Sony branded its standalone headset XYN, and we went hands-on with the latest prototype.
UploadVR's Don Hopper is on site at CES 2025, and attended Sony's formal announcement of its XYN headset, pronounced "zin", which the company still describes as a prototype. The headset was first revealed at last year's CES, and we briefly tried out an earlier version in summer.
Sony says the headset is a "spatial content creation system", powered by Qualcomm's XR2+ Gen 2 chipset (also being used in Samsung's headset) and featuring 4K micro-OLED displays.
Last year the headset was shown to have two controllers, one held and the other worn as a ring on the other hand. The ring controller was no longer present in Don's demo, instead relying on the held controller.
Ian Hamilton
The video from Don below represent his first impressions of the hardware, with his demo flowing straight from learning about the headset to moving an object in VR using the controller. We've cut just a few seconds from the video for clarity, so it's largely a real-time look at seeing Sony's new platform for the first time.
The clip also shows Sony's intent for precision creative input with its unusual controller design. Don quickly fits the flip-up design of the headset over his glasses and starts placing objects with the new controller, learning quickly how it uses small movements to manipulate objects in VR.
Sony's first actual product under its new "XYN" brand won't be this headset or controller, though. Instead, Sony is planning to ship its first software product under the XYN brand as XYN Motion Studio, a subscription-based PC application coming to the Microsoft Store in late March that can support connection with up to 12 mocopi motion sensors.
The mocopi Pro Kit is available for pre-order starting late March 2025, with a complete hardware bundle priced at $1180. Supporting up to 12-points of body movement tracking data could be enormously meaningful to VRChat's most engaged users, as well as filmmakers and artists of various kinds. Sony says its system will be updated continuously while saying it supports "merging camera data for superior accuracy" as well as post-processing capabilities to improve captured movements.
Don saw a 3D scanning system on display as well, also described as a prototype by Sony, meant to "convert high-quality, photorealistic 3D CG assets from real-world objects and spaces using images captured by mirrorless cameras and proprietary algorithms."
The XYN branding comes as many Sony customers hope for games or news in the PlayStation VR2 world instead. XYN is instead focused on enterprise content creation, a very different market.
We'll be discussing XYN during VR Download on Thursday, and we'll have more from Don on both UploadVR.com and our YouTube channel throughout the week.
