Sony’s new mixed reality headset looks amazing — but it’s not for gamers
We’re particularly intrigued by its unique controllers
The Sony mixed reality headset made quite a stir during the company’s CES 2024 presentation, thanks to a combination of impressive specs, slick design, and controllers that appear to differ from the usual wands we’ve seen so far.
The headset itself doesn’t have an official name as of yet — Sony simply referred to it as an XR (Extended Reality) head-mounted display — but we do at least have some tantalising specs to go with it. There are two 4K OLED microdisplays for a start, packing in significantly more pixels than the company’s own PlayStation VR 2 headset, and the Meta Quest 3. It’s not quite as crisp as the Apple Vision Pro 2’s displays which serve up a little over 4K per eye, but it’s still mighty sharp nonetheless.
Powered by Qualcomm’s latest XR2 Plus Gen 2 processor (a newer, more powerful variant of the one found in the Quest 3), it’s also instantly become one of the most powerful self-powered headsets in the world, although it still loses out to the Apple vision Pro’s M2 processor on the raw computational power front.
Six in-built cameras provide video see-through or passthrough functionality for mixed/augmented reality shenanigans, and the headset itself can be flipped up while still remaining on one’s head, to avoid having to fully take it off. That last point reveals the true purpose of the headset itself — a device that’s purely aimed at professionals and creatives who want to work on and view 3D projects, applications, and models, rather than catering to the needs of gamers. This puts Sony’s mixed reality headset into a category more in line with, say the Microsoft HoloLens 2, rather than more consumer-focused offerings like those from Apple and Meta.
The controllers too, are worth a special mention, as they appear to be more unique than the usual wand-like devices we’ve seen so far. One controller, said to be mainly for pointing, looks like a more futuristic version of the ones you’re probably familiar with, while the other resembles a ring, and is apparently designed for manipulating objects.
There’s no pricing information or a firm release date for Sony’s mixed reality headset for the time being, though Sony did mention that it will be available later in 2024.
Esat Dedezade
Contributor 
