TOKYO: Sony Corp. said it plans to offer more than 10 titles for its virtual reality headset next year.
The PlayStation VR headset is on track for introduction in the first half of next year, Sony Computer Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Andrew House said in an interview at the Tokyo Game Show on Thursday. The unit will be priced as a new gaming platform he said, without giving numbers.
The 20-year-old PlayStation franchise is a centerpiece of Sony President Kazuo Hirai’s plan for reviving profit as the Japanese company shifts focus away from televisions and toward games, image sensors and movies. Sony is expanding its game streaming service and introducing the virtual reality headset to extend its sales lead over Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox One.
“VR rewrites the rule book on how you can create games,” House said. “You’re seeing a large amount of interest and work happening among smaller teams, because it’s possible to create something in VR that is very simple but still very magical.”
At the Tokyo Game Show, Sony is offering 10 playable titles for PlayStation VR, its head-mounted virtual reality goggles. The demos include its own RIGS: Machine Combat League, a first person robot shooter, and Square Enix Holdings Co.’s Final Fantasy XIV.
The face-covering headset completely takes over a user’s sense of sight. Its built-in display offers a resolution comparable to a high-definition TV and a 100-degree field of view, slightly more than the normal human range.
Sony jumped 4.2 percent in Tokyo trading to close at 3,224.5 yen. The shares have gained 30 percent this year, compared with 6 percent for the Topix index.
