Sony to make 60fps a standard for PlayStation VR certification

Sony seems to be requiring different framerate standards for games made for PlayStation VR, according to statements made at this year’s GDC.

Polygon reports that during a PlayStation VR presentation at GDC, Sony’s Chris Norden explained that it would be enforcing harsher certification for games in VR for unstable framerate, saying that games that drop below 60 frames-per-second will likely not make it to market on the platform.

“I know I’m going to get flagged for this,” Norden began, “but there’s no excuse for not hitting framerate. … You cannot drop below 60 fps. Period. Ever. I can’t stress that enough.

“If you submit a game to us and you drop down to 30 or 35 or 51 we’re probably going to reject it,” he added, a little more equivocally.

Despite these new certification standards, Norden did state that Sony will offer consultation to VR developers, including previewing games before certification. While this won’t include proper beta testing of the game, Sony engineers will look for specific problems and help developers find ways to correct them.

“We’re going to play your game and look for technical correctness,” Norden said. “We’re going to provide you a report [that calls out] possible nausea triggers, find places where you’re dropping framerate and where you’ve got stutters in your tracking.

“We’re going to feed that back to you very early in your cycle so that you can adjust your design iteration if you need to, get your technical guys working with our engineers to help you optimize, and just clean up the game and make it as smooth a VR experience as possible. We’re not going to require this, but we’re strongly recommending that everybody submitting a PlayStation VR title take advantage of this.”

PlayStation VR will be launching in October for a standalone price of $399, with a $499 bundle containing every piece and peripheral used with the device going up for pre-order next week.

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