Sony revealed PSVR 2 outperformed the original PSVR in sales in the first six weeks, taking a strong early lead over the company’s first-gen PlayStation headset.

An investor relations presentation delivered by Sony Interactive Entertainment chief Jim Ryan includes some new information detailing PSVR 2 units sales relative to the original PSVR launched in October 2016.

According to a chart in Ryan’s presentation, Sony’s latest headset has sold 8% more than the original in the first six weeks, ostensibly spanning from its February 22nd, 2023 launch to April 5th.

Image courtesy Sony

The graph’s y-axis is unlabeled, although it’s likely those numbers are in the thousands of units, which would mean PSVR 2 sold around 450,000 units in its first week, trailing up to just under 600,000 at the six-week mark.

PSVR 2’s adoption curve is notably flatter than the original PSVR, which started at just north of 300,000 units in its first week, ending up at around 550,000 units by week six. When Sony last released sales figures in 2020, the original PSVR had sold around 5 million lifetime units. Notably, PSVR reached its first million in just under its five months.

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PSVR 2’s game library consists of a few strong anchor titles, such as Horizon Call of the Mountain, Resident Evil Village, and Gran Turismo 7 while offering an array of upgraded PSVR content and newly ported Quest titles. Upcoming titles include Ghostbusters VR, Beat Saber, Crossfire: Sierra Squad, Resident Evil 4, Synapse, The Foglands, Green Hell VR, and Behemoth.

To keep PSVR 2’s unit sales above the original, the company undoubtably needs to focus on widening its content offering in the coming months. The company is hosting a PlayStation gaming showcase later today which we hope will reveal a little more about the company’s near-term content strategy for PSVR 2.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Anonymous

    Despite owning one just to play GT7, I have had my doubts about PSVR2’s feasibility and missed opportunity for not going standalone (w/ PS5 connectivity) when the market has obviously shifted away from thethered HMD. Glad to be proven wrong for now as we need every bit of success for each player.

    Just not communist Pico. They should die.

    • Mike

      it was a mistake for the vr market to go stand alone. it basically kneecapped vr gaming as most games are made to a very low technical standard to run on mobile hardware. this limits the kind of games we can have and there quality. the result of this is most people were expecting modern graphics but in vr but what they got was about 2 generations behind that. this dampened enthusiasm. people made up their mind that vr games was inferior and lots of those people once gone will not be returning.

      • Sean Lumly

        I too think it was a mistake, and believe it hurt retention, not because of the graphics, but as you mentioned, the quality/scope of games.

        But this could have been mitigated by Meta. I believe Meta did not invest (as it should have) in software for the Quest platform, leaving this critical development to small VR studios. Now, 3 years after its launch, we are beginning to see non-shovelware titles coming out, but much damage has been done, and time lost.

        But I’m dubious whether these customers are gone for good. But I don’t doubt that many will be much more cautious buying into the hype.

        I also believe that “VR games must be made for VR from the ground up” idea that had been peddled by the media, ultimately hurt the industry for 10+ years. We’re seeing the (thankful) emergence of Hybrid games, and they are oft acclaimed as top-tier VR experiences. And it should be noted that many of these hybrid games coincide with the launch of PSVR2 which, in its short tenure, has an already impressive number, with more on the way!

        • ViRGiN

          ^ valve foot worshipper spotted!
          valve has monopoly on everything pc-related, but it’s meta fault pcvr is dead!

          • kool

            He didn’t lie, meta didn’t really push out quality games for quest 2 everyone else did. I think they bought all those studios for a big quest 3 push. If they don’t release quest 3 with some must have games what have they been up to?

          • ViRGiN

            What do you mean “everyone else did”? Many Quest games that aren’t directly from Meta exists solely because Meta incentivized developers to port them for Quest.
            Of course I’d love to see bigger and better games, and we’ll see what they show in about a week.
            But even if we don’t – the bottom line here is that Quest 2, even after price raise, 100% delivers quality VR experience worth the money. The same can NEVER be said about any PC+VR configuration to date.

          • kool

            I mean most good vr games were made by small studios. Meta bought the best ones. My guess is that they’ll announce a bunch of new games for quest 3, but they haven’t really done much other than facilitate vrs success so far. I’m all for the wait as long as it brings us better more complex games.

          • Mike

            metaverse vaporware.

        • Anonymous

          Don’t act as if PCVR has no VR shovelware, if not exponentially more due to Steam no longer does curation.
          Going what platform what fidelity has zero impact on scope, it is all about profitability.
          Make high fidelity games just to serve a bunch of picky PCVR elitists and lose money? Do you realize that game companies need profit to fix and develop future games, and have employees to feed?
          Stop being a selfish elitist and learn some basic business.

          • Sean Lumly

            What in heavens are you talking about? I don’t use PCVR. Ever. Not even a little bit! I use Quest almost exclusively. You made a critical assumption that was wrong, and used it as the basis for insult. I think we can both agree, that was pretty dumb.

