PlayStation VR is coming up on four years of age, but the sales are not showing signs of aging much at all. The official number of headsets sold has now reached the 5 million mark, something no other VR headsets have ever reported. This is not only promising for virtual reality in general, but for companies that are not at the point of making headsets that aren’t tethered to a PC or a gaming machine.
Along with the headset being sold millions of times, Sony Interactive Entertainment also announces that the consoles, the PS4 and PS4 Pro, have sold over 106 million times. These numbers likely lead the industry, as you aren’t seeing any other gaming companies breaking out their yearly finance books to report on numbers like these.
When you look at the PS VR headset, it isn’t anything impressive. It doesn’t have the quality of the Valve Index, it doesn’t have the simplicity of the Oculus Quest, and it doesn’t have the tracking of the Vive headsets. What PlayStation has done though, is build up a strong content library while promising compatibility for the headset with the upcoming PS5. With all of these features, its important to note that strong marketing has also made this headset sell well for the last few years. Big bundles and strong price reductions are the key to success in Sony’s eyes, and it seems to be working better than most expected.
As you can see in the charts, the sales started to slow towards the end of 2019, but still was able to hit the 5 million mark before the end of the decade. 2020 will likely be a bigger challenge, given that the headset has some real coipition that is emerging as favorites in the industry right now. The Oculus Quest is portable and easy to use headset, while the Valve Index is going to have a monopoly on the high-end consumers for the foreseeable future. That will probably be until they release another VR headset.
So for Sony to own not only the middle market of virtual reality headsets, but also own the console VR gaming community, continued dominance in sales essential.
As for the PS VR 2 headset, we expect a plethora of software and hardware advances that are going to be ahead of the curve. We hope to see, and likely will see, eye tracking in the second version. Hand tracking is a long shot, but that would put PS VR at an even bigger advantage.
Sony’s competition when it comes to VR console gaming? No one. Xbox has continuously said they aren’t interested in virtual reality, and their customers aren’t either. Whether way, they are going to be missing out on millions of dollars in sales within the next few years. For more VR news and community updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
