600, but if It is it is.

Between this and Sony recently deciding to increase the price of the PS5, it makes me think PSVR2 will be something like £800.

So basically the PSVR2 is better and will be cheaper. Only thing better for the new meta is the design.

If sony price this right, then you could get a playstation 5 and a PSVR2 for less than the meta quest pro, which would be a way better deal.

Thr best game on what was called me Occulus Quest 2 I played were the Moss games. Was looking into PS5 VR but I got a 6 year old who takes the controller away to play all the time. I think the middle grade Steamdeck is my destination.

My wife and i are planning on starting development in VR next year so might take a look at this

Is it sad to say I'll be pleasantly surprised and willing to pay if PSVR2 ends up being the same £350 launch price point as the original PSVR thinking that's "cheap".

A few months back I jokingly said it'll be Kaz Hirai's fave phrase "599 US dollars!"... I'm now thinking it might legitimately be the case for PSVR2! 😕

A $1500 toy is just that, an exotic toy for people willing to spend crazy cash on exotic toys. I had hope after PSVR1 that Sony was going to make VR a more or less "mainstream niche" but it seems like all the mfrs seem committed to doubling down on reinforcing VR as a very tiny niche, just at higher margins.

At this point even before knowing the price I went from mega-hyped to pretty much writing off caring at all about PSVR2. If they surprise me, I'll be happy, but I'm expecting to be surprised in the wrong way. VR is cool, but it's not $500+ cool for something you just can't use all that often. It may be a premium ultra luxury niche unicorn, but it's not going to be ready for the mainstream for a decade or more. There's lots of other cool things to spend that kind of money on that will get far more use.

Well Sony isn't being led by a lizard, so that's another point to Meta.

@Grumblevolcano 800 will be way too much for me I hope not.

Price means nothing to me here. Meta is Facebook. They could price this at $15 and I wouldn't buy it.

@NEStalgia totally agree, most big developers won't take risks making AAA experiences for the VR. The only big games will come from playstation themselves whilst the other games will also be either indies or AA at best.

They would be better off spending that money and making a new handheld (doesn't have to be vita 2), and improve on the mistakes they made with the vita. No expensive memory cards, no front or back touchscreen, get shoulder buttons and better anolog sticks. Then add playstation plus streaming compatibility, give it a competitive price and it would be successful just like the psp was.

@get2sammyb where the specs do look better on the PSVR2 it's make or break for some gamers when it comes to having a lead or being wireless where alot of gamers prefer a wireless headset but I don't think the price warrants paying for something that won't last long being on a battery.

The main difference is the PSVR2 won't have those xbox live avatars Meta wants to push so hard as the "Metaverse" 😂

Meta Quest: Hubris Edition

@MatthewJP was thinking the same so $399.99 sounds about right

VR2 is going to be 500. so a grand for setup.

@UltimateOtaku91I don't think Sony knows what competitive pricing means. I don't think a handheld would be that successful but at least moreso than if this thing is expensive!

@SplooshDmg That's the wrong way to spell DOA. . At that price it'll never be more than an exotic novelty. Really anything over 500 would be, and that's pushing it.

@Grumblevolcano don't be daft itll be 399

$1,500 smackeroos for a device that can't even go above 90hz refresh rate.
While my Index can hit 144hz and it's half the cost.

@SplooshDmg Sony is weird. Historically they always want to both be high end bespoke premium while simultaneously penetrating the mass market. And when the latter fails (which Ray Charles could see coming a mile away) they abandon the market almost immediately. I don't doubt you're right and I don't see them being happy with only a tiny ultra niche market is spend anything enthusiasts and little industry support and then see them bailing entirely from VR, and honestly Jim made fairly clear he didn't want to be in it back 2 years ago 2 weeks before Japan announced the hardware.

The spend anything enthusiasts are MOSTLY going to spend more on better on PC anyway so what premium market are we even looking at here? Oculus is targeting business use. Sony would be targeting the leftover rich boys who are too lazy or too rich boy poor to buy the real rich boy toys . A niche of a niche and not the more premium one. No company chases the "Budget exotics" market though 😂.

