Sony’s virtual reality headset will have a built-in processor

How large is the external processing box set to ship with PlayStation VR – and what does it actually do? Recent reports suggest that it’s quite a meaty piece of kit, “about the size of a Wii” according to Polygon’s Brian Crecente. We thought we’d look into this, sourcing full dimensions for the device, a complete list of the inputs and outputs, along with other new information on the PSVR hardware. Based on the development hardware with game-makers now – which may or may not change on the final retail design – we can confirm that the box measures up at 140x140x35mm. By comparison, the Wii measures 215x157x44mm, almost 2.2x the overall volume. A fair bit smaller then, but significantly larger than the box we saw on the first-gen Morpheus prototype. A small power supply is also included in the development kit – that’s a 12v unit rated for three amps. This is not insignificant. The external processor sits between the headset and the PS4 and in terms of IO, the rear of the unit features the power input, HDMI input and output (for the ‘social screen’ functionality) along with a USB port, which also connects to the PlayStation 4. The front of the device features bespoke dual outputs to the PlayStation VR headset. The Polygon report says that the external processor looks a lot like the image tweeted below, from VR Focus. Having seen development hardware first-hand, we can confirm that it is, in fact, entirely identical to what’s pictured here on the bottom right.