Despite being a relatively niche market, Sony is making substantial investment into its next-gen PlayStation VR 2 platform.
VR isn't a big market compared to consoles, but Sony is still spending big on its new PS5-powered VR headset. In a recent business meeting, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says the company has put lots of effort into securing a wide variety of PSVR 2 games and content to help attract PS5 owners. Sony plans to release over 20 big PSVR2 games when the HMD launches.
"Relating to investment into PSVR2, we clearly will tailor the amount of spend to the point in the lifecycle that the PSVR2 finds itself. Right now there is a considerable amount of money that has been spent on partnerships with indie and third-party developers to secure a considerable pipeline of attractive virtual reality content at the launch of PlayStation VR 2," Ryan said.
"That energy and that effort and that money will continue to grow as the install base of PSVR2 headsets also grows."
Despite this investment, it's likely that Sony has tampered its expectations for the platform. PSVR is more of a proof-of-concept device aimed at a smaller market that also makes use of Sony's internal technologies, innovations, and feature sets. While Sony's original PSVR headset made VR gaming much more affordable, Facebook has made VR mainstream thanks to its Quest lineup.
It's worth noting that Sony's original PSVR headset has a small 4% attach rate as of 2020 with total sales hitting around 5 million.
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