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IGN: A Year Since Its Release, Sony Seems to Have Abandoned PlayStation VR2

Sleepwalker

Member
Do you think it'd be irresponsible of Sony to add PC compatibility though without at least giving console owners a way to access PC VR games through streaming possibly?

I know for me, that would kinda be some mid-'90s SEGA type of 32X/Sega CD fukery towards early adopters, but maybe that's just me.


It would be great if they added the option, I guess they'd need to partner with geforce now or something perhaps? In an ideal world they add PC support but still support it with games on the console. Adding PC support might be a way to incentivize pcvr devs to port to the console as well.
 

CamHostage

Member
Plus at the time Kinect released, a chunk of the Wii audience were already looking for alternatives. Kinect was the right product at the right time to capitalize on that desire before mobile gaming really blew up a year or two later, and Wii sales were finally starting to slow down some.

MS's big mistake was gutting the processing power of the camera to increase their profit margins on it. Kinect V2 is what the first one should've been.

I mean, MS's other big mistake was being MS and having a dearth on Xbox of the "lil brother" or casual gamer audience that would have been interested in Kinect.

But yeah, I agree, Kinect wasn't a bad product or a mistake on the market, and if it could have crossed over to the audience it was intended for rather than having to convince dudebros that camera/mic gaming would be good for them when they're done curbstomping aliens, it would have been cool entertainment tech for that crowd. I kind of miss this stuff today, it might have been hard to justify paying for if it hadn't been packed in (I'm guilty of saying, "Just give me buttons and a joystick and a normal TV" when faced with paying for novel tech even though I try to be adventurous,) but I'm bummed that the hardcore gamers have memed everything interestingly-abnormal out of existence.
 
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ZehDon

Member
Sony are clearly not done with their peripheral; bringing in PC support means they're at least making a profit on the hardware, and are keen to continue to push the tech in some way. Opening up the headset to a new platform can allow it to live on in a way the Vita simply wasn't able to.

Of course, if PSVR2 has failed on the PlayStation platform, Sony only have themselves to blame. They all but sent it out to die in the console space.
 

Monkfish877

Member
PS5 seems to be doing amazingly well so there must be 52+ million "fools" out in these streets huh?



Yet in terms of software library PSVR2 has arguably more quality content in a year than Kinect got in its lifetime.

Sales though? Well, yeah, Kinect has the edge there*
I wasn't talking about their home consoles but their side projects like vita and PSVR
 

Techies

Member
I enjoy my PSVR2. I think there is room for hybrid style games. VR enhanced games that play closer to traditional games.
Ever since UEVR came out, Kingdom hearts 3, Crash bandicoot 4, Tekken games, darksiders genesis, darksiders3.

I've mostly been playing seated games with the gamepad instead of the usual more physically involved motion controller games.

I mean RE4 VR is stil available for me to play on PSVR2, but it's summer and hot and it's hot. Playing a seated game in front of fan normally wins.

PSVR2 is missing out on a few 'astrobots'. I feel like a lot of these games I'm playing could just get ported almost as they are right now.
 

Aenima

Member
Push for GAAS got in the way of developing VR titles. VR is also a very niche market. Only way for me to be tempted to buy a PSVR2 would be if the headset was PC compatible.
 
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I can’t be bothered to look up and quote every user who was so sure this was going to be Vr’S bIG bREakThrOUgH. But oh, they were many.
It will happen when the hardware is released with a killer VR porn app. Until then they'll keep releasing the latest and greatest in VR hardware and finds that the public isn't interested.
 

nial

Member
Still remember them dropping Vita support 6 months after it released and turning it into a glorified indie games machine, only a fool would trust Sony and them supporting their hardware.
Hyperbole, it had first-party support all the way to December 2015. Big stuff? Freedom Wars was still released in most regions by late 2014, come on now.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
It felt abandoned on day1... and it was very uncomfortable for me... and sweet spot was too small. I returned it the week I got it.
Same, I kept it 2 days then sent it back. Rez was very cool.

I mainly wanted it for Gran Turismo but I ended up hating it. It’s not like real life where you can quickly glance at something in your periphery, the instrument panel, etc. You have to orient your head/neck so that whatever you want to focus on is near the center of your FOV and it just sucks. I’d much rather just play with a TV screen.
 

Jigsaah

Member
Well they are bringing it to PC...so doesn't that mean it'll get PC game support of some type?

