Sony's rival to Vision Pro clears certification, prepare for a major XR headset announcement

Sony's already-announced HMD headset might be closing in on release, after being certified.

It's expected before the end of 2024, and that now looks more likely than ever.

Back at the very start of 2024, Sony made an announcement that perhaps didn't get the attention you might expect. It confirmed that it's been working on a major new project in the mixed-reality space and that it would have a high-end headset on the market by the end of the year.

Since then it's been fairly quiet, without many progress updates or much of a showcase into exactly how powerful the XR/VR headset will be, but a new leak suggests that it is indeed on course for a 2024 release date.

MySmartPrice has spotted that a new headset recently appeared on the website of the Bluetooth SIG certification body, listed as an "XR head-mounted display" with the model number SRH-S1.

It confirms that the headset sports 4K OLED displays and will be able to power mixed-reality experiences, all of which suggest that it's more a rival to the likes of Apple's Vision Pro headset than simpler gaming options.

Sony, after all, only released the PlayStation VR2 headset fairly recently, but hasn't necessarily followed it up with the amount of software support that people were hoping for.

We know from Sony's own announcement back in January that the platform will run on Snapdragon's XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, which should ensure that it's ideal for serious creative tasks, and the whole thing is marketed far more for enterprise situations than casual or home use.

It also has interesting non-standard control units that have gyro sensors embedded to allow for fine control, again marking it out from commercial headsets you might have seen or tried.

Crucially, though, we're in the dark about how much the headset will cost, and when it'll be available. Those are details that will probably be utterly crucial in deciding how the headset fares, as Apple has clearly discovered from the lacklustre sales of Vision Pro so far.

Without any official word from Sony to accompany this, though, we're still in the same position. When Sony's ready to give a firm date and price for the headset, it'll do so - but until then, you can only wait and see how things unfold.