PlayStation VR coming to select stores Friday

Sony announced Thursday via the PlayStation Blog that PlayStation VR headsets will be available at Best Buy and GameStop locations to demo around the country.

Starting Friday, 30 Best Buy and GameStop will have PlayStation VR units ready for consumers to try out. That number will quickly expand to 300 locations in North America and Canada by June 24. Sony has already set up a website where gamers can input their ZIP code to find the nearest location.

The following cities will have demos available tomorrow:

• Baltimore, Maryland
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Chicago, Ilinois
• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Columbia, South Carolina
• Columbus, Ohio
• Dallas, Texas
• Denver, Colorado
• Detroit, Michigan
• Fayetteville, Arkansas
• Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Hartford, Connecticut
• Houston, Texas
• Los Angeles, California
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• New York, New York
• San Francisco, California
• Tampa, Florida
• Toledo, Ohio
• Washington, D.C.
• West Palm Beach, Florida

Sony will have a few games on display, including PlayStation VR Worlds, Eve: Valkyrie, Headmaster, Battlezone, and SuperHypeCube, with more games being added as PlayStation VR gets closer to launch.

The competition in the VR space is only getting more competitive. Facebook’s Oculus Rift and HTC and Valve’s Vive are battling it out in a bitter war, courting developers with exclusivity deals. Sony is looking to attract a different VR consumer — one that isn’t willing to shell out nearly $1,000 on a capable desktop rig as well as $600-$800 on a headset. By starting PlayStation VR at $399, Sony hopes that the more casual consumer will be attracted to its headset, especially those that already own a PlayStation 4. But because VR games are so much more demanding, it’s looking like Sony will most probably announce an upgraded version of the PlayStation 4 later this year, currently code-named Neo.

PlayStation VR is set to launch on October 13.