      • ViRGiN

        oh yeah because if not for the oculus go and quest, onward would be fully released now with AAA assets and sounds, as long those garage devs would work on high end titles! insanity!

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Standalone with PCVR wireless is the future, I’d rather take the slightly degraded wireless image over any f-ing cable. Never again will I buy a headset that is cable only. Buying the wireless module for my HTC Vive Pro(1) was the best thing I ever did, at the time. Looking forward to replacing it with one of the new standalone headsets.

        • Jonathan Winters III

          Not to mention the “pick up and play” easy of use. For the average VR consumer, it’s much better than fooling around with PC settings/hardware/issues. Too much friction. That said, I prefer PC graphics and play VR via PC when possible.

        • ViRGiN

          please stop calling “wireless modules” using wires an actually wireless products.
          nothing wireless about wearing a heavy battery strappyed to your belt loop.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Well, there are already addons to get your battery on your headset, so no wearing a battery on your belt (but I’m too lazy to fix my 3D printer). But I do agree, the wire that runs down from your headset to the battery on the belt is also annoying sometimes, but way WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY less annoying then having the cable run to your PC.

          • ViRGiN

            for a short while i used the og tp cast for rift cv1, it was absolutetly horrible with much softer image, with a bit of lag, and often lost frames. yes it was communicating wirelessly, but setting up the router itself was a chore, the batteries were heavy and not that very last longing either. it was a horrible experience all around. it just felt like tethered vr with much longer cable and much heavier setup itself. not to mention tpcast wasnt capable of streaming microphone officially lol

          • Andrew Jakobs

            I can’t comment on the TPcast as I don’t have it, I have the Vive Pro(1) with the htc wireless module, and setting it up was easy peasy, and the image quality is almost the same as wired. The little artifacts now and again don’t weigh up to the awful wire pulling on the headset (even with the kiwi pulley system, which is a must if you have it wired).

      • Anonymous

        PCVR would have been long dead were it not for standalone where developers truly get to see profit with bigger audiences.
        Glad the industry didn’t listen to people like you who can’t understand how basic business and supply and demand work and successfully kept VR as a whole afloat.

      • Dragon Marble

        This is a false narrative that won’t die. If you are a PC gamer, you should thank rather than blame mobile VR. Most likely you get to play Saints and Sinners 2 on PC because the Quest users are paying the bills for Sky Dance Interactive. This zero-sum mentality would make you think that somehow if you exclude people with no PC or console from VR then the developers will be forced to make games you want. The reality is that the developers will just exit the VR market altogether.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          TL;DR: The problem for VR isn’t any technical detail, but the whole VR experience itself, though I don’t really know/understand why

          There are a lot of false narratives about the (lack of) success of VR, often very contradictory

          – VR fails because either PCVR requirements are too high OR the graphical fidelity is too low due to developers mainly targeting mobile VR.
          – VR fails because there aren’t enough titles designed esp. for VR with proper input OR because making hybrid games in established franchises was ignored for too long.
          – VR needs to be tethered to a powerful machine for high quality experience without visual artifacts OR anything requiring extra setup, a cable and a separate machine will drive people away.
          – VR experiences need to more push the medium and not just cater to the casual crowd with simple games and tons of annoying comfort limits OR they need to stop releasing games that make people sick which drives new users away.
          – Meta saved VR by acquiring Oculus and giving them lots of funds to build new headsets and subsidizing the Quest OR Meta doomed VR by pricing everybody out of the market and thus ruining healthy competition in consumer VR.
          – Meta is the future of VR, because they are long term committed and willing to continue to fund it OR they will doom VR by trying to monopolize it with their currently not even feasible Metaverse idea with which they try to lock users into their platform, allowing to sell their data for ads and capitalize on all transactions.
          – Meta for years payed for pretty much all VV AAA ports between the very early, more optimistic VR days with some Bethesda ports and now some lighthouse titles on PSVR 2 OR Meta buys every successful VR developer to make sure most money on the Quest store go to them, but then the bough studios never release anything new, only payed DLC or continued subscriptions.
          – Valve saved consumer VR by first developing the basic tech and giving it for free to Oculus and then providing an open alternative to Meta’s closed garden and producing HL:A OR Valve screwed VR by never really pushing it to the market, instead only releasing one game and a now somewhat dated HMD priced too high for most gamers, while reaping the 30% earnings they make from every (VR) title on Steam.
          – Lots of things more OR lots of other things saying the exact opposite.

          There are many more arguments, very few of them more than personal opinions, and pretty much none of them provable in any way. As usually seeing things in black and white will most likely not give you a realistic picture, the truth is rather often in the middle. What remains is that VR hasn’t turned out to be as popular as enthusiasts and analysts assumed, and that despite a lot of technical improvements and big quality jumps in experiences, retention rates are still miserable.

