Sony seemed to turn a new page or even a new chapter when it came to the PS4, which launched in November 2013. The company took on a new persona and created a new image in the gaming public, an image that has lifted them and the PS4 to heights they didn’t consider when they launched the hardware two years ago.
Next year, Sony will be unleashing another new piece of hardware into the game atmosphere, PlayStation VR. The company understood what it needed to do to make the PS4 a successful device, which has turned out to be a success thus far, and they hope to do the same with PS VR.
Whether or not you are playing a game on PS VR or you are playing one on PS4, Sony wants to make sure you have the same gaming experience across the board. Shuhei Yoshida, who is the President of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, talked about how they want their PlayStation hardware to express the same philosophy no matter if its PS4 or PS VR.
“The clear difference is that the philosophy we are approaching PS VR is the same as we’ve always approached PlayStation as a console device, meaning that you don’t need any technical knowledge to use it. You’ve just bought PlayStation in the past and connected it to your TV and enjoyed the game. We want people to just buy PS VR and connect it to a PS4 and enjoy VR experiences. The ease of use, the quality of the experiences – because every single PS4 is the same hardware whether it’s a consumer unit or a developer unit the developers are using to test their games in development,” Yoshida told GameInformer.
Creating an environment and experience for gamers that is simple and follows the same lines as their experience on PS4 is part of Sony’s vision for both PS VR and PS4. This in theory will help make each platform seamless in a way, and so gamers can move from one to another on the fly.
Making the experience on PS VR similar to that of the PS4’s is important not just for gamers, but it’s also important for developers, as Sony expressed. Yoshida talked about the environment developers will find on PS VR as well as the benefits gained as a result.
“So before a developer or publisher releases these titles, they can make sure the experience is great for consumers. They can play-test and we have our certification test the same way as we approach consoles. Developers can fully test their games with the same environment that consumers have. That’s a huge benefit that we believe the consumer will notice – not just the ease of use of the hardware and the system, but the expected quality of the games or applications that will become available on PS VR. Because we make the same hardware for a long time, we tend to be able to provide a high-tech device for an affordable price,” Yoshida said.
