There’s more to PlayStation VR than meets the eye. One feature you might not have known about regarding the new headset is a little thing called Cinematic Mode.
While only certain games specifically support immersive 3D environments, Cinematic Mode lets you pop on the headset and enjoy any game or piece of content on a giant, virtual screen.
Bizarrely, this mode actually works with a number of other consoles, including the Wii U and Xbox One.
Reddit’s Esuteru first reported on this peculiarity. Essentially, the VR headset plugs into an external Processor Unit so that your PS4 can feed video to the TV and headset at the same time.
But what’s really cool is that you can use a device in place of the PS4 – a PC for example – and that device would then send video to the headset.
GameSpot verified this neat trick with an Xbox One and PC, while one Twitter user tried it out with Splatoon on Wii U.
I can’t imagine this will be very useful to anyone at all, especially considering all you’re really doing is looking at a screen through a headset, which you just as easily do without.
Still, it’s a fun little novelty, and could make the right kind of games just a touch more immersive.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.