According to CVG, Sony originally planned to reveal a PlayStation branded virtual reality headset at Gamescom, but plans to reveal it fell through at the last minute. Apparently, growing support for the Oculus Rift has complicated some of their plans for the device, as well:

It originally intended to reveal the Sony headset at Gamescom but plans fell through at the eleventh hour. The company is currently weighing up whether the PS4 device should be pitched as a key differentiator for the console or a non-essential add-on.

The matter has been slightly complicated, but not derailed, by the growing industry support for Oculus Rift. Sony's device will be a categorical rival to Oculus, and for months there have been rumours suggesting the two companies are seeking a partnership.

Some anonymous game developers have told CVG that the device indeed exists and is being used to simulate things such as a cockpit view for Driveclub. The device itself will apparently be available separately to keep the PS4 baseline price low.

I'd say that this would be a pretty big deal if it's true. Competition for the Oculus Rift could only be a good thing and it'd mean that Sony would support virtual reality in their games to a certain extent.

Eurogamer has also supported this rumor.

Update:

According to gamesindustry, Sony's VR device, said to be more accurate than the Oculus Rift, will not be shown at TGS but is expected to be released in fall 2014.

So does the camera still exist or what? Haven't heard a peep about that thing since the initial announcement.

Also, this is dumb Sony, stop it.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/tv-accessories/sony-hmz-t1-personal-3d-viewer-review-50005000/

Sony's had this thing out there for a long time now, it was too expensive though $700+, I think mixing something like this in with their launch would be a big mistake, they already have great momentum, putting a big ticket item in that mix will just give cheapasses something to cry about.

A partnership with Oculus might make sense. Sony developing their own headset seems like a dumb move. As awesome as Oculus is I don't know if it's gonna move a ton of units and having two headsets and being the one with no press seems like a worse position.

From the Eurogamer article, this would be a different device specifically aimed at video gaming.

I'm very interested in virtual reality gaming, so I don't really find any issue with this. If they put the required effort and resources to make this awesome, then I'm all for it.

I'm really just hoping to hear an announcement of Sony supporting the Oculus Rift at some point.

Seems like the best option.

Europeans can get the Eye with the PS4 + Killzone + an extra controller for 499. No word on American bundle. Eye retails for 59.99 otherwise.

Stop what?

...

Personally very excited for VR in gaming, love the occulus, and would love to see it on the PS4. Not sure Sony can match the hardware of the rift, but I support w.e. it takes to get that Valkyrie game on consoles.

So vr gaming could be a thing sooner :D oh goody goody

(By thing I mean awesome and cool , not virtual boy steaming pile of bs)

I do hope though that either one becomes a good product , or that the partnership becomes real etc.

Sooner than I predicted, but not unexpected. Hopefully they don't rush to market with it. It really comes down to the screen tech they'll be using. If it's a 1080p OLED screen, regardless of if the VR is awesome or not, that's how I'll want to play my games - rentinas be damned.

Sony really should not develop a own device but rather support Oculus Rift with their PS4. It would be a wise and cheaper move to do so.

Exclusive on PS4: Doom 4 with Occulus Rift support

I would like it two ways: Occulus Rift support and their own device, that is also PC compatible. A little competition wouldn't hurt.

The PS camera is unaffected by this, if anything, the camera could be used in concert with it for head tracking.

The hype around the Occulus Rift makes this a no brainer, and there are rumblings that MS has a similar piece of tech in development.

This is where gaming is heading, and should have been for awhile. The only negative to VR based gaming is that it's taken this long for it to catch hold and provide a reliable, affordable, consumer experience.

Rift tech is pretty impressive, but Sony is a hardware company and has previous experience with VR tech, so I imagine they at least believe they can develop something comparable or superior to what the Rift is going to offer. Yoshida has mentioned on several occasions how much he likes the Rift, so it's not a surprise Sony would want to try and capitalize on that. It's also entirely possible the reveal would be an announcement of a collaboration between Oculus and Sony, but that would actually surprise me more than Sony just doing their own thing.

SAO style mmo here we come!

I just absolutely love how crazy this coming generation seems (if this turns out to be true). I'm really interested in VR gaming, but it has to be said that I don't think that I'm ready to buy proprietary VR goggles for each of my devices. So I'm still holding out hope that both Sony and Microsoft will embrace and support the Rift.

