Ah, the “metaverse”. Will a fantasy where our office meetings and social gatherings are mostly held in virtual reality ever come true?
As a tech critic who has worn nearly every pair of VR headset released in the past seven years, I’ve been holding my breath for a long time. And based on my testing of this year’s first big hardware release in the metaverse category, Sony’s PlayStation VR2, which arrives on Wednesday, I’ve come to the conclusion that VR still has a ways to go before it becomes A premier staple for work and play.
To be clear, the PlayStation VR2, priced at $550, is one of the best pieces of VR hardware you can buy. The curvy white ear cups connect to the PlayStation 5 console, which is equipped with a powerful computer to run high-resolution games smoothly; by contrast, Meta’s VR headsets, including the $400 Oculus Quest 2 and $1,500 Quest Pro, work wirelessly and rely on slower computer chips built into the headset.
Also unlike Meta, Sony leans toward gaming-only VR headsets, a good choice because games are so far the most popular VR apps and productivity apps for making video calls via headphones have not gained strength.
Still, none of this is enough to make VR more than niche, even as more brands, including Apple, prepare to enter the industry. That’s because many of the problems people have had with VR headsets since the beginning, including their ugly aesthetics and high price tag, remain with the PlayStation VR2 headset. That being the case, I can recommend them to enthusiasts, but not to the occasional gamer.
This is how I felt about VR and the metaverse after a week of testing the PlayStation VR2.
What is the metaverse and why is it important?
The origins. The word “metaverse” describes a fully realized digital world that exists beyond the one in which we live. It was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash,” and Ernest Cline further explored the concept in his novel “Ready Player One.”
The future. Many people in technology believe that the metaverse will herald an era in which our virtual lives will play as important a role as our physical realities. Some experts warn that it could still become a fad or even a dangerous one.
Virtual reality has yet to find a truly killer app.
Why use VR to make video calls, stream movies, or play games when existing methods already work just fine? This is the perennial question surrounding the metaverse. Despite moving forward with technology, the new PlayStation glasses don’t offer a clear answer.
The most compelling new game I tried was Horizon Call of the Mountain, a VR spinoff of the best-selling PlayStation 4 title Horizon Zero Dawn, a post-apocalyptic role-playing game. In the VR game, you control the character from a first-person perspective and can move your arms to run and climb mountains; You can also move your hands to grab an arrow from a quiver and shoot it with a bow.
It’s a fun game with impressive graphics that show the strength of the hardware, but in the end, I still prefer the gameplay and deeper story of the original Horizon Zero Dawn, which I finished years ago on PlayStation 4.
Otherwise, most of the VR games that accompanied the device’s launch that I tried were relatively old and uninteresting. Those included Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge; Tetris Effect: Connected; and Moss, which were previously released for the older Quest 2 and first-generation PlayStation VR.
In general, the graphics and movement of the new PlayStation headset looked clearer and more fluid than Meta’s VR products. Still, more often than not I found myself wondering why a game should be played in VR instead of on a TV screen.
In it star wars game, where you take on the role of a droid mechanic, firing a blaster at an enemy would have been just as simple using a game controller. The same could be said of Mosswhere you control a white mouse in a 3D environment. Tetris Effect: Connected it involves rotating pieces known as tetrominoes, just as you would in any traditional Tetris game created in the last few decades; there was no clear benefit to playing this in an immersive environment.
Other games coming soon for PlayStation VR2, which I didn’t get to try, include big titles like Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village. Those are popular franchises, but both have been released for traditional consoles in the last two years.
Gaming may currently be the best VR app out there, but if you want exciting new games, the console/TV mix still reigns supreme.
The headphones still look and feel weird to wear.
Since VR hardware started hitting the market around seven years ago, headsets have lost some weight. At 20 ounces, the PlayStation VR2 is an ounce lighter than its predecessor and five ounces lighter than the Meta Quest Pro. But all the glasses still felt too heavy. In my experience, I couldn’t wear them for more than 30 minutes before I started feeling tension in my neck.
Case in point: My PlayStation VR2 fell off my face and hit the ground when I was playing the Star Wars game and I bent over to pick up a tool from the floor of a virtual space station. The cable attached to the console also made the device more uncomfortable than wireless headphones and created a tripping hazard in the living room.
And like all the headsets that came before it, the PlayStation VR2 looks pretty ridiculous. My wife couldn’t resist making videos to make fun of me while she was wearing headphones that made me look like a character from the movie “Tron”.
For storage, Sony includes a charging station to hold the motion controllers, which is convenient. But paired with the headset, the product takes up precious space in a living room, and unlike a laptop or smartphone, the VR headset instantly makes a tidy room cluttered. For single people, I’m afraid the sight of the glasses would nullify the chances of a second date.
The metaverse is lonely.
For the metaverse concept to be successful, we must be able to connect with our loved ones in that space. In its current state, VR is still a mostly solitary experience. When you wear the PlayStation glasses, you block your view of the real world. What you are doing in the game is displayed on the screen of the TV that the PlayStation is connected to. That allows others in the room to follow you, but it’s not very social.
Which raises another problem: In order to have friends to play with in the metaverse, they have to buy the same headset, and the technology is still expensive.
When consumer technology goes mainstream, it usually becomes cheaper and more accessible. Despite being on the market for the better part of the last decade, VR is heading in the opposite direction. At $550, the PlayStation VR2 is $150 more than its predecessor, and that’s on top of the $500 you have to pay for a PlayStation 5.
Sony isn’t alone in raising prices. Last year, Meta raised the price of its best-selling headset, the Quest 2, from $300 to $400. Apple’s headphones, which may launch this year, are expected to be a premium device that can cost thousands of dollars, according to reports.
So maybe one day, when the technology is cheaper, you have a really great app, and you don’t make people look like weirdos, we’ll all hang out in the metaverse. For now, I’ll continue to meet people in person and online the old fashioned way.
