There’s at least six really good reasons why getting Half-Life: Alyx onto PSVR 2 is a good idea, and it would be a net positive for everyone involved. So what do we gotta do to make it happen?

Despite launching in 2020, Half-Life: Alyx continues to be one of VR’s absolute best games. It’s production value and incredible attention to detail have allowed it to hold up extremely well, even four years later. But in PC VR land, pretty much everyone who has wanted to play the game probably already has. And hey, if you haven’t, you have no excuse not to buy it at a 66% discount right now!

But there’s another group of people out there with VR headsets who would love to play the game if given the chance.

Sorry Quest friends, I see you. Unfortunately Half-Life: Alyx would need a complete rework just to get it to run smoothly on standalone headsets, which would not only require a ton of work, but also decimate the look and feel of the game to the point of losing its essence. Instead, I’m talking about PSVR 2 owners.

Getting Half-Life: Alyx onto PSVR 2 would be a win all around. Here’s why.

PS5 Has the Power to Handle Half-Life: Alyx

Photo by Road to VR

Taking a made-for-PC VR game and getting it running on Quest just about always requires decimating the game to the point of garish graphics. That’s the unfortunate reality of trying to run PC VR games on a standalone headset. And that’s why so many developers build games that are made with Quest’s performance limitations in mind from the get-go.

Half-Life: Alyx is a visual spectacle, with details unmatched by almost any other VR game you can play. Aside from PC VR, there’s really only one other VR platform that has the power to handle the game the way the creators intended: that’s PS5 and PSVR 2.

Half-Life: Alyx’s minimum VR specs are as follows:

  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 1600
  • Memory: 12 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GTX 1060

PS5 has a rather custom architecture, but here are the roughly equivalent components if it were a PC:

  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • Memory: 16GB RAM (unified memory)
  • Graphics: RTX 3060 Ti

So not only does PS5 exceed the minimum specs of Half-Life: Alyx, but unlike most games, Alyx actually looks and runs impressively well at its minimum settings. And because PS5 is a singular hardware spec, Valve could spend its time dialing in optimizations for this hardware specifically, making sure it looks and runs great on all PS5 consoles.

Those of you who really know your stuff might point out that the minimum specs for Alyx don’t take into account the higher resolution of modern headsets. Valve’s Index has a resolution of 2.3MP per-eye, while PSVR 2 nearly doubles that at 4MP per-eye.

SEE ALSO
'Ghosts of Tabor' Studio Unveils Fresh Look at Next Co-op Shooter 'Silent North'

But, PSVR 2 also has eye-tracking which Index does not. That means it’s possible to implement eye-tracked foveated rendering to reduce the number of pixels drawn for each eye without reducing visual quality. Valve might need to build eye-tracked foveated rendering into its Source 2 engine to make this happen—though it’s unclear how much work it would take.

The only major performance conflict between Half-Life: Alyx and PSVR 2 that I can think of would be PSVR 2’s poor reprojection tech. Many PSVR 2 games target a 60Hz refresh rate and then PS5 projects those frames to reach the 120Hz refresh rate of the headset. Unfortunately PSVR 2 has always had worst-in-class reprojection that shows lots of ghosting.

I just don’t see Valve accepting their game running on PSVR 2 with 60Hz to 120Hz reprojection. Sony would either need to agree to finally come up with a better solution, or Valve would have to target a native 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate for Half-Life: Alyx on PSVR 2.

PSVR 2 Players Are Hungry for AAA Content

PSVR 2 is one of the best VR headsets on the market today, but it’s in an unfortunate predicament. Despite PS5 having so much more processing power available than Quest headsets, the bulk of new games coming to PSVR 2 were designed first and foremost with Quest in mind. Which means most PSVR 2 games hardly scratch the surface of what kind of visuals PSVR 2 is really capable of, even if they get superficial enhancements like improved resolution and textures over the Quest version.

