Back in February 2021, Sony gave us a glimpse of what the future of PlayStation VR would look like with a nifty new set of controllers. The company promised to share more in 2022, and while it may not come straight from the horse’s mouth, a Chinese supply chain source is claiming that mass production of the PlayStation 2 VR headset is scheduled to begin soon. Goertek seems to have landed a contract for the process, which isn’t too far-fetched: Goertek partnered with Sony on a number of components for the previous iteration of PlayStation VR and for the PlayStation 5. Keep in mind that this information hasn’t been verified, but if production is really starting at the beginning of 2022, we may see the PSVR 2 in time for this year’s holiday season.
Goertek is also collaborating with Meta on the Meta Quest 2 headset. The 2021 holiday season was the best-selling year for virtual reality on record, with new installations of the Oculus mobile app jumping more than 150% to 650,000. Given the popularity of the PlayStation 5, Christmas weekend 2022 will drive sales out of the park if Sony is able to set a release date in the midst of a major chip shortage. A reveal is rumored to be coming towards the beginning of the year, and Goertek has recently mentioned that one “major Japanese” partner is expected to ship around “one to two million” next-gen VR headsets later this year. Who else could that be but Sony?
The first iteration of PlayStation VR was released for the PlayStation 4 in October 2016. By the end of 2019, over 5 million units had been sold worldwide, and the PlayStation VR 2 was initially announced for the PlayStation 5 in February 2021. The original PSVR is still seeing plenty of activity, with new games recently announced including Moss 2. The next-generation headset has been rumored to feature haptic feedback and a much higher resolution than its predecessor.
