Oculus Rift vs HTC Vive vs Playstation VR : Which is better?

The Oculus Rift and HTC's Vive are now available and later this year, Sony's Playstation VR is coming out. This guide offers a comparison between the three and will help your device which VR system is right for you. The era of desktop VR is upon us.

The Rift CV1, the first consumer version of Oculus' headset, started arriving for (some) customers who pre-ordered it, and the first consumer HTC Vive units have also shipped. Along with those two PC-based systems, PlayStation VR looms, providing a VR experience similar to that of the Rift and Vive, but powered by a PlayStation 4.

Sony recently announced that PlayStation VR will be available in October. By the end of the year, then, there will be three first-class virtual reality offerings to choose from, making 2016 truly the first "year of VR." However, as the results of our VR Readiness Survey show, many of you have not yet committed to investing in VR. The survey points to many reasons, from uncertainty about VR in general to not having a VR-ready PC and hefty price tags on the HMDs themselves.

Despite that, we'd like to think once you've had the chance to experience high-end VR, you'll change your mind. Then you'll have to decide which system to pursue. We've put together this handy guide, detailing and analyzing the specifications and features, to help you decide. We aren't going to tell you which system is the best in this article. For that, you have to read our full reviews of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Obviously we won't have a verdict on the PlayStation VR until this coming fall.

Before we dive into the details of these competing high-end virtual reality solutions, we want to position them properly so you understand why they are considered the pinnacle of VR now. To begin, we need to talk about presence, the term used to describe the feeling you get when the virtual experience truly feels like you have been transported somewhere else, which, after all, is the goal. Oculus' Chief Scientist Michael Abrash (who was formerly with Valve) described in his 2014 Steam Dev Days presentation that "presence is distinct from immersion, which merely means that you feel surrounded by the image of the virtual world; presence means that you feel like you're in the virtual world." Its importance is that (and this is why VR is such transformative technology) "it is one of the most powerful experiences you can have outside reality," and "for many people, presence is simply magic."