Sony Group debuted an 8K VR headset prototype on Monday as part of the Sony Technology Day event, promising dramatically increased visual fidelity, reduced latency, and OLED microdisplays.
You can check out the gallery below (or watch Sony's video here) for a look at the 8K VR headset in action.
The biggest selling point of such a VR headset is certainly its graphical fidelity. Sony R&D engineers Yasuko Ishihara and Kei Kimura demonstrated how 8K allows for vastly more detailed graphics in a VR setting, such as seeing the finely detailed leather on a luxury car seat. On a technical level, the headset achieves 4K with one eye and 8K with both. Since each eye is a microdisplay, this would also significantly reduce the weight and size of the headset.
Lower latency levels also means that data is sent to each display in less than 0.01 seconds, which allows for a smoother and more realistic sense of movement, rather than the artificial drag that may occur if your PC/HMD struggles to keep up with a VR experience's graphics.
The headset appears to still be firmly in the prototype stages, if the mess of wires and handles weren't a giveaway. It's also definitely not part of the PS5 PSVR headset expected to release in the 2022 holidays, UploadVR reports. Ishihara and Kimura implied during their presentation that the prototype 8K headset will have engineering design, medical, and entertainment functionality, among other utilities.
You can follow everything we do know about the PSVR 2 here, or check out the best VR headsets to get as gifts for the holidays.
Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/VR goob for IGN.