Oof that pro battery life. Sure wireless headsets are going to be understandably low, but I doubt that'd even last a best saber session, is it definately correct? Seems crazy.

This product is definitely not for the common pleb. That is what the Quest 2 and the eventual Quest 3 is for. This is aiming for the market that stuff like Vive Pro/Pro 2/Hololens wants/wanted to fill.

@SplooshDmg there is a large audience for vr. I've seen several articles about vr games making big money.
Maybe doesn't qualify as mainstream yet, but niche doesn't do it justice either really. It's somewhere in between, if there's a word for that.

If I didn't just replace my index due a dead display. This would be a cool purchase for a hybrid steam vr setup. It looks extremely lightweight compared to other PC based HMD, and the eye tracking would be fun to try out in stuff like VRChat.

@Grumblevolcano I think that’s more realistic in the short term. Supply chain and manufacturing costs haven’t exactly gone down.

@Uncharted2007 seriously… all this talk about not having to have a Facebook account and then they go and require a Meta account. Medias been relatively silent on this.

@MasterEMFG Requiring a Meta account is no different than when they required an Oculus account. They still need some way to track store purchases and such... The issue with the Facebook account requirement was that Facebook like to ban account which could lead to people losing access to bought content. Was you just expecting to buy a headset and it not require some kind if account to access it store front?

@SplooshDmg For once I think we're on Jim's side here. IMHO he was basically mid sentence in saying they have no VR market but will keep watching this space in case someone else creates a market and then try to hijack it, when the left hand in Japan jumped out and announced vr2. I think he was right. I don't really see why they're in that market because largely I think that market doesn't exist. If they're not going low cost to blow the doors off a new market they create, they're playing second tier in a premium niche someone else already owns. Kinda like Sony Hi Fi. And, like we said, Sony history shows if a new product fails to hit a big market fast they go full Google and kill it.

And you can't even use it to watch strippers on the wait wat?

I think VR is forever in the sweaty rich nerd niche forever until Nintendo or Apple bring out a cheap under featured headset and make it trend. I don't see an expensive psvr kit being an actual success all long as it's "really good and really expensive entirely for enthusiasts but not nearly as good as the really good stuff that's already been in the market a while"

And I say that as a huge fan of vr1 that was hyped for 2. If they price it high and don't try to go subsidized like how they conquered consoles, the whole exercise is going to be infamous. And not the cool Sucker Punch kind

@AverageGamer nope not expecting no account just not into sharing my info with Meta Oculus or anything Zuck touches. Clearly companies thrive off data collected nowadays, but the span of FBs influence, the data they collect, and how they decide what’s ethical in use of that data I feel they’ve become too big for their own good. Flat out, I don’t trust them anymore. That’s my personal opinion.

Plus I’d like it to be more open hardware (which I know is a pipe dream) and not be influenced to, required or compromised to access its storefront because of the company that now governs Oculus.

I should add however I do feel Meta is good for the future of VR in the sense of pushing the industry. Perhaps not it’s industry practices.

I work for Meta and let me tell you: similar product aimed at different targets (through different prices), with similar specs. PSVR2 is the device you want for gaming, while Quest Pro is just for specific people - that is until the day they reduce the price.

PSVR2 will likely not be cheap.

PSVR 2 is going to be everything i hoped it would be. Well, except for a sleeker, more leaning towards a ski-mask kind of design. PSVR 2 looks just as bulky as the first one, which is a bit dissapointing to me. The Quest Pro looks tbh what i wanted for the PSVR 2.. Amazing design, probably quicker to put on/take off. Wondering how good it is at blocking all the light, these blinder things look tiny.. Guess it'll be suffice. The ultimate dream model PSVR 2 would be for me: Quest Pro's design(visually), PSVR 2's specs. and controller(features) and Pimax's resolution and FOV(which is with the Quest Pro's appearance impossible, yeah i know.)😁😎😂

@SplooshDmg very different from cloud. Cloud promises to make gaming cheaper and more convenient and reach a larger market. Technology availability is the only barrier.