Or do I get this backwards and it just means you can use it on PC and play PC games on it only through the PC.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Well they are bringing it to PC...so doesn't that mean it'll get PC game support of some type?

Or do I get this backwards and it just means you can use it on PC and play PC games on it only through the PC.

It will become a PC peripheral in a space with quite a bit of competition from more mature PC VR platforms. Whether ot not PC VR devs actually support the thing is anyone's guess.
 
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reinking

Gold Member
I had fun with PSVR and PSVR2. I am glad I invested in the tech to have the experience...

Modern Family Dad GIF by PeacockTV
 
VR games release all the time. I mostly post PC VR stuff (equally called out as dead by Meta fanbois) but the vast majority is multiplatform with the occasional Quest first, PSVR2 first or exclusive thrown in. There are much better stuff than Sony's first party VR output too.

London Studio was not "VR focused". They made PSVR1 stuff, the last in 2019, but they had made nothing for PSVR2 and their next game was a GAAS shooter. Its closure has literally nothing to do with PSVR2. Weak journalism, weak thread making, stop the bullshit folks.

Oh look, trolls that don't know anything about what they're attempting to chime in for and more often than not laugh at the very idea of game journalism shenanigans suddenly take IGN's article title as the de facto fact of how things really are, who saw that coming eh?​

Guess I misheard/misremembered because some people were implying LS's next game was for PSVR2, when I only heard about the GaaS with the single concept image shown off a long time ago as their next big project.

Assumption was probably they would do a PSVR2 game eventually, but now they won't get that chance. That said it does lend more evidence to the SIE cuts being focused on culling the GaaS initiative (not all of it, but a lot of it).

I mean, MS's other big mistake was being MS and having a dearth on Xbox of the "lil brother" or casual gamer audience that would have been interested in Kinect.

But yeah, I agree, Kinect wasn't a bad product or a mistake on the market, and if it could have crossed over to the audience it was intended for rather than having to convince dudebros that camera and mic gaming would work for them when they're done curbstomping aliens, it would have been cool entertainment tech for that crowd. I kind of miss this stuff today, it might have been hard to justify paying for if it hadn't been packed in (I'm guilty of saying, "Just give me buttons and a joystick and a normal TV" when faced with paying for novel tech even though I try to be adventurous,) but I'm bummed that the hardcore gamers have memed everything interestingly-abnormal out of existence.
Yep, and that's my worry about them doing the same with VR. Someone's eventually going to figure out the right way to make VR mainstream; personally I think Sony are one of the frontrunners in doing so, but a lot of people only want to focus on 100 mega TFs and beating a 6090 when it comes to the next console.

Kinect V2 had a lot of use in media production and academic things IIRC, so the tech was quite mature and maybe a bit ahead of its time. I almost wonder if Microsoft should have tried the dual-console approach last gen, but with XBO as a purely core-orientated system and a cheaper, weaker casual system with more casual-orientated games that had Kinect V2 bundled in the package (or just the Kinect V2 having that hypothetical system's processing power integrated into it). Could have targeted the XBO to hardcore/core enthusiasts and more price & power competitive with PS4, and target the "Kinect V2 console" at casuals & mainstream, and focus on its multimedia features.

Maybe things would've worked out better for them in the long run that way.

There were plenty doing the same for the Portal as well. Just kick back and have a sensible chuckle.

The Portal is actually an in-demand peripheral, though. The only reason the sales slowed was due to lack of supply, not demand.

Also fairly sure it's sold a lot more than PSVR2 has despite being available for less time.

I wasn't talking about their home consoles but their side projects like vita and PSVR

Could've just said that tho

Sony are clearly not done with their peripheral; bringing in PC support means they're at least making a profit on the hardware, and are keen to continue to push the tech in some way. Opening up the headset to a new platform can allow it to live on in a way the Vita simply wasn't able to.

Of course, if PSVR2 has failed on the PlayStation platform, Sony only have themselves to blame. They all but sent it out to die in the console space.

How does making it PC compatible allow it to live on for the console owners who got the headset expecting continued VR support on the console in terms of new games?

I've seen people suggest that it'll increase the chances of PS5 ports for PC VR games, but will it? I still doubt it unless those are traditional games with VR modes optional. But at that point, the game probably already has a PS5 version and that's before PSVR2 is PC-compatible.

