Based on the last 30 years of the gaming industry attempting to make VR work, I was very skeptical when the Oculus Rift was was announced. Then a few years later, Sony announced they would be making a cheaper headset more targeted toward the average consumer. Seeing as how the PS Vita was a total failure because Sony essentially murdered it from the start with a lack of support, the PSVR seemed to me to just be another quick cash grab. Boy was I wrong. I had demoed the Rift in the past and wasn't very impressed. Due to a lack of quality games, the space required for room tracking, and the fact that my fairly new $900 PC build barely met minimum specs (GTX 970), I forgot about the Rift/Vive and decided we're not quite there yet so I'll wait and see what things look like in the future.
Cut to 2017 where Sony has released a slightly modified V2 headset with seemingly loving support for the system in it's first year after release. Skyrim and Doom were released, along with a fairly impressive backlog of highly rated games and experiences, so I decided it was time to see what this thing is all about.
I already owned a PS4 Pro, but did not have any of the VR/Move accessories. The bundle with Skyrim, the camera, and two Move controllers was $450 and I just couldn't justify that cost. I decided there was no point in purchasing the system without all the peripherals because I'd be limiting my experience. Well, less than a week later, the same bundle went on sale for $350. This seemed like the right price point for everything included. I went ahead and picked up the bundle and got to work!
Opening the box was a premium experience, and for nerdy tech guys like me, unboxing and setup is half the fun of getting a new toy. I was easily able to get everything plugged in and set up in less than 20 minutes and I purchased the Sony VR Worlds game for $7 during their holiday sale. From the first moment I appeared in the game world, I knew this was something special. While the resolution/clarity was noticeably lower quality than the competitors, the simplicity of the experience made it an easy trade-off. On the PC rigs, there is a lot of messing around with settings that makes the experience annoying, and detracts a lot from actually wanting to jump in and start playing (an issue that often happens with poorly optimized standard PC games too...even on big budget AAA titles. I'd still consider myself a PC gamer, but sometimes the convenience of popping a game into a console and chilling on the couch with no setup process/headache is just more enjoyable). It also tied me to my small office because that's where my PC lives. The PSVR setup is just so fluid and easy, and it integrates into your normal PS4 experience perfectly, so there is hardly any learning curve. At this time, I haven't even played Skyrim yet because I have not been able to stop buying and playing every short unique experience/game that is available. The headset is extremely comfortable, and it is very easy to forget where you are and what you're doing in the real world. The head and controller tracking usually works perfectly, and when it doesn't, it's usually because I'm sitting down or not in the same spot that I originally calibrated the camera for. At first this annoyed me, but once I learned my way around the menus and how I should tweak different settings, it is hardly even an inconvenience when I have to make small adjustments. While the Move controllers were previously almost useless, they really integrate seamlessly into VR. When playing shooting/sport games, it was easy to forget that I wasn't holding the actual guns or objects I was using in games like Rush of Blood or Carnival Games. On top of that, these controllers are something that many of us have used in the past and even for those who haven't, the control scheme closely mimics the standard PS controllers so it is intuitive and easy to use without looking or learning new controls.
All in all, if you already own a PS4, the PSVR is a must-buy. I think it has become pretty clear lately that VR isn't going away so if you can have a premium setup for less than $350, I don't think there is any reason to say no if you're on the fence. I have so few complaints about the system that most are not even worth mentioning because they could be boiled down to personal preference. The only thing I wish it could do (and possibly will be able to do at some point in the future), is have a way to somehow link up your phone directly to the PS4 or headset, so that texting, phone calls, etc. could be displayed and interacted with within the VR world. Although this may not be a good thing because it's just one step closer to us all being permanently jacked into The Matrix!
One final thought/tip - The initial setup inexplicably does not have you set up the eye distance on the headset. This can be found in the PS4 Device Settings for the VR Headset. I had slight peripheral vision blur at first, and found many helpful guides on YouTube that led me to this setting. After getting my eye-to-eye distance set, the blur was dramatically reduced and eased the small amount of strain I was feeling in the beginning.