Sony has thrust a price and a release date at us for PlayStation VR this past week, its long-anticipated virtual-reality headset add-on for the PS4 games console drawing a round of applause at the Game Developers Conference event.

'To be honest, the announcement by other companies kind of helped," said Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida of the crowd's exuberant reaction to the £349 price tag, the recently-priced Oculus Rift and HTC Vive running at £151 and £340 more respectively.

But while cost is important, the fact that PS VR headsets will be in homes from October asks a similarly pressing question: what are we actually going to be doing with one? Some 230 developers are said to be working on 160 games, with 50 landing by the year's end. Long-time VR figurehead Yoshida (pictured above right) talked us through the details…

1. There may not actually be 50 PS VR games by the end of the year

"Fifty is the list of games that we are tracking in all regions, so the developers and publishers can say we are trying to release them in this timeframe. We just counted all the games from third parties and first party and found 50 games planned for release by the end of this year.

"It's a bit too many, possibly – but some games will be pushed out [of that window]. What I'd really like to see, seriously, is that six months to a year after the launch, the developers who invested in making great VR games are able to recoup their investment and continue making new games. That's the biggest test we have to pass."

2. Movie studios and TV companies are betting big on VR

Lionsgate

"The sheer amount of companies investing in the space is surprising. We are very close to the gaming community, so we get the best of development on VR, but outside we are now seeing entertainment industries like film and TV production companies starting to make panoramic experiences.

"At the Sundance Festival in the US a couple of months ago there were over 30 VR experiences showing stories, which is fantastic. Not everyone is a gamer, unfortunately, and I'd like to see the people buying this VR able to involve other members of their family. So these short story-based experiences will be great for those people to try out."

3. Netflix and other media apps are going to be on PS VR – maybe for launch

DS: There's a bespoke Netflix VR viewing app on Samsung's Gear VR headset, do you see that being added to PS VR?

"Oh yes, absolutely."

DS: Will you be able to watch films in a variety of environments when you do? A log cabin by a fire or on a beach maybe?

"We believe that's a really important part of the entertainment experience that PS VR has to deliver. We are working with potential partners in that area, we're just not ready to announce who will bring their apps to PS VR yet. We will do that soon before the launch."

4. PlayStation won't be adding its own Oculus-style ratings to warn of VR intensity

"I'm a fan of the Oculus approach personally, to have 'Intense', 'Comfortable for most' or 'Comfortable for everyone', something like that. But I think our approach will be to go through each rating board, so PEGI for Europe.

"We discussed it internally and it's very subjective and difficult to work consistently as there's so much content coming in. What causes the nausea? It's not like everyone has the same reaction, everybody's different, and people get used to some experiences.

"This is so now. Because we are learning so much, we cannot just come up with one approach of our own, so we prefer to work with the industry."

5. Social VR is not just Facebook and Oculus – PlayStation are going there, too

"In our Social VR demo we put four people in the same virtual space and it operates as a big chat room. You see other people's avatars, movements and hand gestures, and you also clearly hear other people's voices.

"We haven't decided what we'll do with it yet. It's a tech demo now now, but we see huge potential in that social interaction as well. We're so excited as it's super fun to be in the VR space with other people – we may continue to develop as a demo or we may make it more.

"Any online game can have this kind of interaction, though – in the lobby, for example, as it match-makes before you go into the game. There are many options."

6. The Oculus Rift's higher price is fair – and Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey is a PS VR fan, too.

AP Photo/Eric Risberg PA Images

"Palmer once said that if anything was to kill VR it would be bad VR, and I think he was thinking of Sony, right? This big, bad company like Sony might create a half-cooked VR system and market it like crazy. That we didn't do. It's super important for us to commit to it.

"We trust each other. Our first commitment was to deliver a high-quality VR experience first, then after that we tried to use our expertise in manufacturing and all the engineering to deliver as low a price as possible. That's the order of things. We satisfied Palmer that it is good VR.

"And I agree with Palmer that for the experiences that Oculus Rift can provide for people, considering what it takes to deliver that system, the price is good, you can justify that price."

7. The London Heist may still be a full game despite it being in VR Worlds collection.

"We've been showing these bits of demos and that has been the plan. So the London team's goal was to create a selection of many different high-quality VR experience, and The London Heist is the one that lots of people saw the potential in to become a larger game.

"It's something we might pursue after the launch with some of the shorter games, especially The London Heist. It has attracted lots of fans from the entertainment industry, like Sony Pictures.

"TV production people flew over from California to London just to talk to the guys because they became so intrigued by the potential of interactive virtual-reality storytelling. We are big fans of the potential of that as well."

8. You being able to put PS VR on with one hand was the biggest challenge

"Mechanical engineers from each part of the development team had a big challenge from Ito-san, the head of hardware (Masayasu Ito, PlayStation executive vice president). His order was to make it so that anyone can put it on and off with just one hand.

"The earlier prototype of Project Morpheus had two sets of fit bands, which was a bit too complicated for our tastes, so the designers came up with this one big band that stretches and shrinks pretty easily, so you can handle it with one hand when you're used to it.

"It also lets you to pull out the display when you need to look at a smartphone or drink, because of the weight balance. This was important but super challenging for the designers and we are proud of what they've accomplished."

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