Having some competition to the Rift might actually be a good thing for everyone. Unless Sony's VR isn't up to task in which case it'll just be a big waste of money.

With the Oculus Rift out there making the waves it's made, anyone who wants in on this next level shit needs to be serious about it.

TGS? Are Tracy Jordan and Jenna Maroney gonna be there? I would totally go see them!

@theht: Competition is always a good thing. Unless Sony's device would be total garbage, this would push both the Oculus Rift team and Sony to make better pieces of VR hardware and at a more affordable/competitive price for consumers.

I don't care either way they decide to go, I'm just looking forward to the HMD future.

Some of it might be a little bit of Sony butthurt after they've spent the last 20 years releasing one crappy VR headset after another. And then here comes Oculus and they just made it look so easy.

But hey, at least they aren't totally ignoring the coming revolution like MS.

I would Pre-order a ps4 if this was true and it was awesome.. I want ALL cockpit view in my racer's and 1st person view in my shooters and maybe even 1st in my action games.. Or... Just make .hack a real thing and then I would never pay for another game again and just give them money each month to keep me plugged in.

This seems like it could potentially be good news, since by all indications the Oculus Rift is never actually going to be released.

No, as much as I would like it and if they come out with their own brand it'll receive little to no support.

As long as these VR sets are made so they work with pcs, ps4s, and xbox ones I'm excited about this. I don't want a separate VR headset for each dumb game system I own.

If this is meant to exclusively be used on a ps4 than no thank you.

I'd rather have Sony tape a glow stick onto an Oculus Rift than making more of those $700 headsets. Eye integration would help solve the Rift's lack of positional tracking.

I'm amazed by the amount of people judging something that doesn't actually really exist yet, and acting as if Occulus Rift somehow has, or deserves, a monopoly on the VR headset market. The bizarre and fanboyish obsession with that brand is growing a bit unsettling and just seems kind of stupid. Competition is a good thing. Sony isn't The Playstation Company. They make other electronics.

@marokai: I'm kind of confused about people wanting Oculus Rift to have a monopoly on said market as well for the reasons you've mentioned and that I have as well.

I have no interest in this but I think it would be best for the industry if Sony made their own thing to create some competition between the two.

Those other electronics are also not exactly healthy. Sony's TV division alone has been a huge money sink for a while now.

But that aside, while I don't believe Occulus deserves a monopoly on VR headset tech, I don't know if Sony is really the company that's most equipped to actually be quality competition. For most of their history in game tech, they've been a me-too company; they don't innovate so much as they appropriate the innovations of others, with mixed results. They might devise a headset on par with Occulus, but I doubt that they'd accomplish anything as ground-breaking as what Occulus has already achieved. And further, as long as any such headset is not bundled with the PS4, game compatibility with the device will be minimal. And they certainly aren't going to just up and offer VR headset bundles on launch day alongside the bundles they already have on sale.

@hailinel: What matters most to me is the quality of the VR device and the price. I don't really care if Sony innovates over what the Oculus Rift has done or not; what I care about is how the competition would push both companies to make a better product in the end and sell it at a better price. If Sony's headset is exactly what the Oculus Rift is, then that's what will happen.

Or, you know, people will just not buy the Sony headset because it won't be a requirement for the vast majority of PS4 titles, and the competition will be negligible.

And what exactly is the expectation here? People seem to be operating under the idea that VR headsets are about to take off any day now and become a huge phenomenon. As of right now, it still remains as hard edge as hard edge gets in the gaming enthusiast crowd, and are extremely expensive and largely unproven. Even what the Occulus Rift has done is just get the right technology together for the first time that it seems like a real chance to "get it" this time. But mainstream VR gaming is still a generation off, and whatever interaction VR headsets have with consoles this generation is going to remain largely experimental.

If Sony comes out with a headset that is everything the Occulus Rift is, but just does it better, how is that bad? I think VR gaming is an incredible thing, even if we're not there yet, but I don't understand the sycophancy that surrounds this brand or why I have to feel compelled to root for some sort of specific team. Seeing people shit on this news, when the product isn't even real yet and we know almost none of the details, and root for the Occulus Rift as the savior of gaming or something, when it isn't even a real commercial product yet, is so bizarre to me. Speculating and picking sides at this stage is retarded.

