A little over a year after launch, Sony’s PlayStation VR accessory for the PlayStation 4 had sold a decent 2 million units. But given the PlayStation 4 has sold over 75 million units, that’s not a massive attach rate.
Now it has been on the market for 18 months, Sony feels the time is right for a hefty price cut, down $100 to around $299, €299 or £260. This is for the basic bundle, with the headset, PlayStation Camera, and VR Worlds demo disc. Perhaps a tempting bargain for the Easter holidays.
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Sony has been touting plenty of smaller VR-exclusive games recently, as larger developers focus on the main PS4 titles first, and then add VR support later. In the US, there’s a Doom VFR bundle for the same price, while the Skyrim bundle costs an extra $50, while the awesome WipEout series just got VR support.
Virtual Reality for Everyone
The general consensus is that VR will play a secondary role to augmented reality due to the limiting nature of the headset, and the need from smartphone vendors to offer something new as a gimmick with current models. ARCore and ARKit are available on 100s of millions of devices and require no extra hardware.
Even so, virtual reality as an in-home experience could pick up more interest as prices come down. Upcoming products like virtual music studio Track Lab could certainly help.
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However, realistically, the VR headsets will appeal to those who want to play driving and racing games, first-person shooters and survival horror titles and really get into the action.
That pretty much limits them to hardcore gamers, unless a developer comes up with a title that’s a must-play and generates a huge buzz in the media and VR sets start selling like hot cakes. In the meantime, kudos to all the smaller developers bring quirky titles like Salary Man to PSVR.
YouTube: Track Lab | Announcement Trailer | PlayStation VR
Photo credit: Sony