Sony has done little to remedy this issue. While the headset launched with a decent lineup of good-looking VR games, there’s been very little followup on AAA content from Sony. Compared to the original PSVR, Sony just doesn’t seem to be investing in high-quality first-party VR content to attract people to the headset.

SEE ALSO
Twisted Claymation VR Adventure 'The Midnight Walk' Coming to PSVR 2 & PC VR in Spring 2025, Trailer Here

And while PS5 might not have a huge userbase right now, you can bet that 90% of current owners would likely buy Half-Life: Alyx, and plenty of existing PS5 owners would consider buying the headset just to play this legendary VR game.

Valve’s Own Headset is Out of Date

Image courtesy Valve

Valve’s first (and so far only) VR headset is even older than Half-Life: Alyx itself, having launched in mid-2019 (compared to Alyx in early-2020). It held up for a good many years—longer than most VR headsets—but it’s officially past its prime.

So while one argument for not putting Half-Life: Alyx on PSVR 2 would be ‘why would Valve do that when they want to keep the game exclusive to PC so they can sell more of their headsets’… there’s really not much of a market left for the five year old device.

There’s Precedent

To some, the idea of Valve putting one of its games on a game console might sound insane. But it’s happened before.

In 2007 Valve released The Orange Box, a collection of Valve’s top games of the era: Half-Life: 2 (with Episode 1 & Episode 2), Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

People were thrilled to be able to play this collection of games that were once mostly exclusive to PC. And I’m sure they’d be thrilled to do the same with Half-Life: Alyx.

The Orange Box was considered not only an excellent value in gaming, but was also a commercial success for Valve by all accounts and a plus for its brand as a top-notch game studio.

Sony Has Embraced Steam… How About a Little Quid Pro Quo?

The forthcoming PSVR 2 to PC adapter | Image courtesy Sony

In the last few years, Sony has upended the long-held tradition of keeping its first-party blockbuster games exclusive to its own consoles. You can now play games like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, Returnal, and God of War through Steam. And, if you’ve got the PC for it, you can make them look and run even better than they do on a PS5. And given the viral success of Helldivers 2 (Sony’s first simultaneous launch on both PS5 and PC) it’s likely this trend will only continue.

This is undoubtedly a big win for consumers.

Considering the significance of Sony bringing first-party content to Steam, I’m sure the company has been given the white glove treatment from Valve internally; these companies are already talking and working together.

And let’s not forget that Sony is already preparing to release a PSVR 2 adapter for PC, which means PSVR 2 owners who happen to have a gaming PC will be able to play Alyx through Steam. Wouldn’t it be nice for Valve to extend the same the same opportunity to PSVR 2 owners who don’t also have a gaming PC?

Valve is Different

Image courtesy Valve

In almost no other case would any of this have even a remote chance of happening… if Valve wasn’t… well, Valve.

Valve is an incredibly unique gaming company by pretty much every metric. Not just its unique flat management structure and ‘work on what you want to’ culture. It’s also the only major gaming platform that’s privately owned.

That means Valve can make decisions that aren’t predicated merely on what’s the absolutely best thing for their shareholders or bottom line. They can make decisions to do things because it’s what they want to do, not because it’s going to make someone the most money.

Both the Index headset and Half-Life: Alyx almost surely wouldn’t even exist if Valve was a publicly-traded company. Valve invested massive resources into building a top-notch headset and a game for the barely-proven medium. It was a huge gamble that it would be worth it. Surely just making Half-Life: 3 for PC would have made them more money.

SEE ALSO
VR MMO 'Zenith' Releases Final Content Update & Drops Price Amid Development Halt

But near as we can tell, Index and Half-Life: Alyx exist because people at Valve wanted to make them. They wanted to make an amazing VR game for people to enjoy and a great headset for people to play it with.

