“There are a bevy of competitors who are either set to go to market with VR/AR devices, like Apple, or exploring the potential of doing so over the next several months, like the rumored Google/Samsung device,” said Rolf Illenberger, founder and CEO of VRdirect.

He suspected PS VR2 would “never be a big seller.” The numbers for the PS VR 2 suggests Sony is selling about 30,000 a week, said Michael Pachter, managing director at Wedbush Securities: “The slope of the curve is flattening mightily. That curve suggests to me that they might sell 1 million the first year, which I think is pretty close to what people expected.” IO Interactive did it with “Hitman 3” during the PS VR/PS4 era, and Capcom’s doing it for PS VR2 with “Resident Evil 4.” This strategy helps minimize developers’ investment risk and gives Sony more ammo for its VR pushes.Īpple – in Bid to Fuel AR Landscape – Took $1 Billion Annual Hit to Develop Mixed-Reality Headset What’s the ceiling for the VR market? Many developers are crafting flatscreen games for PlayStation and tacking on VR experiences, which means they can tap the large PS5 audience while also catering to the smaller set of PS VR2 users. That emphasis on evolution, not revolution, is evident in Sony’s strategy, which bridges the older style of console gaming dubbed “flatscreen” and newer VR gaming. It is an investment in the future and a commitment to evolving.” “I think Sony recognizes that their target market will likely eventually make the transition towards virtual reality, even if that’s not where the market is right now. “When Sony looks at virtual reality, I think they see more than the bottom line in front of them, which, in some respects, is both unusual and admirable,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, which provides technology consulting services to large corporate customers. And that adoption rate exceeds that of Sony’s initial PS VR, indicating that even if the market for the tech hasn’t grown enormousy, the people who liked it the first iteration are here to stay. Against an installed base of somewhere around 40 million PS5s, that’s not too shabby for an expensive peripheral. Sony recently confirmed that the PS VR2 had managed 600,000 sales in its first six weeks on sale since February, with a little over 400,000 preorders. The device’s performance has big implications beyond Sony and the PlayStation ecosystem: With Apple poised to introduce a questionably pricey mixed reality headset and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reaffirming his company’s commitment to a metaverse bet he’s poured tens of billions of dollars into, the VR world has needed a sign that there’s a healthy business to be found. Given its hefty price tag of $549, the sales Sony is reporting indicates that VR is persevering as a healthy niche market rather than turning into a fading fad. Sony’s been smashing expectations with the PlayStation 5, and the console’s accompanying virtual reality headset, the PlayStation VR2, is off to a respectable start in its own right.

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