Less than a month away from the launch of PlayStation VR 2, reports have emerged that Sony has reduced its projections for the new virtual reality headset by half.
Update: Sony has now responded to the widely covered claims by Bloomberg, telling GamesIndustry.biz that it has “not cut PlayStation VR2 production numbers,” and that they are “seeing enthusiasm from PlayStation fans for the upcoming launch.”
Sources told Bloomberg that the console manufacturer has dropped its shipment forecast from two million units in the headset’s launch to one million. Further to that, they now expect to ship around 1.5 million units in the next financial year – from April 2023 to March 2024 – for a total of around 2.5 million.
They have reportedly informed supply partners – specifically the headset’s display manufacturer – to expect reduced orders over the coming twelve months.
When asked for comment by Bloomberg, a Sony spokesperson declined, saying that they do not discuss inventory. It is worth noting that Bloomber is citing these reduced shipments when compared to their own prior reporting.
Sony is uniquely well positioned to make these adjustments at this point, as the sole distributor for PSVR 2 headsets in many countries. The company opened up PSVR 2 for pre-orders back in November, doing so by sending out invites to customers, but soon removed this limitation to allow anyone and everyone to place a pre-order. In comparison to the PlayStation 5 launch, pre-orders have never been restricted, indicating that demand is well within Sony’s ability to supply.
Some key factors will be playing into this, such as not being backward compatible with original PSVR games, and a launch line up that, while now extending to 37 titles, features a lot of games that are either being upgraded or brought across from other platforms. The key titles for Sony will be Horizon Call of the Mountain, which is being bundled in a higher priced SKU, as well as Resident Evil Village and GT7‘s PSVR 2 upgrades, though Sony hasn’t revealed much that is in development beyond the launch window.
The overriding factor will almost certainly be price, though.
Further reading: Is PSVR 2 too expensive?
After raising the price of their home console for the first time last year, citing inflationary pressures, Sony eventually revealed the price of PlayStation VR 2 to be $549.99 (pre-tax) / €599.99 / £529.99, which is still in excess of the cost of buying a required PS5 console. PSVR 2 has a lot of high-end VR features that will match rival PC VR headsets and exceed Meta Quest 2 (while also being powered by the PS5 instead of a mobile chipset), but that’s still an awful lot of money.
Naturally this is all somewhat vague reporting at this time, but we can hope that Sony will outperform these figures. Hopefully they’ll have a big splashy number to announce shortly after the headset’s release.
Source: Bloomberg
Khaliel
Make it 399 like the first PSVR, and you’ll sell a lot.
MrYd
Compare it with the price of all the bits you needed for PSVR (the camera, a couple of Move controllers), add inflation and it’s about the same price.
And everyone’s already decided this rumour from Bloomberg is complete bollocks anyway. Some unnamed source months ago says “2 million” and now he finds another unnamed source that says “no, they’re only doing 1 million now”. Looks like he did the same thing with the PS5 and Sony actually bothered to correct him, instead of the usual “we don’t comment on these things”. And MS had some similar thing, but I’m not quite sure what.
Even 1 million at launch would be pretty good going. 3% of PS5 owners? I’d guess a lot of people are waiting until you can buy it everywhere too, and not just direct from Sony. Or possibly waiting a couple of months. £530 to find just before christmas for something not being delivered until February?? What were they thinking?
Stefan L
Yeah, there’s always a bit of shadow boxing over supply chain stuff like this. It is worth remembering that PSVR sold about 1 million in launch window and 2 million after its first full year, during which there were price cuts, bundle changes and black friday sales to push it along. 2.5m by March 2024 would still be outperforming the original headset…. but also still not really moving the needle on VR adoption when Oculus Quest 2 shipped 10 million in its first year.
MrYd
And Sony have denied it now saying it has “not cut PlayStation VR2 production numbers” and they’re “seeing enthusiasm from PlayStation fans for the upcoming launch”.
camdaz
The PSVR good but,from what I’ve heard, the main reason that put people off was the resolution of the screen. With just about a 4K TV strapped to each eye it should sell better than the original, after a price cut or two!
I hope my postie is early on the 22nd.