Sony confirmed last year year that it’s also developing a virtual reality headset that will work with the PlayStation 4, the company has been taking its time with the product which has been demoed multiple times, it was initially known as Project Morpheus but the official moniker is going to be PlayStation VR. According to a new report PlayStation VR might require an “external processing unit” which is going to handle much of the audio and video processing to deliver a robust virtual reality experience.
This according to a presentation given by Sony’s Ram Madhavan at the Unite 2015 developer conference and goes against popular belief that the PlayStation VR will only rely upon the PlayStation 4’s processing power to drive the VR unit.
Madhavan says that an external processing unit will be doing “most of the heavy lifting” for PlayStation VR particularly when handling low-latency images and audio processing, the unit will also have support for 3D binaural audio.
What this basically means is that PlayStation 4’s power alone isn’t going to be enough to enable PlayStation VR to deliver the kind of virtual reality experience that Sony wants it to deliver, so it’s attaching an external unit to it.
Whether that will add more bulk to the headset and make it a bit uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time remains to be seen, it all really depends where that unit is fixed, on the headset itself or connected through a cable. Sony hasn’t confirmed that bit just yet.
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