          So maybe it is not one of the reasons listed above or any specific issue like software catalogue, comfort, price etc., but the experience itself. That is somewhat hard to fathom for someone who loves VR. If all VR development stopped today and we would never get any new HMDs or games, I’d say that what we already have is absolutely worth trying and enough to provide someone new to VR with months to years of fun, excitement and astonishment. I get all the issues it has, but for me these pale compared to the opportunities.

          Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be what most people think, even those that have tried or even own a VR HMD. For these the experience as a whole is simply not worth trying or sticking to it, and most likely not because of one specific detail, but because of the whole bundle. Most never get far enough in their VR journey to even notice all the specific pitfalls VR enthusiasts claim are the main reason why VR hasn’t gone mainstream yet, making that discussion somewhat missing the actual problems.

          As hard as it is to believe, VR isn’t for everybody, and currently it is attractive only to a very small minority. I have no (sufficient) idea why. And no, again and again listing specific demands about resolution, FoV, AAA titles, pricing, promotion or anything else that supposedly is the remaining roadblock for mass adaption doesn’t help.

          • Dragon Marble

            VR in general is doing fine. Quest platform is thriving. Retention may be low, and it won’t be main stream any time soon, but developers are making a living and that’s the key.

            PCVR is on life support — which, ironically, is provided by Quest to some extent. You can’t survive by developing for PCVR only.

            PSVR remains a question mark. I am starting to seriously doubt whether the hardcore gamers want VR at all, even if you have all the ingredients perfectly cooked. For them, it’s all about addictive game play, and immersion itself can be a friction.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Quest is surviving because Meta is willing to eat billions in development and operating costs, which is why some developers that made it onto the official store are making a living. The 2022 price increase by 1/3rd only stopped Meta from losing money on every Quest sold based on hardware production costs alone, a practice console makers ended years ago, every generation after PS3 sold hardware with at least a small profit.

            Gaming consoles make their money from selling a lot of software to a lot of active users, but on Quest too few users are buying too few software titles to compensate for more than a small fraction of the other costs, as too many Quest stop seeing use after a short while. Meta isn’t expected to make any money anytime soon, so claiming that Quest is thriving is a stretch. Growing yes, not automatically dooming developers at least sometimes, being self sustainable no.

            So after 10 years of consumer VR, which initially hitched a cheap ride on smartphone displays and gaming GPUs, Quest is clearly (still) on Meta life support too. Only that, compared to PCVR lacking a committed and deep pocketed sponsor, this life support is pretty much guaranteed to continue for years, no matter the costs, even if the patient itself wouldn’t be able to survive on its own. And if gaming console (active user) numbers are required for a fully sustainable consumer VR ecosystem that can also pay for the now necessary expensive custom hardware development and operations, Quest/VR may never get off the life support due to lack of interest from the general public. And in the future its best/sole chance may be to be switched from Meta life support to XR sidekick, surviving on technology developed and payed for by a potentially more popular AR.

          • Dragon Marble

            So you don’t believe — if you separate Meta’s metaverse ambitions, and if they just settle down to run Quest like a gaming console line (which they won’t) — that the Quest is already making a profit and self sustainable? According to Chris Pruett, Meta Director of Content Ecosystem, Quest is “way past the chasm”. If there’s still any doubt about Quest 2, Quest 3 will definitely get there. I think you are too pessimistic.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            This isn’t a question of believing, we have numbers. In October 2022 Meta said the Quest store had generated USD 1.5bn in revenue since its launch in 2019. Simplified 30% of that goes to Meta. A little bit more due to 1st party titles like Beat Saber, and a little bit less due to promotions etc. being payed from those 30%, but roughly they made USD 450mn from software sales. They have now sold around 20mn Quest 1/2/Pro, so the average user generated 450/20 = USD 22.5 in software profits for Meta. Initial sales price for a 64GB Quest 2 was USD 299, with a production price of close to USD 350, with the price increased to USD 399 for the now 128GB base model in August 2022, when around 15mn Quest 2 had been sold.

            So (ignoring differences with Quest 1/Pro/Business editions etc.) we have 15mn Quest sold at USD 50 below and 5mn at USD 50 above production costs, giving us USD 500mn loss alone from selling the hardware. This loss includes no development cost, no service costs, no operations, no advertising, no expensive software license deals like RE4, no retail margin, those all go on top. All profit ever generated from software was still not enough to even cover only the direct loss caused by hardware subsidies so far, though this balance slowly tips thanks to the price increase.

