While PSVR2 has proved popular amongst fans and early adopters of the headset, it seems that Sony is struggling to shift enough PSVR2s. A recent report by Bloomberg has stated that Sony has allegedly paused production on the PSVR2 to shift unsold headsets.
The Bloomberg article says Sony has paused production of their latest VR headset until it clears a backlog of unsold units. The article also cites data from IDC, a company that tracks shipments to retailers as opposed to units sold through to consumers.
The data shows a slow decline in shipments of PSVR2 headsets to retailers.
Contrasting those figures with the original PSVR, PSVR had sold through 2 million units [Wikipedia] by December 2017. 14 months after its initial launch.
Hoserm it’s worth noting that PSVR2 outperformed the original PSVR for the first six months of its release. A Sony presentation at the time shows that PSVR2 sales were up 8% against PSVR sales for the first 6 weeks from the unit’s launch dates.
The Sony presentation shows that PSVR2 had sold about 600,000 units within its first six weeks. I was unable to find any more recent sell-through data for PSVR2 for comparison. Sony’s latest Q3 earnings results don’t seem to even mention PSVR2 at all.
Sony has also recently announced the closure of its London Studio. A studio that had previously developed the excellent PSVR game Blood & Truth. This has put a dampener on fans hoping to see a Blood & Truth sequel or port for PlayStation VR2.
Although all the data does point to the PSVR2 not performing as well as Sony might have expected. That hasn’t stopped fans from loving the new next-gen PSV5 VR headset. The r/PSVR subreddit is full of VR fans praising Sony’s latest headset and the games that are available to play on it.
The Bloomberg article would give the impression that a lack of compelling games is the reason for PSVR2’s poor performance. But the sheer amount of games available and the high quality of the majority of titles would say otherwise.
Sony’s next-gen headset has seen a slew of high-quality games since its launch. Games like Horizon Call of the Mountain, Pavlov, Red Matter and Red Matter 2, The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners Chapter 2, Vertigo 2 and Hellsweepers VR to name just a few. It seems that the price and the fact that it launched during a cost-of-living crisis are mainly what it is holding it back from getting into more players hands.