Given the numbers, it seems like Valve probably made a return on their investment with Half-Life: Alyx, but almost certainly not as much as they could have made if they opted to follow the most profitable option in front of them compared to the most rewarding one.

That is to say: if Valve was a typical publicly-traded gaming company, there wouldn’t be even a glimmer of hope that Half-Life: Alyx could make it to PSVR 2. But with Valve being Valve, I think there’s at least a chance.

– – — – –

Valve has said over the years that its VR business decisions have been guided by wanting to grow the medium as a whole—hence its hardware-agnostic support for VR headsets on SteamVR. If Half-Life: Alyx would help PSVR 2 thrive as its own VR platform… that’s surely good for VR players, developers, and the medium as a whole.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • polysix

    Yes. As a PS5-PRO PSVR2 enhanced title to run at full settings @ 90hz it could shift a good amount of PSVR2s also.

    I've played Alyx on various HMDs on PC (direct wired OLED and wireless Quest2/Quest Pro) but no HMD has felt as good or looked as good to me as PSVR2 (on PS5 with HDR and the haptics are awesome) so even though I'm getting the PC adapter day one and could play Alyx in it again (and will) I would REBUY ALYX on PS5 just to get the full PSVR2 experience of haptics, haptic triggers and HDR.. they're THAT GOOD.

    If Valve cares about VR genuinely, and not just about themselves shifting HMDs then they should be at least considering this, as one of VR's flagship titles it would indeed be a win/win for VR and all involved.

    • talocaca

      Agreed. At this point, it is clear that VR has failed to significantly expand its user base.

      No time for exclusives now, all platforms need to grow.

      Many people don't have/want a gaming PC but own some other kind of VR.

      • Anon Imus

        The amount of people without a gaming PC that have a VR is not that large. Even among quest users most would also have a PC.

        • MichaelA

          Thats just completely false, given that the steam survey, I dont think, has ever gone above 2% of the users being registered on a monthly basis using a vr headset, this equates to less than 2.64million steam users out of 132million monthly steam users connecting a VR headset, given there have been anywhere from 34 to 50 million VR headsets sold in total at this point, if we take the steam survey as a good base for the number of people who are using their headsets on steam at least once a month (I know many more will use it through other methods that won't register), but this puts it at closer to 7-10% of VR headset owners connecting to a PC on a monthly basis, I doubt your statement of "most quest users also have a PC" is at all close to correct.

    • ConcreteLobotomy

      You're getting the PC adapter even though it's going to function like crap on PC? Why bother?

  • ViRGiN

    No.

    • talocaca

      Very articulate response.

  • ApocalypseShadow

    There's really no point in bringing it over. When Valve created the game, it was to sell gamers on Steam VR headsets and content. Basically promote Steam. And for a time, it helped Spike sales of headsets and other Steam games. The problem was that Valve didn't MAKE ANYTHING ELSE or help publish or get more big exclusives for the Steam VR platform. All the other games were small indie titles or straight up early access tech demos. Which killed momentum.

    Valve's main goal is promoting Steam sales. Their portable is to promote Steam sales. They also don't care that the Quest headsets work on PC because it's only benefiting them financially. Even made it easier to connect to Steam using Quest. That just hurries the money into their pockets.

    Maybe the two big games Sony's making will be great and have that Half Life quality of interaction that some gamers are looking for. But Alyx isn't the greatest VR game ever. It's more interactive than most. But it's subjective on being this great VR game. It's not all that. Porting the game over isn't going to spike PS VR 2 sales or make VR mass market. Pretty much a waste of time talking about it. If Valve wanted that game over on PS5, they would have don't it already or made it known that it could be coming to PS5. They haven't cared or said a word. Because PS5 and PS VR 2 aren't going to help sell Steam content. So, there's no point.

    • Hufnaar Atnaaf

      People played Alyx because they were thirsty for Half Life content and let's be honest – this franchise is not well known in the Sony environment and Valve probably didn't want to repeat the failure of Titanfall 2, which was not recognisable on PS market.