Vr makes gaming more expensive and less convenient but more "premium* and exclusive. It's the inverse of cloud. Cloud therefore is a natural progression with tech. Customers embrace cheap and convenient even if it's worse. It'll get there and there's no chance it won't. Vr.... So have to sell people on spending mega bucks on a subset of tech demos. That's a hard sell. Until it's cheap it's doomed to being an echo chamber of enthusiasts, and if it's really expensive, this product won't move that needle.

@NeonPizza "rare", "high end", and "next level". Is this an E3 press conference and nobody told me? 😆

You don't need to sell me on "vr is cool", I already know that. The thing is I'm in the already small minority that does know I like VR, but not in the even smaller minority that's willing to pay exotic money for toys that are only occasionally use and are guaranteed to be obsolete in a few years. That's what the strength of psvr was. It was a much lower cost way to get "ok" vr without getting into enthusiast money. Vr2 going the route of premium vr kind of defeats the whole market angle of the PlayStation VR program. Fans an enthusiasts of vr, that aren't already on a higher end pc rig, but also are willing to shell out a lot of money for vr can't really be that big a market. Even as a fan, over $450 and I'm probably out. Over 500 and I'm definitely out. 800+and there's only the tiniest of die hards that won't be out. psvr1 aimed to make vr affordable and mainstream. Vr2 sounds like a somewhat less pricy, less good high end vr system for the existing market.... That isn't already on a better system on PC.

While these VR sets are neat to play with, in all honesty, I doubt I would ever use it that much. Not to mention that as much as my daughter talks about it, she has an attention span of a gnat, so her interest would be fleeting at best. Not to mention the prices are getting a bit out of reach for some people in this current economy.

On a side note, is this not how the Nerve Gear starts out in its development? Guess time will tell on that front, just beware of heavy batteries that get installed ;p

@hoffa007
I played an Oculus on PC for years and at no point has a wired cable bothered me. I just tossed the cord behind me and never gave it any thought.

The only real question is, does the chip in the pro surpass, the PS5s chip. If the PSVR2 comes in at $500, this is a huge win for Sony.

Im out at that price point. VR is my favorite gaming tech, but $1,500 is ridiculous. How does one consider themselves a “pro” in VR?

@NeonPizza Yeah, you're a technophile, but that's the thing, that's such a tiny market, and most of THAT market, is already on PC VR. You're part of a pretty tiny group willing to splash out, but not having already splashed out on the better stuff. (Really, why HAVEN'T you splashed out on the good stuff? You and fourfold are PC Master Race, you just don't know it yet )

I think >$499 on a PS5 (outside US) is already a strain, they're starting to push console pricing toward PC pricing, and while they can boast about sales numbers all they want, they really keep selling to the same audience, and that audience is never THAT big (industry wide, PS+XB+Nin.) I think a good but affordable peripheral could gain some traction, but $500 for a console that will get regular, heavy use, and can be a group activity is a lot more consumable than spending that on a headset. Even if you are the biggest VR buff, there's really only long you can, and really, should stare into the headset. Existing VR market aside, VR is seen as an accessory/gimmick at best, and you don't spend $500 on accessories/gimmicks in general.

I don't think it's a matter of "people need to be realistic on pricing." It's a matter of, if VR is still that expensive, it's still nowhere close to being a mainstream thing. It's still just an enthusiast tech toy. And as long as it's that, it's still a tech demo without serious content, because content is going where the people are, and people aren't inside $500+ helmets.

There's always a clash between VR enthusiasts saying they want expensive, they want the good stuff, they embrace that it's expensive to get right, and also saying they want it to grow and they want more content and support from content companies. But it doesn't work both ways. If you want it to grow you want Nintendo VRSwitch for $349.99 for the whole console, not the helmet, with 1024x768 resolution. It'll look like garbage, it'll roll us back to GBA graphics, but darnit, VR will grow! And then so will $300 headsets.

