PlayStation VR2 will sell much worse than Sony expected: the headset is too expensive

PlayStation VR2, a new VR headset generation for PlayStation 5, should go on sale in a few weeks – February 22. But according to Bloomberg, on the eve of the release, Sony significantly lowered expectations for its launch: now the company plans to sell only 1 million PlayStation VR2 in the first quarter, while back in October, Sony predicted twice as much sales volume – about 2 million copies.

This “adjustment of plans” had to be made due to the low activity of players who are not in a hurry to make pre-orders (remember, it started back in November). As it is not hard to guess, they are mainly put off by the high cost (the price of the basic version of the PlayStation VR2 starts at $549, which is more expensive than the PlayStation 5 console itself) and the lack of backward compatibility: games for the first generation of PSVR will not run on the new headset.

In addition, during the period from April 2023 to March 2024, Sony plans to sell up to 1.5 million PlayStation VR2 – let’s remind you, at one time PSVR managed to sell 2 million copies in the first year of sales.

IDC analyst company predicts the growth of the AR/VR headset market this year compared to last year by 32%, up to 12.8 million units. The lion’s share of the market now belongs to Meta Quest headsets – almost 85%. By comparison, Sony’s first-generation VR headset now has less than 1% of the market.