      • Mike

        Also they were thirsty for cutting-edge visuals in VR, rather than the typical PS2-quality VR game.

      • Master E

        Didn’t Titanfall 2 get released around the same time as one of the battlefield games? Could’ve sworn it was… and EA thought people would play both or it was different gamers and shouldn’t be a problem. Like people have endless time and money or something haha.

        I think that played a huge factor in Titanfall 2 not getting off the ground

      • Rupert Jung

        Orange Box was a huge success. Portal 2 was, too. And Titanfall is from EA, not from Valve.

  • talocaca

    Currently playing Alyx through a Quest + Shadow PC and the game is truly stellar. As a PSVR2 owner I keep dreaming about a port.

    This game would run so well on PS5 and the unique PSVR2 would absolutely elevate the experience.

    OLED + HDR + Haptics + Foveated Rendering.

    I imagine Sony would be willing to help Vavle port the game, but then again you never know.

    PC VR remains quite messy (compatibility, patches, settings) and there's no way the Quest 3 can run it without serious cuts.

    PSVR2 seems like a logical solution to all their problems expanding the game's audience.

    • NL_VR

      Quest 3 runs Alyx absolutely perfect without any cuts.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Not natively..

        • NL_VR

          That was not what I meant

      • FrankB

        Quest 3 doesn’t ‘run’ it all. Do you tell people your monitor ‘runs’ 4K games?

        • NL_VR

          Used the wrong words.

      • talocaca

        The quest is not running anything. Your PC is.

        • NL_VR

          I misunderstood that you mean alyx dont run well with Quest3

    • Peter vasseur

      Well in a month you can run it with your psvr2. I actually set up a steam account with this sale and bought alyx and Skyrim. Also a few racers Asetto corsa / flight squadrons so I can use it all with my Dof Reality motion simulator and soon to be Katwalk c2 plus treadmill. Add the b haptics x40, the arms and oh my immersion level next.

      For everyone really saying this stuff is expensive let’s go down the list. Let’s add this all up. What would it cost for a complete mini vr personal arcade.

      Ps5 $500.00
      Pc $1000.00
      Psvr2 or quest 3 $600.00
      Dof h2 $2300.00
      Katwalkc2+ $1500.00
      B haptics combo $700.00
      VDGS 1 Elite gun stock $150.00
      SRS single fan kit $200.
      Seat for dof h2 $100-500
      psvr2 adapter $60
      Total with low end seat, no sale prices and average on hmds price. $7110.00 no sales

      Big picture relative to others, that’s really not that much money. Just ten years ago a motions sim alone was 10k plus. This is a rough estimate l, if you go with quest then no need for a ps5 or adapter. You could also save on sales which everyone has all the time. I bet a Black Friday could net over $1k saving combined.

      This is my vision at the moment and it is almost complete with the Treadmill and pc incoming on Black Friday to maximize my money. Fullest immersion that can be had on the lowest budget possible.

  • Leisure Suit Barry

    Why would Valve even bother when the install base of PSVR2 is so low?

    The money they would get from game sales would be peanuts for them, heck even the devs of Rec Room said it's not worth putting their game on PSVR2.

    This is the problem when the platform has been a complete and utter sales flop, mainly due to the price.

    • Thanatos

      The true question is : why is the PSVR 2 install base so low ? And the answer is : because there is so few games as Half-Life Alyx available on it … With a minimum of marketing, HLA definitely has the potential to drastically inscrease the sales of the PSVR 2 …

      • ViRGiN

        The true question is : why is the PCVR install base so low ? And the answer is : because there is so few games as Half-Life Alyx available on it …

        • Thanatos

          also true ;-)

          • Anon Imus

            General exclusivity from all platforms is what's killing the whole VR industry.
            I might be interested by 2 games from oculus, 2 from Sony, 3 from PCVR but I'm obviously not going to by a separate piece of hardware for each one.

