What you need to know
- According to a report, Sony has begun production of the PlayStation VR2 as of September 2022.
- The company looks to produce around 2 million units by March 2023, signaling a late Winter/Early Spring release for the upcoming premium VR headset.
- The original PSVR sold 1 million units in its first year, showing that Sony expects PS VR2 to sell better.
The original PSVR was enough of a success for Sony to create a second-generation headset in the PlayStation VR2. Given that, it looks like the company is planning for its next-generation VR headset to do even better, and, from the looks of things, PS VR2 could launch around March 2023.
This is according to a report from Bloomberg (opens in new tab) that shows the PS VR2 (opens in new tab) has already entered production and that Sony is aiming to make 2 million units by March 2023. Now that it’s finally fairly easy to buy a PS5 (opens in new tab), it’s likely that price is the only real deciding factor consumers will have to make when the headset eventually releases. We don’t know the price yet, but it’s expected to retail for at least $400 when it launches, just as the original PSVR did.
While 2 million units at launch doesn’t sound like a notable number given that the PS5 sold 10 million units in just 8 months (opens in new tab) of its launch, it’s most important to compare the PS VR2’s numbers with the original PSVR. In its first year, PSVR sold 1 million units as a $400 add-on to an already $400 console and went on to sell 6 million units over the course of the PS4’s lifespan.
The pricing situation with PS VR2 is likely the same — or, possibly, more expensive — than the original, making it roughly twice the price of an Oculus Quest 2 (opens in new tab) but around half the price of building a gaming PC and buying a separate VR headset.
That puts Sony in a unique middle-ground position, offering up premium experiences at an unmatched pricepoint, even if it is pricier than Meta’s most popular offering, which is hovering around the 15 million units sold (opens in new tab) mark as of the latest data. For note, around 3 million VR headsets are used on Steam each month so, by virtue of price and complexity alone, we should expect PS VR2 sales to fall somewhere between these two major platform types.
Premium experiences like the upcoming Firewall Ultra (opens in new tab) and Horizon: Call of the Mountain (opens in new tab) look to push new boundaries for visual fidelity and environmental interaction that isn’t possible on a standalone headset like a Quest 2, but Sony’s new tech also isn’t backward compatible (opens in new tab) with original PSVR games, either. That’s because Sony’s new headset offers proper roomscale tracking and lets players fully move around in virtual worlds, unlike the first generation PSVR.
Before you jump into beautiful VR worlds next Spring, you’ll need a PS5. PS VR2 will plug into the USB Type-C port on the front of the PS5, powering the next generation of VR content.
