PSVR 2 is getting a surprise hand tracking update, and Sony should make a bigger deal out of it

• Sony announced hand tracking in PSVR 2
• But it’s happening at a booth at the Siggraph Asia show and seemingly nowhere else
• It’s already in the PS5 SDK, so keep an eye out for hand tracking coming to your favorite PSVR 2 titles

Sony has released a major update for the PlayStation VR 2 headset: hand tracking. But oddly enough, he announced the feature in the most low-key way he could – via a written description on a stand at a tech show.

At the Siggraph 2024 Asia computer graphics and interactive technology trade show in Tokyo, attendees can experience PSVR 2 without using any controller, using video of the demonstration (see below) showing the player shooting jets of water from their fingers to kill flying monsters. As long as your hands are in line of sight with the headset’s cameras, you’ll be able to track them in VR.

According to Upload VRthe booth description states that hand tracking is available in the “latest PlayStation 5 SDK,” which means game developers can start incorporating hand tracking into their games now. The description adds that the tracking speed is a sleek 60 frames per second with low latency.

There is also a brief mention of the hand tracking feature hidden in the review of Sony demos and announcements at Siggraph 2024.

Now we are waiting for updates

While controllers can’t always be replaced in VR environments – their buttons provide quick access to features that would otherwise be clunky to enable – for games that may rely on hand tracking, there’s nothing like the immersion it provides.

Hand tracking is also much more intuitive for newcomers to VR and gaming – it’s much easier to reach out and grab something than to make even plain button movements. Honestly, this is a major recent feature announcement, and I’m shocked that Sony hasn’t made more of an impression on the rollout of hand tracking.

This will require developers to include the updated SDK in their software, but if any third-party games and apps already support hand tracking on headsets that support the feature (e.g. Meta’s Quests), then hopefully the port shouldn’t take much time or effort. manual tracking until PSVR 2.

So if you decided to buy the PSVR 2 headset on Black Friday when it was $250 off (or you already own one), be on the lookout for hand tracking updates to your favorite titles in the coming months – and hopefully you’ll see more updates, but also completely recent VR experiences.