There is always a risk when introducing a new or different kind of media into the world. One that isn’t “fully accepted” yet, and thus there is a hurdle to cross. Believe it or not, video games had to leap over that hurdle multiple times, including in the infamous crash of 83 when the market got oversaturated. As a result, many felt that video games were a “fad.” Thankfully, they were wrong about that. But that doesn’t mean everything in the gaming space is a hit. Some things still struggle to take off. One such thing might be the PS VR 2, which hasn’t had the launch Sony wanted.
According to industry insiders, the PS VR 2, which has been out since February 22nd, has sold less than 300K units since its arrival. For comparison, when the original headset came out, it sold almost a million units in under four months. If the pace holds or falls, that means the sequel didn’t even come close to the original headset, which is a significant problem for Sony. But that raises the question, why is this VR headset doing so badly?
There are numerous reasons why some people feel this is occurring, but the biggest one is the price point of the VR headset. If you go onto the PlayStation Direct website, you’ll see that the headset costs $550, and another fifty if you want it bundled with a game! That’s simply too much for most people, and that’s not even the full cost if you look at the big picture.
By that, we mean that you need a PS5 to use the headset on, and the PlayStation 5 costs around $500, depending on the version you get. That means that if you want the console, the headset, and games to play on them, you need to spend over $1000! Of course, gamers love to splurge on themselves, but that’s pretty ridiculous. Not to mention, the PS5 is only recently hitting a sales spike due to the global shipping issues finally being resolved.
But there’s another issue that is slowly bubbling to the surface. Simply put, many people aren’t interested in VR, let alone playing games in the VR space. In addition, there are numerous requirements to do the games properly, and most people don’t want to be bothered with that when you can simply plug in a console or PC and play a game on them.
Sony built a great headset for the PS VR 2, but if they don’t do something quickly, it’ll be a very expensive failure.
