According to reports (via Bloomberg), Sony is halting production for the PlayStation VR2 because the sales numbers aren’t there. Keep in mind that this is just temporary, and once the PSVR2 stock starts to drop again as sales continue, production should continue normally. But this shows that interest in VR gaming on consoles isn’t hitting the highs Sony expected.
The report states that the sales numbers of the PlayStation VR2 headset have progressively slowed down since it came out last year in February. This is why there’s a backlog of unsold stock, as Sony manufactured “well over” 2 million PlayStation VR2 units, expecting much higher sales.
The question of how successful Sony’s take on VR gaming became apparent when PlayStation revealed a handful of new titles for the PSVR2, but none of them were from first-party studios. This shows that Sony’s confidence in PSVR2 game sales isn’t very high.
Sony PSVR2 Sales Slowing Down, Production Paused For Now
When the PlayStation VR2 launched, it sold almost 600,000 units within the first six weeks. And over the whole year of release, it likely sold over one million units, which, for a console-only VR headset, isn’t horrible. But according to the head of global business at Sony, Eric Lempel, the VR2 is “a bit of a challenging category right now” and there were high hopes of how VR gaming would do overall.
As for the sales over the holiday season, the PlayStation VR2 headset sold poorly when compared to the Meta Quest 2 and 3, which is the only real competitor for Sony. But that’s because it works on PC, while the PSVR2 does not, for now at least. Sony has reportedly been testing how the PlayStation VR2 headset can work on PC, this will expand the user base quite a bit if it comes to be. The hardware is likely some of the best out there, and Sony just needs to make sure there are enough games to play if someone decides to buy the headset which costs more than the console itself.
