Sony has reportedly paused PlayStation VR2 manufacturing in an effort to clear a backlog of unsold models.
Bloomberg reported gross sales of the $550 digital actuality headset have “slowed progressively” since its launch in February 2023, inflicting a buildup of inventory. In accordance with the positioning, Sony produced “nicely over” two million PSVR2 models.
The relative success of the PSVR2 was referred to as into query earlier this 12 months when Sony introduced quite a lot of upcoming video games for the gadget, none of which have been from its first-party studios. Then, as a part of a wave of devastating layoffs affecting 900 workers, Sony’s VR-focused London studio was earmarked for closure. IGN investigated the state of PSVR2 as a part of a characteristic that painted a grim image of Sony’s VR headset, which seems to be deserted at this level.
Six weeks after launch, Sony introduced PSVR2 had offered practically 600,000 models. Analysts recommend it offered simply over a million models in its first 12 months. Final December, SIE’s head of worldwide enterprise Eric Lempel advised the Monetary Occasions that PSVR2 was “a little bit of a difficult class proper now,” including he thought “there was the next expectation usually for what VR would do to gaming.” It seems PSVR 2 offered poorly through the 2023 vacation season. RoadToVR tracked the Amazon gross sales of the Meta Quest 2 and three in comparison with the PSVR2 through the vacation season and located Meta’s headsets considerably outsold the PSVR2.
The place does the PSVR2 go from right here? Sony is presently testing compatibility with PC, which it mentioned would permit PSVR 2 gamers entry to extra VR video games by way of PC. This opens the door for customers to entry extra video games in any other case unavailable on PSVR2, nevertheless it doesn’t tackle the dearth of first-party assist from Sony itself.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.