Sony’s Shawn Layden announced an October 13th US release date for PlayStation VR at the company’s press conference on Monday night, but didn’t mention other territories. Fear not, though, this release date is looking to be a global one.
Several of Sony’s other regional groups have confirmed this. During the conference itself the PlayStation Europe account tweeted out to confirm the date also applied to its region. Europe and the UK often have differing release dates, but official UK pages for PlayStation – including emails sent to customers – also confirm the same date. As for Japan, a recent official blog post again reaffirmed the release date. After some debate, PlayStation Australia also joined the list.
In case you hadn’t checked, that’s a Thursday, so you’ll have two days of work to get through before you can spend one glorious weekend inside the magic of VR.
It’s surprising to see Sony commit to so many territories for a simultaneous launch. In fact, as far as we can tell, it’s the first time the company has pulled it off. Every PlayStation console in the brand’s 20+ year history, including handheld systems, as launched at different times in North America, Europe and Japan, be it days, weeks or even months in some cases. There was almost a year’s gap between the original console’s Japanese and US/EU launches, and half a year for the PS2. PlayStation 3, meanwhile, launched much later in Europe and our current console hit in 2013 for US/EU and 2014 for Japan. Even other peripheral initiatives such as PlayStation Move and the PlayStation EyeToy have had staggered launches.
Of course, we were expecting to see PS VR in the first half of this year at one time, but it was delayed to help meet demand. The extra time no doubt helped Sony to commit to this global launch, but even now the company is predicting that it will suffer supply constraints when it does release. PlayStation VR will be available in two models, including a base unit for $399 and a bundle that includes the kit, the essential PlayStation Camera needed for tracking, two PlayStation Move motion controllers for games that utilise them, and a copy of SIE London Studios’ launch compilation, PlayStation VR Worlds. That set costs $499.
Come October 13th, all three major VR HMDs will have been released. Then things will really get going.