            Compare that to a company like Sony, who’s gaming sales didn’t generate USD 1.5bn since 2019, but USD 25.5bn in 2021 alone, so about 50x as much per year, 40% of which was DLC and micro-transactions. Sony of course has a much bigger install base, so far almost 140mn PS4 and PS5 were shipped, so seven times as many as Quest HMDs. But this still means that the average Playstation user generated more than seven times as much yearly revenue as a Quest user, in a year where the PS4 was eight years old and the PS5 was unobtanium. The large base of course allows Sony to distribute any development costs much better, while Meta cannot distribute development cost at all, because so far software revenues haven’t even covered past hardware subsidies and a lot of running operational costs would have to be covered first.

            So you don’t believe […] that the Quest is already making a profit and self sustainable? [..] I think you are too pessimistic.

            Regarding business prospects I don’t believe, I do the math instead And I don’t put much weight on unspecific, relative marketing statements like “retention on Quest 2 is much better than on Quest 1”, when they don’t include how horrible retention was on Quest 1 to quantify how much less horrible it is on Quest 2, the fact that they say “better than Quest 1” instead of “good” speaks for itself. Or that the ecosystem is “way past the chasm”, when they forget to explain if crossing the chasm might simply mean that more than half of the 50 best selling software titles released on Quest in the last 12 months managed to break even, so now these studios can afford to develop more apps instead of going bankrupt.

            There is a big difference between fuzzy claims like “way past the chasm”, “much better acceptance”, “very positive feedback”, “satisfying preorders” and a solid “Quest 2 made enough money for Meta to pay for the development of Quest 3 without losing money”. The main difference being that the latter is definitely not true, not by a long shot. Meta’s announcements are often full of positive news, aggregate numbers and the occasional success story, but usually lacking any hard numbers that would actually prove that developing (for) Quest is a financially viable idea.

            It is for at least a couple of dozen well selling Quest store titles, but we don’t get numbers for the remaining 500. Just the known numbers for 1 app generating USD 100mn+, two more USD 60mn+ and 40 USD 10mn+ means the top 40 apps/8% took at least 40% of all generated revenue, leaving on average less than USD 2mn for the rest, most certainly not evenly distributed. I’d say it is a safe assumption that half of the titles on the Quest store never broke even. We know for certain that this is true for pretty much all of the 1500+ App Lab apps, where only a few like Puzzling Places and Demeo made the jump to the official store with decent sales, and even fewer like Gorilla Tag were already very financially successful before that.

            If there were hard numbers indicating that the Quest is anywhere near self-sustaining, we would have heard about them. Instead we only hear that some have found success and will therefore continue, but just because software development will no longer collapse all by itself doesn’t mean the ecosystem is sustainable, let alone covering all the other costs generated in the past and necessary for the future.

          • Dragon Marble

            Appreciate the math, but we are talking about different things. All you have shown is that Quest hasn’t recouped all the investments Meta made in the past, which I don’t dispute. What I am saying is that if Meta switch from growth to sustainment mode right now, the Quest store sales are enough to make a profit — a very small number if you compare against Sony, but not a negative number. That’s my guess. If you can do your math again to show me wrong, I am all ears. Just don’t try to include R&D expenses for something 10 years later.

            We don’t hear Meta talking about self-sustaining because that’s not what they are interested in right now. For example, instead of simply making a lighter and faster Quest 2, Quest 3 is reportedly going to have a mixed-reality focus — when no one even knows for sure how to make a mixed reality app yet. Of course you don’t expect Quest to make a profit if you include the experimental/exploratory stuff like that.

            Regardless of our disagreement of whether Quest has crossed that invisible line, I think you would agree that they are far closer than everybody else.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: My next attempt to avoid writing another novel and instead quickly get to the point that Meta currently can’t make a profit, that this actually doesn’t matter and that the Quest 3 won’t change it because the needs of VR enthusiasts simply are different from those of a mainstream audience, has failed again.

            Okay, let’s do more math about a very optimistic present: if we ignore the whole subsidization and look only at the new Quest 2 sold at USD 399, we get USD 50 per Quest sold plus the previously mentioned USD 7.5/year that each Quest user has spent on the store so far. Let’s also assume that the latter number will now jump up by 300% due to more Quest having been sold and more software available , and completely ignore that Meta themselves said that the latest wave of new Quest buyers is engaging a lot less with the platform than the first waves of VR enthusiasts and upgraders from Rift and Quest 1 did. And also assume that a Quest 2/3 is supported and used for three years, after which the user will buy the next model. This will hopefully qualify as very optimistic even from your perspective. Meta now gets USD 50 from the hardware and USD 90 from software for each Quest, broken down over three years of usage this means ~USD 47 per user per year.

            Let’s be even more optimistic and assume that the trend turns from currently slowing sales to overdrive and they manage to sell 40mn Quest 3, and you end up with a whopping 1.88bn revenue share for Meta per year. This has to cover for retail margin, software maintenance, promotion, service and of course salaries, office space and equipment for their employees. Let’s again say that Meta employees are very cheap and each only cost the company USD 100,000 for salary, benefits, travel, office etc. every year, and half the earnings are available for the employees. This way you could pay 9400 people, almost as many as worked at MRL last year. For the Quest alone, they probably need only 1/4th of these, so let’s reduce the affordable employee count for breaking even by 75%.