There's a lot of TECH in the accessory that drives up the cost to levels few will pay for an accessory, but that doesn't make it not an accessory. Sure, you could make the argument that SegaCD was a console, not an accessory for the Genesis/Mega Drive....but....that worked out well?

People do make that TV comparison but it misses important points not seeing the trees through the forest. Not a lot of people DO drop thousands for big OLED TVs. That in itself is a niche. I'm a tech nerd and I wouldn't even consider it, personally. So you're asking why an existing niche wouldn't also be part of another niche. But then the TV is a universal device, used for many things. In the US every household has at least one, it's the center of news/sports/movie/game consumption, shared by the household, and in a majority of US households is effectively always on in the background. It's the heartbeat of all life, so there's at least a bigger niche willing to spend on a top one (but still a niche.) A VR helmet is used for relatively short periods by one person for a single type of media for a type of device that is still not common in households at all. It's kinda obvious why that's a tiny niche.

Until 2 people in the same room can play NBA2K together regularly it's going to remain niche. If that's a $2000-4000 endeavor, we're not seeing it mainstream in our lifetime. And if it's not mainstream, kiss the non-indie non-token-tech-demo content goodbye.

What VR really needs to push it is someone willing to take a big loss, and sell it cheap, and get it out there as a trendy thing. It may still go the Wii route and get abandoned. But it needs to be OUT there, and common, and cheap. Sony was doing that with VR1, but the price was really still too high. Fans celebrate them going high tech in VR2, but while you'll get a better machine, it's going to fail to provide the content you want because of that. What you really wanted but didn't know you wanted was a cheap PSVR2 that still looked fuzzy but less fuzzy. That would move more units, and generate more content, so that PSVR4 could look better, or you could just get that Index you really want and have more high end content for it
And then, on top of that, we get the intersection of Index and the like that the kind of person that's THAT enthusiastic about it already has access to something BETTER with MORE content (for more money) that performs even better..... So...who's interested in an expensive PSVR2? The VR hardcore already have their kit, and it's better. Or can buy a better kit. The masses aren't entering until it's cheap, and that really means sub-$400 and arguably much sub-$400. So who is an expensive PSVR2 actually being pitched to?

VR1 was important. VR1 was a big leap in making VR affordable and easy for the masses. If they continued that strategy they could slowly build up VR as a more mainstream market. But if they throw that out the window and VR2 is just another expensive VR kit for enthusiasts? That's it, VR kind of sits still, preaching to the choir another decade while most people just ignore it still.

@spcspc surely that battery life is going to be a problem in a business environment too though?
At my job we use handsets that last a good day, and it's still a nightmare finding a charged one sometimes. Putting stuff back where they are supposed to be tends to get lost on a large workforce.

Well, playing in VR is not worth 1,500 to me so does not matter. same way I always ignored the Valve Index.

At that price they can basically not exist and would be the same for me.

@nofriendo it is, I don't see higher than 599E

The big kicker of psvr2 for me is that the psvr games won't carry over. I've picked up a few over the years with ps+ and when they gave some away a while back, thinking it might be fun to pick up the new headset with a bunch of games ready to play on launch.

Now all those games are useless and you'd need to buy them all again along with the expensive headset has killed any thoughts I had of trying vr out. Seems like the worst decision on their part if they're trying to gain traction in the vr sphere.

This comparison with quest pro does not make much sense.

The quest pro is not targeted at gamers but at business. It is "competing" with the MS holo lense which is way more expensive than the quest pro. It is presumably higher quality, the sales are expected to be lower and maybe there will be better service. So, higher prices. It is like comparing consumer graphics cards (3080) with GPU compute cards for data centers (A100).