If Sony at least also allow it to stream PC VR games, it'd increase the appeal of the device to both PC and PS5 customers. And, it'd be rewarding console owners for investing in one even if the long-term future didn't quite work out the way they envisioned. The worst mistake Sony could make is just jettison any future major investment for it on console and chase the PC audience to sell it to them, and forget about the console owners on the way.
 

darthvargi

Member
Same, I kept it 2 days then sent it back. Rez was very cool.

I mainly wanted it for Gran Turismo but I ended up hating it. It’s not like real life where you can quickly glance at something in your periphery, the instrument panel, etc. You have to orient your head/neck so that whatever you want to focus on is near the center of your FOV and it just sucks. I’d much rather just play with a TV screen.
I think you may have had eye tracking off or your unit was defective. While not a full human FOV that should be possible on PSVR 2, I do it all of the time with GT7
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Do you think it'd be irresponsible of Sony to add PC compatibility though without at least giving console owners a way to access PC VR games through streaming possibly?

I know for me, that would kinda be some mid-'90s SEGA type of 32X/Sega CD fukery towards early adopters, but maybe that's just me.
It's a display coupled with a controller - making it proprietary was the fuckery.
 
Here in Australia they don’t even bother advertising the price of PSVR2 in store. I had to check on the back of the box to see it’s still $870 … no wonder they keep the boxes on the floor out of valuable eye height shelf space.
 
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ZehDon

Member
How does making it PC compatible allow it to live on for the console owners who got the headset expecting continued VR support on the console in terms of new games?

I've seen people suggest that it'll increase the chances of PS5 ports for PC VR games, but will it?...
I wasn't talking about the console owners, I was talking about the hardware. In the nascent VR market, the more quality pieces of consumer-priced kit we have, the better the entire market will do - cabled or not.

Buying a peripheral from Sony is a known gamble; if you bought a USD$500.00 peripheral for a USD$500.00 console because they showed Gran Turismo and some upscaled Quest ports, that's on you.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I can’t be bothered to look up and quote every user who was so sure this was going to be Vr’S bIG bREakThrOUgH. But oh, they were many.
I bet it’ll become mainstream once omnidirectional treadmills and GameScent become cheap and readily available. Just think how immersive it’ll be! Who would want to sit their ass on a comfy couch for hours at a time, when instead you can physically simulate the experience of being an action hero?
 

Monkfish877

Member
Hyperbole, it had first-party support all the way to December 2015. Big stuff? Freedom Wars was still released in most regions by late 2014, come on now.
Wasn't that just Japanese games though? I was specifically talking about their western first party studios, still remember waiting for a Vita God of War but it never came. Anybody remember a poster named Famousmortimer? he was teasing a massive Vita blowout at E3 2012 but it didn't happen, he left the forum because his E3 predictions about Vita turned out to be BS.
 

bumpkin

Member
PSVR and PSVR2 were the some of the only hardware in a while to excite me. The first time I tried that shark demo I was floored, and VR is my preferred way to experience the latest Reaident Evil games. I would love for this to just be slow news day bullshit on IGN’s part, but the Sony layoffs don’t bode well for games with a smaller than normal ROI.
 

nial

Member
Wasn't that just Japanese games though? I was specifically talking about their western first party studios, still remember waiting for a Vita God of War but it never came. Anybody remember a poster named Famousmortimer? he was teasing a massive Vita blowout at E3 2012 but it didn't happen, he left the forum because his E3 predictions about Vita turned out to be BS.
You were not specific about that, though. But still, we got Killzone: Mercenary and Tearaway in late 2013, both important releases.
 

Neon Xenon

Member
PSVR2 seems really cool to experience, but the high price ($550 for me on Amazon) and limited amount of things I can do with it (at least maybe until PC support is opened up) still have me passing on it.

Sucks because the PSVR2 is a genuinely nice piece of kit.

And I believe this. I really want to play the I Expect You To Die series, but it's not a priority enough for me to drop any money on any VR device right now.
 

sachos

Member
I can’t be bothered to look up and quote every user who was so sure this was going to be Vr’S bIG bREakThrOUgH. But oh, they were many.
I was one of those. The hardware has proven to be good enough but it seems they have a lack of focused VR dev teams to create big first party titles although as Alexios Alexios says, VR games come out all the time. Let's see if the alledged PC release helps.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Dead from the start.

Aside from Sony PRing I think it sold 600,000 after a few months on the market, I dont think they've talked about it since. Even for us core gamers on forums reading daily gaming news, how often have you heard about Sony talking PSVR2 the past year?

it probably hasnt even broken 1M units. If it did, Sony would had PRed it sold 1M or 1.5M or 2M by now.
 