            This way Meta would actually make USD 235 profit from Quest per year. Yay! Assuming doubling the hardware sales, quadrupling the software sales, ignoring any past development and any ongoing non-Quest research costs, reducing head count by 75%, and having the remaining employees cost less than half of what they would actually cost. Judge for yourself if this is a realistic scenario.

            Creating mass market consumer hardware for a not yet established marked is f&%$ing expensive, which is why we only expect this from companies like Meta, Google, Apple and now ByteDance/TikTok with enough billions to roll out a global launch, while others had to retreat to niches. It costs billions that the company has to pay in advance and will only ever get back if the product is a huge success, sold in very large numbers, and the company makes a lot of revenue from either selling much more than the competition, producing much cheaper or selling more to every single customer. Meta’s current problem is simply the low number of active/software buying users, meaning all cost has to distributed over a small number, but at the same time they cannot raise the prices to include the required large margins like HTC in the professional market without losing most of the user base they already payed a lot for. Just looking at the total revenue from the Quest store (which is completely negligible compared to those from Sony, Apple or Google) and not at the same time looking at least at the recurring cost simply doesn’t give you any idea about profitability.

            We are talking about the same thing, you just assume that the future is a lot brighter than the past. I have been discussing the fact that VR has basically shown linear growth for years with people who insist since 2016 that we are really on an exponential curve and usage will explode very soon. Which so far hasn’t happened.

            Where we actually agree is that profitability is in no way important right now for Meta. They knew it would take at least a decade to make back their money if things went well, and more if they didn’t went smoothly. They have a lot to gain if XR becomes a platform with billions of users, and if that happens, all the initial costs won’t be an issue. MRL may burn USD 10bn per year, but mobile gaming alone made around USD 220bn in 2022.

            Meta losing money on XR is fine with them and even their investors. Huge drops of Meta’s shares didn’t happen due to them burning cash on XR research, but when they reported that users were now engaging less with Facebook and Instagram, where they make all their money. And Meta’s announcements about the viability of the ecosystem come from that perspective: we are now at a point where VR is large enough that established AA or even AAA studios might start developing VR games not only as test projects, but actually expecting to sell enough to make a profit. This is new, a chasm was actually crossed and consequently we may see more non-indie development on VR. But there is still a long way from “larger studios can make enough profit on a platform requiring heaps of money to maintain” to “profit from projects by larger studios is enough to not only support the studios, but also to pay for platform development and maintenance“, even if you cut all non-essential development.

            Of course, the revolution could start tomorrow or right now, the Quest 3 could turn everything around, but I don’t know what type of magical improvement would trigger it. Quest 3 will be twice as fast, still only 1/3rd the 2016 PCVR GPU entry level, and the main new feature seems to be Mixed Reality. Even if it got all the features of the Quest Pro plus double the speed plus a true depth sensor at half the price, there are still no particularly convincing reasons why those who shunned VR so far should even want MR, or what it would be really used for beyond convenience. I doubt that the Quest 3 will have anywhere the same impact as the Quest 2, which was a huge leap forward at an incredible low price of USD 299, as Meta assumed that lowering the bar would get the masses onboard. It didn’t, and now the Quest 3 will mostly be an incremental update with a sometimes useful MR gimmick at a much higher price. That doesn’t exactly scream revolution, which would probably require a much bigger leap like actual useful AR with smooth integration into the users daily life and not costing USD 3000 like the Apple HMD.

            The whole thread started with me arguing that the problem with VR isn’t any particular technical issue, but the VR experience itself and the lack of interest from the general public. Every other problem, including Meta not yet making money due to lack of active users and larger developers ignoring VR due to lack of potential customers are due to the lack of mass market attraction. Yes, I agree that Meta is doing a lot of things right, though no, I expect that Apple is “far closer than everybody else” and will show us a device that a lot of people who would have never touched VR will actually want, only that barely anybody will be able to afford it. I am thankful for a lot of what Meta has done and will do, and am pretty sure that we would have never gotten this far without them.

            I am still extremely annoyed about their emphasis on MR, not because passthrough isn’t very useful, but because IMHO they hype it because they need a marketing alternative to AR to point to, as their HMDs will not be able to deliver actual AR for years for numerous reasons the most important that their gaming focused customer base wouldn’t accept the exorbitant high prices this would currently cost. As a result people who didn’t care about the Quest 2 won’t care about the Quest 3 either, because it doesn’t do anything particularly useful or address problems most people actually care about.

