It’s inordinately rare to find the PlayStation Pulse Elite on sale, but Black Friday season is always a good opportunity for retailers to break the rules. Sony’s flagship wireless headset is discounted to $129.99 ($20 off) at Walmart right now as part of its early Black Friday sale. Although the discount doesn’t appear massive, that still represents the lowest price we’ve seen so far.
The Pulse Elite launched in late 2023 alongside a slate of other mid-cycle PlayStation 5 accessories, including the $199.99 Pulse Explore earbuds and the once-elusive PlayStation Portal handheld companion.
While many third-party wireless headsets support 3D Audio (PlayStation’s take on simulated spatial audio), Pulse Elite supports what Sony considers the ideal acoustics and tuning to get the most from your games. Sony also uses planar magnetic drivers, which are usually reserved for studio-grade monitors. They’re said to offer a more accurate soundstage with less distortion compared to the dynamic neodymium drivers used in most consumer-oriented headphones and headsets.
Besides its decidedly PlayStation, almost alien design, the headset notably supports Sony’s low latency lossless wireless audio codec. That feature requires the included PlayStation Link dongle, which works with the PS5, PlayStation Portal, Windows PCs, and Macs. It also has Bluetooth, so you can use it with your mobile devices and simultaneously hear from both sources. The retractable voice-isolating boom microphone enables game chat and voice calling in either scenario.
Whether you’re already a PS5 owner or looking to take your first jump into the deep end of the PlayStation pool with the newly released PS5 Pro, it may be worth a shot if you don’t already have a viable headset.