          • ViRGiN

            So who's going to take an L and satisfy you, the regular consumer?

            Valve has been milking 30% of sales for two decades, keeping all the money in the world to themselves, with zero investments into anything outside Gayben billion dollars+ yacht collection.

            Sony does physical products in multiple categories, they are putting real labor behind everything they do. They aren't in exactly the best position to change anything here.

            Meta is basically a virtual company, providing virtual services. They invested billions of dollars into all sort of VR-related projects, they shipped multiple products, and all the money they make, they pump it back into their vision, and then some more.

            It's not platform exclusivity killing VR. It's the greed of one other gaming company that does absolutetly nothing

            If there was no exclusivity, you would still pursue the illusion of choice by purchasing on Steam, cause that's where all your games already are.

          • kakek

            Facebook tried to force people to use their own hardware. They still do in fact. They could have opened their store to other headsets, they choose not to. They're no white knight.

            Also, pretty sure Zuck's yacht collection is still much bigger that Gayben's. I mean, it's really ironic talking about valve "having all the money in the world" while defending Meta, wich is like 10 times bigger after decades of milking facebook.

            I'll give you that at least they did go all in on VR. To bad so much of those millions where wasted on a metaverse that nobody wanted, and the quest could not really handle anyway.

          • ViRGiN

            > Also, pretty sure Zuck’s yacht collection is still much bigger that Gayben’s
            Pretty sure Zuck employs more people monthly than Valve had employees for all its years combined. Zuck also funded a thing or two. Zuck helped millions mom&pop stores througout the world. What did Gayben do, other than being a file hosting provider for games?

            > They could have opened their store to other headsets
            They are opening up their OS. We are supposed to see third party headsets being compatibible with Quest software.

            > they choose not to
            You know what Valve chose not to? To sell their headset at cost, or even subsidize it. They didn’t think twice about it for Steam Deck. Valve Index is still full price $1000 after 5 years.

            > To bad so much of those millions
            Show me how Valve spent $5 dollars on anything or anyone VR.

            Facebook worked hard for it’s success. Valve never did. Lord Gayben memes did the job for them.

          • ViRGiN

            <<Sounds of Zuck's peen getting blown…>>

          • Peter vasseur

            You’re such a meta fanboy, atleast you admit in the comment below you suck zucks cuck.

          • ViRGiN

            gayben

          • kakek

            Nah. t's not helping, but it's far from being what's killing it.

          • shadow9d9

            A literal handful of exclusives are not damaging VR..especially considering the games would never exist without being exclusives.

        • kakek

          Absolutely.
          I note that, for the first time, you aknowledge that, in itself, Alyx was a great game, and things might have been different if there had been more game of that caliber.
          Wich doesn't magically make Valve the good guys, or save PCVR. But it explains why it's so hard to let go of PCVR, because it could have been plenty games like Lone echo and alyx.

          • ViRGiN

            I still wouldn’t say Alyx is a good game. It’s a good looking game. Half-Life 2 is still far more thought-out, rather than Alyx being like 3 weapon FPS with handful of enemies at once on screen, with overused flashlight and spherical puzzles.
            Alyx is a joke of a game. If it was released by anyone but Valve, everyone would be pointing out how much they missed the mark.

      • Leisure Suit Barry

        PSVR2 could have HL Alyx, GTA5 VR, Last of Us VR, God of War VR etc and it would still be a sales flop.

        It's way way overpriced and the vast majority of console gamers are not going to spend £530/$550 on a peripheral.

        Whoever decided to price it at that price is severely delusional.

        • Peter vasseur

          Actually it is comments like this that are delusional. The price is way too high to an uninformed person. If zuck wasn’t subsidizing his hmds it would be the cheapest headset on the market. So the whole it’s too expensive argument is garbage.