            One of the “best” features of the Quest Pro for many was the option to remove the face gasket and see their environment/children/pets/furniture. Much more important than the passthrough and technically much simpler, but of course significantly lessening the immersion and thus widely criticized by enthusiasts. Which is part of my reason why I think that the problem of VR is the VR experience itself: most people simply don’t want the solitary, gaming oriented experience that VR enthusiasts look for and that current VR HMDs try to deliver, so discussing if VR hasn’t gone mainstream because a low FoV is not good enough or because there are simply not enough good games you can get lost in for dozens of hours IMHO misses the point: for VR to go mainstream, it needs to cater to the needs and wishes of the mainstream and provide some actual use, not just improve the experience the enthusiasts aim for and assume that at one point that will convince all of the others. In reality they will look at a 4K 144Hz super immersive haptic feedback Counter Strike with full body tracking, shake their head and play Candy Crush on their phones while hanging out with their families on the sofa watching Netflix. Or maybe on their 5th generation Apple AR headset that makes Candy Crush even less (socially) intrusive than looking down on their phone, because Apple actually understands what most people do NOT want.

          • Mike

            I think it really comes down to most people don’t want to shut out the world and have to put on a headset that isolates them. entertainment today is largely social for people and or people live in houses with other people and with things going on around them. vr doesn’t fit nicely into many people’s living environments vs traditional console gaming . its kind of the reason why consoles are more popular than pc gaming. pc gaming is a solitary experience requiring you to sit at a computer with a monitor in your face while your back is turned to everything else. I think it that simple. Vr will never be for everyone or as popular as traditional consoles because of its isolating nature and the cumbersome process of getting into vr. but it doesn’t need to be because there still plenty of people who do love it.

      • kool

        It’s a double edged sword, standalone is the cost of entry for the layman. Once a standalone can stream pc level graphics over wifi (which I expect from apple or quest3) that stigma will fade. But this era of vr was very necessary to work out all the bugs and to see what actually works. We are test dummies, I enjoyed every moment of it!

      • shadow9d9

        Most people aren’t obsessed with graphics. The Switch is the 3rd best selling console for a reason. And wireless movement in a large room will trump wired with breakable objects around every day of the week and back,.

        • ViRGiN

          people nerdy enough to comment online are usually obsesses with graphics.
          but they aren’t obsessed with graphics per se, rather than what drives them.
          that’s why you still have tons of no-lifers praising PCVR for it’s quality where it doesn’t actually exist.

        • Chris Meeks

          Love that wireless experience of having to recharge after two hours. So immersive!

    • shadow9d9

      Proven wrong how? 8% over a very old headset is a horrible improvement when quest 2 sold 400% in half the time.

      • Anonymous

        Before release I expected the best PSVR2 could do is matching exactly PSVR1 numbers, if not below. Even if just 8% improvement, the fact that it is over PSVR1 initial numbers already makes me happy. Now if they can make it worthwhile and sell as good as PSVR1’s total long run sales, I consider that a success (it can never compete with Quest 2 in absolute numbers.)

        • ViRGiN

          sounds like a large amount of copium here.

  • nullcodes

    Uh, that’s not good. The graph looks like it is flattening faster. My guess is all the PSVR owners decided to upgrade.

    • Mike

      keep in mind psvr released during the holiday shopping season. psvr2 released during the off season. also, psvr2 could only be bought from Sony directly. it had no in store or 3rd party presence at all.

      • ViRGiN

        and where is your data how presence in stores is relevant?
        electronics aren’t clothes. you DONT have to try them in the store.
        everyone sane has moved onto web stores a long ago. only positives, zero negatives.

        • Alexisms

          The best advert for vr is to show the potential buyer it running.

          • ViRGiN

            This works only for very specific consumer. You aren’t going to spend 30 minutes trying it out in public space where everyone is staring at you. When buying in person, you often can not get a refund on used product. Online purchases follow different laws. Get it online and spend as much time as you need to see if it is right for you

        • Sean Lumly

          If it’s limited to online sales, its exposure is limited compared to a device that was available both online and retail.

          Of course, its not that simple: there are more variables that determine exposure, but the point of the above post was that PSVR2 is doing better than PSVR1 given less enviable selling conditions.

          – Weaker shopping season
          – Higher sticker price (non-adjusted)
          – Less confidence in media
          – limited shopping channels

          The graph is tapering off, but this is consistent with console hardware at this time of year. It will certainly spike again at end of year, and we’ll get a better picture of PSVR2’s year 1 sales performance.

          I do think that the release of this data was strategically timed given the tapering trend.

          • Mike

            the news of the psvr2 underselling expectations really created a dampening effect as it was widely spread misinformation that I’m sure caused many people to seriously reconsider purchasing PSVR2. if that hadn’t happened, I think sales wouldn’t have flattened nearly as much it did. This misinformation spread on the internet sort of became a self-fulfilling prophecy. so, people that don’t know the fact need to shut their mouths before they really do kill VRs chances of having big budget AAA Sony backed titles.

          • Sean Lumly

            Quite probably, though this type of thing is nearly impossible to quantify, especially lacking data. But I can’t imagine it would help sales!

