We’re not hearing anything very positive about Sony’s next-generation virtual reality headset (in fact, we’re not hearing anything at all, as the company refuses to release sales figures), and perhaps the news blackout on PlayStation VR2 is no coincidence.
Bloomberg has reported that PlayStation VR2 sales are lousy. No concrete numbers are given, but it is said that there are a lot of unsold units in stock and that Sony doesn’t want to make more of them. The device, which retails for $550 in the U.S. and €600 in Europe, has only sold well in the beginning, as sales have been slow since the headset was released in February last year and the company has produced more than 2 million units.
Quarter over quarter, the gadget has been on a downward trend, according to IDC. The firm tracks shipments to retailers, not consumer sales. Sony’s entire supply chain has a large inventory, and sales could improve later, as IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo expects the VR market to grow at a compound annual rate of 31.5% between 2023 and 2028, with Apple’s entry. Along with Meta, Sony has been one of the strongest proponents of VR, but neither has been able to attract enough content or content creators to make its platform compelling, and Apple is in a similar position with Apple Vision Pro, as Netflix and YouTube do not have an app on VisionOS.
Sony has not responded to Bloomberg’s article, but the closure of PlayStation London confirms the poor performance of PlayStation VR2, as the team specialized in VR games. Yijia Zhai, an analyst at Macquarie, said the price of VR hardware is the biggest obstacle to expansion. There are few games that support these devices, and this is not very motivating for the public to invest in such hardware. The limited content is also due to high development costs: it is more expensive to create a VR game than a “traditional” title.
All this is unofficial. What is known is that Sony is already testing PlayStation VR2 on PC.
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