          If $500 is to expensive, you lack skills that would allow you make enough money for it to not be expensive or it’s not a priority. I see people spend more on stuff that I would never spend that money on. Scopes, fishing gear, golf clubs, season tickets to name a few.

          Vr is only expensive if it doesn’t align with your priorities or you lack the real world skills to make good money.

          • Leisure Suit Barry

            It’s too expensive for mass market, hence it’s been a sales flop. You can’t have a console peripheral costing more than the console.

            Also it’s $550 not $500, and Quest 2 showed that price is the main factor for mass adoption.

            The fact you thought I meant it’s too expensive for me rather than too expensive to be a successful product just shows your lack of skills.

          • Peter vasseur

            The only delusional ones are the people who think it’s over priced. The only reason quest 2 was $299 is because meta subsidized the hdm to the tune of billions of losses.

            Yeah the cheaper the price of anything and the more you will sell. It doesn’t mean it’s too expensive. It means most people lack the skills to make it not expensive.

            Also my comment was in general to the it’s too expensive audience. The fact that you can’t tell the difference along with your economic understand shows it is you who lack critical thinking skills. Along with most of the gaming community.

          • Leisure Suit Barry

            Sony sold the PS5 at a loss to start and still make very little profit on it.

            Sony should of sold PSVR2 at around manufacture cost too, and all estimates would put the manufacture cost at around $350. They could of easily sold it for $400 and instead of making a higher profit on the headset itself, made money from more sales of games as the headset would of sold a lot more at $400

          • shadow9d9

            Nope. They are selling Q3 at cost. Q2 was not sold for billions lost. That is just fantasy.

          • shadow9d9

            It is bargain bin old tech…Fresnel lenses, ringed controllers, no speakers, no cpu… Sony is a mega giant with near unlimited money. Not some struggling startup.

      • shadow9d9

        Because it is a collection of bargain bin old tech like a wire and fresnel lenses, and Sony hasn't funded any games aside from some ports of old and tired series. Oh, and they abandoned their own VR mascot.

  • XRC

    quote from Polygon interview in 2017, still relevant today:-

    “We’re optimistic. We think VR is going great. It’s going in a way that’s consistent with our expectations,” says Newell. “We’re also pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure.”

  • VR5

    I only skimmed through the article (sorry) but I absolutely agree, Alyx should have been on PSVR2, as early as possible. Not sure why that didn't happen, lacking initiative from Sony or Valve insisting on exclusivity, but it would have been in the interest of both companies to make this a reality.

    Surely a port studio could have taken care of this without Valve having to dedicate staff to a non Steam platform release.

    • ViRGiN

      Valve released Alyx with exclusive SteamVR homes to Valve Index owners. This shows you how much they value being exclusive.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Valve has always outsourced any ports of their games to other platforms, so while they aren't willing to invest time themselves, they are just fine with someone else handling their code base. The big issues with HL:A isn't either Valve or Sony trying to keep their platform separate/exclusive, but simply HL:A being built on Valve's Source 2 game engine, lacking support for PS5.

      So whoever wanted to port HL:A would first have to port the engine itself, a way more involved/expensive task. Besides HL:A, the only real games using Source 2 so far are Counter Strike 2 and Dota 2/Underworlds, so there isn't much incentive to bring Source 2 to PS5 unless Sony/Valve want these games with very larger player bases to also run on PlayStation.

      • VR5

        That’s a good point. Those other Source 2 games are very MTX heavy so Valve might prefer to keep them on Steam where they take the complete share of MTX spending. Would probably require another big single player game like HL3 (for non VR) for either party to make it worthwhile.

  • Nevets

    Ah, if only wishing and mock-ups would make it so

  • ConcreteLobotomy

    Why would Valve put any work into making the psvr system work when Sony's version of porting over the psvr system will not even have eye tracking on PC? As a matter of fact, using psvr on PC looks like it might be one of the worst PC VR experiences out there since Sony loves doing "ports" that have some sort of poison pill attached to kill some of its functionality. Sometimes it's having to sign into the PS store account, sometimes it's a VR headset that won't do half the things the box says it will.