            In any event, PSVR2 is looking to blow past PSVR1. Another interesting accreditation to its sales is that the PS5 install base (~35M units estimated) was very likely lower than PS4s (~45M units estimated) during the same period of both VR headsets launch. PSVR2 launched with better sales given significant handicaps.

    • Jonathan Winters III

      Yes, they shot themselves in the foot by showing this graph.

      • disqus_o4N8KCTF90

        Bear in mind these sales are while the headset was only available direct from Sony ulin many countries. It has only recently hit major retailers like Amazon. It is already heading to be the best selling wired headset of all time. Also bear in mind the PS5 install base is considerably smaller than PS4.

        • shadow9d9

          Everyone buys online anyway. Only was direct in a few countries. Best selling means that it is just competing with the psvr 1, which is just reiterating the article above.

  • This is even more impressive if you calculate the percentage of PS4 owners of PSVR1 vs the percentage of PS5 owners of PSVR2.

  • impurekind

    So, not the disaster many were saying then.

    • shadow9d9

      It actually pretty much confirms it.

      • impurekind

        So, outselling the original in the same time frame is considered a disaster, yet the original was considered a success. That logic does not track at all.

  • ApocalypseShadow

    This is actually good sales. It’s better than the first while costing more and releasing only from PlayStation direct after the Christmas season.

    Has bigger and better games than stand alone, better quality versions with improved graphics and frame rates all in a span of 6-10 weeks.

    Those pushing stand alone as good enough when the tech is limited and aging while Facebook made no impressive games for the platform. The higher quality games they made were for Rift. And where’s GTA and Creed? Probably only announced when the next headset shows up. That’s like being dragged along with a carrot. Sure Indies made some money. But at the same time, they didn’t even push the Quest 2 to have better. Sony has better day one.

    RE4 VR looks to blow that stand alone away. Just like RE8 and GT7 and Horizon among other games. Some might be fine with lower quality. But it’s time to see better VR games made than stuff like Grid Legends. And cheap games made that brings no one into VR gaming. 20 million supposed sales and all that’s there is average releases? Sorry. I want better. And PS VR 2 is just getting started but delivering better.

    • shadow9d9

      It costs almost exactly the same as psvr with camera and controllers.

      • ApocalypseShadow

        Almost exactly isn’t exactly. It costs $50 dollars more than the complete PSVR setup. But it’s sold more in the same time frame while only being offered at the time from Sony.

        • ViRGiN

          Just because it was only offered from Sony in US doesn’t mean it was the case for other continents. In Europe it’s been sold online for months in third party stores.
          Cope.

    • ViRGiN

      anyone who has been using any VR for the past couple of years have absolutetly nothing to look forward to on PSVR2.
      it’s a dogshit tethered zero audio product offering nothing more really than old pc/quest ports.
      you got to be nuts to think different.

      • ApocalypseShadow

        More BS from you.

        Name a big first party Quest 2 game in the last year? Nothing. You can’t name one game. Course for you, all you can name is gorilla tag from an indie. Lol. Another cheap game. No high quality games. Maybe you can name Red Matter 2 from another indie. But it’s better on PS VR 2. Just like Moss. Just like Saints and Sinners. And they’re not even using PS5 to the fullest.

        You can’t name one game from Facebook that’s high quality or AAA in the last 2 years. Name it buddy. We’re all ears listening but all we hear is crickets. Only reason there might be something coming will be for Quest 3. Just like RE4 was leaving Quest 1 behind. And that was PS2 level graphics with deep browns. Take a look at RE4 VR on PSVR 2. Quests version isn’t even in the same ballpark. Tethered console VR blows away those cheap games made to make a fast buck. But no retention of users. Facebook has said it themselves. It’s because the games are smaller and cheaper and lower quality.

        The funny thing is when you downplay PC all the time. But it’s because of PC and Steam that Quest 2 can have higher quality if you spend more money on the hardware to run PC VR games.

        You can say there’s nothing coming for PS VR 2. But we know it’s a lie. Hubris is going to blow away stand alone. Synapse is going to blow stand alone away. Crossfire is going to blow stand alone away. Firewall is going to blow stand alone away. Lo-fi is going to blow stand alone away. You can’t name a game that coming out or released currently that blows away and games on PS VR 2. So, don’t sit here and lie to yourself or anyone else. The quality is better, the sound is better and the game graphics are way better than stand alone. So, go find someone else to lie to. I’m not hearing it.

        • ViRGiN

          Excuse me, you didn’t take your meds for a month or what?
          The level of copium here is unparrarel.
          No point addressing anything here. Fun fact – RTX4090TI have more horse power, yet top 3 PCVR games don’t look any better than the same games on Quest 1/2 or even PSVR2! Cope!

          Geez, I hope MacVR takes over the high-end VR cause PCVR elitists just can’t cope anymore.

