Sony released its long-awaited PC VR adapter for PSVR 2 this week, however early reports maintain some user don’t even need the company’s $60 adapter to start playing PC VR games like Half-Life: Alyx (2020).

A number of early user reviews of the adapter are echoing many of the same points right now: some graphics cards with USB-C ports allow PSVR 2 users to directly hook into their GPUs and play SteamVR games. All you need to do is download the PlayStation VR 2 App on Steam, no adapter required.

It’s not just any old USB-C port though, but rather a bit of an oddball that has been deprecated in more modern GPUs: VirtualLink.

Announced back in 2018 with the backing of both Nvidia and AMD, VirtualLink was meant to simplify PC VR connections by providing both power and data transmission through a single cable.

At the time, it promised to deliver a massive improvement over having to wrangle multiple connectors (USB, video, and sometimes additional power) and breakout boxes. Sadly, it was abandoned in later GPUs as the market largely moved away from PC VR in favor of standalone VR headsets such as Meta Quest.

The user reports you’ll see on Steam claiming they don’t need the PC VR adapter likely have one of several 2018-ish GPUs: Nvidia GeForce RTX 20 Series cards (Founders Editions) and AMD AMD 6000 or 7000 series reference design cards, as partner cards didn’t include VirtualLink.

While the list below contains possible candidates for VirtualLink support, the easiest way to check is to download the PSVR 2 app from Steam and see if you’re one of the lucky few who fits into that specific Venn diagram.

NVIDIA GPUs

• GeForce RTX 2060
• GeForce RTX 2070
• GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER
• GeForce RTX 2080
• GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
• GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
• Quadro RTX 4000
• Quadro RTX 5000
• Quadro RTX 6000
• Quadro RTX 8000

AMD GPUs

• Radeon VII
• Radeon RX 6000
• Radeon RX 7000

Provided you have one of those, some users are reporting right now some very frustrating issues with connecting PSVR 2’s Sense Controllers to Bluetooth.

Another caveat is PC support doesn’t include a number of features unique to PSVR 2, including HDR, headset feedback, eye-tracking, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback other than rumble.

Sony is getting ready to release tethered PC VR support for PSVR 2 this summer, but that may be one of the last meaningful things the company does for its increasingly latchkey VR hardware.

According to a report by Android Central‘s Nicholas Sutrich, Sony isn’t leaving any budget for first-party content.

Paraphrasing for anonymity, Sutrich’s source maintains there will be “very few opportunities for VR game development at Sony going forward.”

Citing a separate source with knowledge of Sony’s internal strategy, the report alleges only two PSVR 2 games are currently in development at Sony. The company hasn’t responded to the report at the time of this writing.

While PSVR 2 owners are still getting a number of highly-anticipated games this year, such as Skydance’s Behemoth, Alien: Rogue Incursion, Zombie Army VR and Metro Awakening to name a few, the headset has been missing out on first-party anchor content for some time now.

These require Sony’s funding and ongoing interest in VR to accomplish, something that seems to have faltered since the headset’s launch in February 2023. To boot, the list PSVR 2’s first-party content hasn’t changed in a year, which includes Horizon Call of the Mountain, Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Gran Turismo 7.

Instead of showing off a slate of exclusive content to mark its first year anniversary back in February, Sony instead announced it was going to officially support PC VR games with the launch of an adapter box, coming in August for $60.

PC support won’t include a number of features unique to PSVR 2 though, including HDR, headset feedback, eye-tracking, adaptive triggers, and haptic feedback other than rumble.

The move comes in stark contrast to Sony’s prior strategy with the original PSVR, which pushed compelling first-party content through 2018 with the launch of critically-acclaimed platformer Astro Bot Rescue Mission. Notably, Astro Bot Rescue Mission was never updated to work with PSVR 2; meanwhile, its upcoming sequel Astro Bot is skipping VR support entirely.

Some of this no doubt comes down to cost-savings. Earlier this year Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan announced a wide-reaching layoff round affecting a number of its first-party game studios. This included the closure of Sony’s London Studio, known for VR action-adventure game Blood & Truth (2019), and reductions at Firesprite, the studio behind Horizon Call of the Mountain.