Sony PSVR 2 sales reportedly on the low side
Sony’s PlayStation VR 2 headset, which was released last month, is reportedly not selling well. A report by Bloomberg has said the PS5 headgear won’t even have sold 300,000 units by the end of March 2023. Previous reports stated that Sony had produced two million units to satisfy the predicted demand during the launch window – a goal it seems to fall very short of. Sony denied earlier reports that it slowed down production due to disappointing pre-order numbers.
Coming in at a steep price of $549.99, the PSVR 2 is a very impressive piece of tech, as our own PSVR 2 review states, but asks a high buy-in price while not offering a whole lot of games to play.
The best PSVR 2 games are no doubt entertaining and immersive, but there simply aren’t enough of them to justify the price Sony is asking for at the moment. A lackluster launch library of just 32 games is certainly a contributing factor to the reportedly low demand.
Naturally, you’ll need a PS5 to use the headset as well, driving the buy-in price even higher for anyone without the console already in possession. Measures like backwards compatibility to soften the blow are not there either, so people can’t even play their old PSVR games on the newer hardware. Some titles did get free upgrades to PSVR 2, at least.
Another factor that could have had an impact on the sales is the current rise of the costs of living – people simply have less disposable income to spend on their hobbies at the moment and stuff like VR headsets are likely the first luxury items one can postpone purchasing.
Games industry analyst Francisco Jeronimo stated that Sony will need to cut the PSVR 2’s price to avoid it becoming a commercial flop.