  • MasterElwood

    When PSVR1 came out it had a much greater install base of PS4 to tackle on vs. PSVR2 and PS5. Not bad numbers at all.

    • shadow9d9

      Absolutely atrocious if it can barely improve on 5+ year old numbers while the quest sells 400% of it in half the time.

      • MasterElwood

        People who can run PSVR2: 36 million.

        People who can run Quest 2: 8 billion

        • ApocalypseShadow

          Ask him what big game came out on Quest 2 in the last 2 years made by Facebook. Ask him why that is if the headset supposedly sold 20 million. Surely, big games would be coming more often with that amount sold. Ask him what happened to Quest Pro and it’s productivity software and games. And why it received such a huge price cut so early.

          When he opens his mouth to answer, it will be the sound of wind and crickets. As a tumbleweed rolls by.

          What’s going to happen is that Quest 3 will show up and they will all but abandon Quest 2 because it has nothing to show for it from first party but music DLC. They will sing the praises of the device as if it somehow makes Quest 2 better.

          • ViRGiN

            Ask yourself you big ass troll where are 3 valve games and how soon is deckard coming out lol

          • Mike

            valve single handedly made the greatest vr game of all time. i think that makes up for it a bit. Also, valve is the only thing keeping pcvr going with steamvr so there’s that. in addition, a new valve VR headset is currently in development, and they also allowed the creation of half life vr mod including all the episodes for free and available on Steam. what other company has ever done anything like that.

          • ViRGiN

            You sound like a cultist. Don’t you realize that?

            You silly goose, hl2 was released officially by valve for vr back in 2013, and here you are masturbating that they allowed a mod doing the same 10 years later? Fu valve and fu u

          • Mike

            So, you can only resort to insults, but you can’t say anything to refute my statements. Just look at the number of posts you put up gushing about quest 2 and trashing anything and everything else regardless of any objective reason or logic. Who actually sounds like the cultist here? you’re a troll and its obvious. We all can see you for what you are. By the way, I own 2 quest 2 256 gb models, and a oculus rift s and a psvr 1 and 2. I love vr and support it in all its flavors. can you say that?

          • ViRGiN

            Yeah. I’ve had multiple headsets over the years, starting with dk1 from Kickstarter, through dk2, cv1, vive1, rift s, q1, q2 and a few others that i didn’t keep long. And you know what? Meta is still the only company taking vr seriously.

            You’re gasping about single player corridor shooter puzzle game with 3 guns from 3 years ago. You’re talking about “upcoming” valve headset like it has any relevancy. It was coming out soon for the past 2 years if not more. Valve spent 0 dollars on ecosystem. I’ve had all these headsets and guess what – it’s not the headset making the experience but software. And that software has died long ago as nobody develops anything players actually want on pcvr, paired with high barrier of entry, it’s completly obsolete and maybe think of the reason why 80+% of existing steam users with pcvr capable pc aren’t going out to buy a headset. Quest simply works, and delivers excellent experience given it’s mobile nature and low price. This can never be said about pcvr which commercially exists for 7 years already and flopped hard.

            You don’t really see my praising quest like attempt to smear me. I simply call out pcvr for what it is, and valve for what it isn’t. You can see steamvr users in real time. Something is wrong when on hardware that can play modern Warfare and cyberpunk at the same time, people choose to play gorilla tag in masses. Alyx brought 40k people concurrent at launch – number never seen again 3 years later across all steamvr combined.

            If deckard was real – deck wouldn’t be a loud jumbo jet for playing 720p flat games at 30 fps while overheating.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          The Quest 2 is sold in 21 out of 195 countries with a total population of about 1.02bn, And with the Meta saying that it shouldn’t be used by kids under 13, cutting off about 10%, you are down to about 11,5% of the 8bn or 918mn. Still ~25x more potential buyers compared to those that could already run PSVR 2, with the number of PS5 owners growing a lot faster than the world population. Though the whole thing is very obviously apples vs oranges, with different levels of subsidies etc.

          What will be really interesting is how many of the PSVR 2 buyers will still use it after a year. Meta is selling a lot of Quest, the vast majority of which end up in the hands of US teens as Christmas presents, but that doesn’t result in lots of active users continuously buying software due to still very low retention rates. The average PS4 owner bought twice as many games as the average Quest users, and at higher prices, so the success of either platform will be determined more by future user behavior than by hardware units sold.

        • Dragon Marble

          What matters is where developers can make a money.

  • Sean Lumly

    100% I agree that there is a historic library of games that would fit into Quest rather nicely. RE4 and Prey proved that they not only work, but that they are stand-out VR experiences.

    I think Playstation VR 2’s largest contribution to the space is the popularization of hybrid games. We’re now seeing a sharp uptick in high-end hybrid games (and they’re being well received). Hopefully they will spill over onto other platforms.