    • ViRGiN

      Lack of PSVR2 main features on PC is not Sony fault, it's all Valve fault for not implementing and standarizing ANYTHING about PCVR.

      • Anon Imus

        How is it valve's fault for the entirety of PCVR, they do their VR and do it well, if everyone else does a shit job it's not on Valve. You're talking like valve own's PC gaming. Sadly we're not quite there yet.

        • ViRGiN

          SteamVR does not support the features PSVR2 does.
          What is Sony supposed to use to enable these features, if SteamVR does not support it itself?

          Valve does own PC gaming by default. This is not even disputable, no matter how many PC stores you might be tempted to mention. Valve has pure monopoly on everything gaming related on PC, and now also on handheld PCs like steam deck.

          They caught all the big fishes in existence, VR was not one of them, that’s why they are putting absolute zero of focus on it. They didn’t loose the VR wars – they simply not participated, though they were positioned to have complete dominance if they wanted to.

      • Peter vasseur

        How is that valves fault. It’s all the other manufacturers that don’t have the advanced tech Sony has in their cheap hmds. Notice how sense detections work, because there enough hmds that use it so it has applicability. The feature that don’t work aren’t common this not supported anyways.

        • ViRGiN

          Then they should have licensed it, or make their own? It’s not rocket science. Sony licensed Tobii eye tracking.

      • ConcreteLobotomy

        It’s Valve’s fault that any other VR tech will work on PC, but Sony’s, that has functioning features on the PS5, can’t/won’t make them work on the platform universally used for VR? VALVE’S FAULT? hahahahah

        • ViRGiN

          Pcvr is dead.

  • Anon Imus

    Is sony properly porting their games for s
    Steam VR. Don't answer, it's a rhetorical question.

    • ViRGiN

      That would be a desperate move, strengthing the monopoly of valve.
      No thank you.

  • FrankB

    Portal 2 was also released on PS3 and came with a steam code for the PC, in fact the Portal 2 I’m currently playing through with the VR mod is the one I got from the PS3 game purchase.

    • ViRGiN

      Yeah and Valve used to ship Half-Life 1 on a CD rom back in 1998.
      You are talking about near one-off event from 13 years ago.

      In February 2011 Steam peak concurrent users was marked at 3.45 million.
      In March 2021 that was 26.85 million (+678.26% boost from 2011).

      In May 2024 that was 35.55 million (+32.40% from 2021).

      VALVE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT VR, NEVER DID, NEVER WILL.

  • sfmike

    You're forgetting Sony has given up on VR and cares nothing for PSVR owners customer satisfaction.

    • Peter vasseur

      You’re regurgitating a bunch of non factual articles. Giving up on psvr2 owners yet they have every major non exclusive game coming to the hmd. Games that are now going to be lead developed on psvr2 hardware. And 200 games and 4 exclusives in 1 year.

      Yep they gave up because a bunch of meta fanboys wrote Opinion pieces that the low information vr gaming community and YouTubers push as fact.

      • talocaca

        Somebody heard in a bar that only two games exist so they wrote about it….now it is a fact apparently.

      • shadow9d9

        Nope. A bunch of old ports with reprojection blur, and a climbing game, is not impressive. And Sony gave the facts. 1. Horrible sales from the start. Straight from Sony. 2. Sony abandoned their VR mascot before launch. 3. Sony hasn't announced a single funded game in well over a year. It is dead. They planned to kill it from the start.

  • Rob

    Psvr2 looks like a failed headset with poor sales numbers. It looks like Sony has given up on it themselves. Why would valve waste costs and energy on something that isnt profitable? The only reason that I can see is a deal where Sony brings its own psvr exclusives like astrobot VR to steam but I dont see that happening. If psvr2 owners want to play half like alyx they should buy a PC.

