PlayStation VR price and release date revealed: October for £349

Sony has revealed the price and release date for its PlayStation VR virtual reality headset and it is considerably cheaper than both Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive.

The headset will be available in time for the holiday rush. Although there’s not an exact date, Sony will release the device in October this year. It will cost £349 in the UK, $399 in the States and 399 euros across Europe.

It will also be launched in Sony’s native land of Japan at the same time for 44,980 yen.

Sony Computer Entertainment head Andrew House had previously said that the headset would cost the same as a new gaming system and the company has followed that up.

READ: PlayStation VR preview: Virtual reality for the gamers

With the HTC Vive costing around £700, the PS VR is half. In addition, it doesn’t require a high-end PC to operate. Instead, it will work with a standard PlayStation 4.

The Oculus Rift, at £500, is also £150 more expensive and requires a super computer to run the better experiences. Both rival headsets do have the advantage of being available from April, however.

Sony also confirmed the specifications for the headset during its GDC press event. The display is a 5.7-inch OLED panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (960 x 1080 per eye).

Refresh rate is 120Hz and 90Hz, depending on the experience. There are 360-degree tracking sensors and nine LEDs on the front for a separate PlayStation Camera to track.

Field of view is 100-degrees, while latency is less than 18ms.

As expected, players will be able to use both the DualShock 4 controller and PS Move wands to interact with different experiences and games.

More about the experiences and titles will be announced at E3. Pocket-lint will be there to report live in June.