I don't get it. So you think the Oculus Rift would supposedly support more PS4 titles than Sony's VR headset? And like I said above, unless Sony's VR headset was total garbage, then it's impossible that the element of competition would not factor in to the final consumer products.

The Oculus Rift isn't even a retail product yet. I don't understand why people are placing it on a pedestal, especially since we have not seen what Sony's headset is if it even exists.

I don't think that's the point people are making, or it's not the point I'm making. Think about most peoples reaction pre-Oculus when you brought up VR. It was a joke. Yeah a cool pipe dream but any attempt to bring it to mainstream had been a failure. It wasn't until Oculus came along and you slowly got that groundswell of people saying "yeah this thing works and it's super rad" that it became a viable way of playing games we would see in the near future. Even with all the positive press it's had, it's still probably not gonna move a ton of units.

So if Sony says 'hey we have one too you guys' and they can't prove that it's substantially better then the Oculus, and it only works for the PS4, nobody's gonna buy it, not to mention the fact Sony isn't in super great shape company wide. That's the point, it's kinda strange that enthusiasm for a product makes you feel unsettled but it has nothing to do with some strange cult being built around Oculus, it's just the fact that it works.

DA FUTURE is coming soon.

That's the craziest f*cking thing I've ever heard.

... but judging by the last few months in gaming, it's probably going to happen.

No, what I'm saying is that Sony's headset will fail to sell big numbers because not enough games will support it because it isn't a pack-in with every console. And even if it weren't, they sell to different markets. Occulus Rift is for PCs, not consoles.

What you're saying is exactly as inane as saying that the Xbox One does not compete with the PS4 or that the Wii U does not compete with both of the others because they sell to different markets and their games are not compatible with one another.

The Oculus Rift is not going to be a pack-in with PCs or consoles either, believe it or not. Let's wait until we actually see what these devices are at retail and what games they'll support before predicting with absolute certainty how they'll perform.

Game peripherals are not standard PC hardware, but PC games are can be modded and there are sustainable niche audiences for different controller types whether they be 360 controllers, flight sticks, or racing wheels. Occulus is also a device that's drawn interest from more than just the game industry and could potentially find uses in other fields.

Sony's hypothetical device is just another peripheral that would struggle to find a significant marketshare and would be forgotten as quickly as the PlayStation Eye.

You seem to like jumping to conclusions, so let me ask you this: what makes you think Sony's hypothetical VR headset would not be compatible with the PC?

Is there a reason I should think it would be? Sony doesn't have a history of making PC accessories. They have no traction in the PC accessory market. They have no reason to enter that market, either, when they should be focused on making sure that the PS4 launch is smooth and trying to resuscitate the Vita market.

You sure are defensive about this device that may not even exist.

What PlayStation accessories are not compatible with the PC?

And me not being immediately pessimistic about the device does not make me defensive. Instead of jumping to baseless conclusions, I actually try to weigh its potential on both sides.

I have no idea which ones are or aren't. I certainly don't know that many that have used a PlayStation Eye or Move with the PC, though. Or really, an Eye or Move in general. Which is kind of the problem I'm getting at here. Sony accessories that are not mandatory pack-ins for their consoles don't have a significant presence in the market. A hypothetical VR headset would be no different, and if it did exist, it would have an uphill battle to climb on the PS4 itself, much less the PC. So no, it would not be a significant competitor to Occulus, which already has significant, positive PR and a growing pool of developer support.

And you are being defensive. You question any criticism I make of such a device by Sony as if I'm speaking gibberish.

I'm not really gonna address your first point again because again, none of these have hit the market. We don't know what the devices' final builds will be, we don't know how much either will cost, we don't know how many developers will support either and we don't know how many games they'll support or what platforms they'll support either. It's a huge waste of time to just make up arguments as though we know exactly what either product will end up as and how they'll be received by consumers.

And if I'm being defensive, I'm being defensive about my own arguments in regards to yours, which actually do mostly seem like nonsense to me, and not the product itself. I support my position of neutrality as well as a potential future for good VR technology related to video games and most of what you're saying is based on nothing concrete.