PSVR2 if at all is competing with the quest 2 or pico 4 which are in the 400-500EUR range. When comparing PSVR2 with PSVR1 then the VR2 has more advanced screens (higher resolution, HDR), better controllers( 2 times half a dual sense instead of moves), the eye tracking system, but no breakout box.

A complete PSVR1 set including moves and camera was 500EUR at launch. I don't think that the display of the PSVR2 now is much more expensive than the display for the PSVR1 back than at launch. The moves are likely cheaper than the two sense controllers, but a dual sense has a retail price of 70EUR. Two pack in half-dual sense controller can be much cheaper than that. There are more cameras on the headset but no external camera and no breakout box. Then there is the eye tracking system, which requires some processing unit, and likely some licencing cost for the algorithm. The processing will likely be done by a single chip in the headset. So, the PSVR2 "system" does not have the extra processing units of the breakout box, the external camera, but there are 4 extra cameras, and the licencing costs. Then there are the lenses: clear lens vs. fresnel lens with special coating in the PSVR2. Fresnel lenses should be cheaper than clear lenses, but with the extra coating in the PSVR2 lenses might be more expensive. But, in total I don't see this to be much more expensive than the PSVR1. I would see it in a 400-500EUR price range. It won't be quest 2 cheap (before the price hike). Also to consider: Sony expects to sell at least 2M units in a short window, so the price must be attractive enough.

@Old-Red How should backwards compatibility work ?

Would You expect that old games designed for PSVR1 and the moves will automagically come up with a nice scheme how to use the sense controllers and generate tutorials which show the new scheme ?

Also, playstation seems to have only very thin abstraction layers, so PSVR games are likely rendering at a fixed resolution (HD) and eventually already apply the distortions for the PSVR1 lenses. A new headset will not automagically change the game code. Some developer has to step in and do a few adjustments.

It is still to be seen what developers will do. There are rumours that sony rallied for developers to port their games. I would guess that some developers will just provide a free upgrade to a PS5 versions, some games won't see any update and will not be available on PSVR2, some developers will charge for the port, some developers will remaster and charge full price. One has to keep in mind that the market share of PSVR1 is small, and many developers hardly made their money back. Therefore, I would not necessarily expect free upgrades.

@thefourfoldroot1 It won't be PS3 expensive.

@gaston whether there's a work around or not doesn't change the fact that I'd be expected to pay a lot more to play a bunch of games I already have in my library.

They will release psvr2 versions of all these games and they will charge full price again. I'm happy to wait for the headsets to drop in price and the games to be given away on plus again.

All I'm saying is I was very tempted to try it out and now I'm not so fussed. I'm not blaming anyone, just giving my outlook and opinion as a consumer who's on the fence about VR.

@Old-Red "They will release psvr2 versions of all these games and they will charge full price again. I'm happy to wait for the headsets to drop in price and the games to be given away on plus again."
This certainly is a possibility. On the other hand there will be hopefully more exciting games for psvr2, so psvr1 games ported to psvr2 will likely be a tough sell at full price. So, games either need to be significantly improved, which is work, costs money and cannot be expected for free, or the price needs to be reduced e.g. frequent sales.

I'm wondering about Sony's business standpoint. They know that a very large majority of their PS5 demographic can't and/or won't pay the likely very expensive toy that will be the PSVR2. Production costs will come down over time and the slowly growing PS5 install base will likely ensure PSVR2's increasing adoption rate. But still...Sony has got to take a huge financial hit on development and production. I would love to hear a Sony rep explain their views on the PSVR2 on an investment call/meeting for example.

Release the PSVR2 at a price that people who never thought about buying one just decide to go with the flow & try it. What would the price tag be? PSVR had + 5M sales & Sony thinks to sell 2M at launch. I truly wonder what their plan about PSVR2 is. Since they made a successor they surely must have a plan and not just copy the PSVR1 road plan?

@thefourfoldroot1 You do have the option to use it wirelessly or connect it to a PC far more powerful than any console.

@MatthewJP you called it.