  • Bartholomew

    ‘Batman: Arkham Shadow on PSVR 2 Would be a Win-win-win for Meta, Sony, & Players" when?

    • Ben Lang

      I'd love that, but as the article explains, there's several reasons why it could make sense for Valve to consider HLA on PSVR 2, but effectively no reason for Meta to bring a first-party made-for-Quest game to PSVR 2.

  • Rupert Jung

    If Sony would not have abandoned PSVR2 right after launch (some people think, even before it) they would have found a way. Some with Meta/Oculus' old PCVR titles (they don't market them on Quest and could use some extra money). Hell, they didn't even port their own most successful PSVR1 titles! I just can't believe how what they did (not)!

  • Arno van Wingerde

    Well ben, it is a nice spin, but as pointed out Sony itself has all but abandoned the PSVR2. If you really want to play it on a PSVR2 headset, get the Sony Dongle and play it on Steam – even if that means losing a lot of functionality while needing a PC as well as a PS5.

    Given the ridiculously small user base of PSVR2 users to start with, narrowing it down by excluding those that own both a PS5 and a decent gaming PC: I'll eat a PS5 if Valve would ever make the effort!

    • Peter vasseur

      Well your comment is based on the opinions of writers and not fact. This demonstrates that nobody reading your comment should take it seriously.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Sony hasn't abandoned PSVR2 to the point of not allowing others to release games for it, and Valve has been fine with ports of their games to other platform in the past, so those aren't big issues. We still won't see HL:A for PSVR2 for mostly technical reasons: HL:A was built in the Source 2 game engine supporting Windows, MacOS, Linux and later adding Android/iOS for Dota Underworlds.

      Valve never ported any of their PC games themselves, instead they hand over the sources to other studios. With Source 2 not available on the FreeBSD based PS5 OS, those would have to port the game engine first. Most VR games are created with Unity, and (idealized, more involved in reality) a game can be ported from Quest to Pico or SteamVR by just selecting a different target in Unity and recompiling. And I doubt Owlchemy Labs would have released Job Simulator for PSVR2 or Pico 4, if before just switching the platform in Unity, they'd first had to port Unity itself.

      The small PSVR2 user base is a problem even for VR games created in Unity or Unreal, but those still have way better odds for getting ported. The best chance to ever see HL:A PSVR2 is Sony/Valve wanting to get Counter Strike 2 onto PlayStation for its huge player base, requiring them to first port Source 2 to PS5, making a HL:A port feasible as a side effect.

  • Nepenthe

    This would have been something Sony would have needed to start work on in 2020 or 2021, announce in 2022, and launch on 2.22.23. It could have helped sales of the add-on. But that ship sailed a long time ago. The PSVR2 is done, time to consign it to history. It was a failure.

  • Paul Bellino

    Half-Life Alyx is one of the best games ever made. Period….

    • ViRGiN

      the other games being Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber, right?

    • shadow9d9

      No, no it isn't. It is an on the rails corridor shooter with no story.

  • ViRGiN

    Do they fully embrace it?

  • Joe

    Lets face it, valve won't because they never have. Not since TF2 or Portal, because their own goals are either expanding their own VR means or continuing to innovate with the mobile PC gaming space.

    In my opinion it would lack sense for them to port the game so late on considering they've already reached something like 95% of the target audience that own VR.

    Yes it would be neat for the few that want to play PSVR, but at what cost. Even being fully aware of the expenses, if you were really invested in VR or half life in that matter, it would seem to make more sense just to use the native platform (PC!).

  • Derek Kent

    Imagine writing a multi-page article about this. It's a 5 year old game. Release it on an LG fridge, Xbox.. whatever. who cares.

  • shadow9d9

    Yeah, no it wouldn't Valve doesn't care. They make endless money by doing nothing but being the first storefront. Building for another platform would make no sense.