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gothmog

Gold Member
Dead from the start.

Aside from Sony PRing I think it sold 600,000 after a few months on the market, I dont think they've talked about it since. Even for us core gamers on forums reading daily gaming news, how often have you heard about Sony talking PSVR2 the past year?

it probably hasnt even broken 1M units. If it did, Sony would had PRed it sold 1M or 1.5M or 2M by now.
How often have you heard Sony talking at all in the past year? It's not how they do business these days.
 

Monkfish877

Member
You were not specific about that, though. But still, we got Killzone: Mercenary and Tearaway in late 2013, both important release.
It was a long time ago, I don't remember every detail. Killzone and Tearway were their only big western first party releases after their launch lineup, which wasn't good enough for me. If you think Sony supported the Vita as they ought to have (console in your hands) then more power to you.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Was clear as day that it wouldn’t be supported. Without the install base, no software company will prioritise it. Without the software, it’ll never penetrate the mass market. Chicken and egg situation but the end result is the same. VR is niche, and always will be.

Sony investing in this and Portal is so complexing to me. A Vita 2 would sell 20m in Japan alone, even if it just had remote play, indies and some PS4 ports. Plus they’d get their 30% cut on everything.

I just don’t get it.
 
It's a display coupled with a controller - making it proprietary was the fuckery.

It's a little bit more than that, though.

I wasn't talking about the console owners, I was talking about the hardware. In the nascent VR market, the more quality pieces of consumer-priced kit we have, the better the entire market will do - cabled or not.

Buying a peripheral from Sony is a known gamble; if you bought a USD$500.00 peripheral for a USD$500.00 console because they showed Gran Turismo and some upscaled Quest ports, that's on you.

And a PSVR2 that provided more use for PS5 owners would in turn be providing more value to the overall VR market. Making it PC-compatible but with no way for console owners to leverage that without buying or upgrading their non-PS5 PC, neuters what would've been natural appeal and arguably hurts the nascent market for VR.

Again I'm not saying it shouldn't be PC-compatible. What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be PC-compatible without also having some solution for at least allowing streaming of PC VR games to the headset for console owners. So that they can get some additional value out of their headset without needing a PC to do so.

Whenever I think about buying the psvr2, I'm put off by the high price and then i check if any new games have been announced... The fact that it will soon work on the Pc is great, but it urgently needs games on the Ps5.

Apparently the only thing PSVR2 needs is just PC compatibility. The console owners who bought one should just be content they got anything out of their early investment.

That's what some folks think. I don't know why, but they do.



And when did they do the press release for the 45 million milestone? Or the 42 million milestone? Or the 40 million milestone?

Yeah....
 
Its pretty clear console audience are just not into putting a heavy headset on our heads for hours at a time, and being tethered to the console is a con no matter what the justification. When vr glasses cometh maybe it will be more palatable and even then, Apple and Meta probably has the market on lockdown by then.
 
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PSYGN

Member
On one hand I'm glad Sony innovates and releases cool hardware. On the other hand it's Sony and you know they'll let it starve to death. I don't think many companies can afford to do both outside of their main offering unfortunately.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It's a little bit more than that, though.



And a PSVR2 that provided more use for PS5 owners would in turn be providing more value to the overall VR market. Making it PC-compatible but with no way for console owners to leverage that without buying or upgrading their non-PS5 PC, neuters what would've been natural appeal and arguably hurts the nascent market for VR.

Again I'm not saying it shouldn't be PC-compatible. What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be PC-compatible without also having some solution for at least allowing streaming of PC VR games to the headset for console owners. So that they can get some additional value out of their headset without needing a PC to do so.



Apparently the only thing PSVR2 needs is just PC compatibility. The console owners who bought one should just be content they got anything out of their early investment.

That's what some folks think. I don't know why, but they do.



And when did they do the press release for the 45 million milestone? Or the 42 million milestone? Or the 40 million milestone?

Yeah....
My response was to gothmog who sales Sony doesn't talk business lately, and there's two 50M sales announcements the past few months

And in 2017, they stated they sold 1M PSVR.



 
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XXL

Member
It's a shame, it definitely needs more support.

It's my favorite part of this generation (so far) and aside from BG3, in my opinion it easily had the best games of 2023 (GT7 VR, RE8 VR and RE4 VR and a few others). But not many people played them.

I love VR (in general) and I think people are sleeping on it, but even I understand.... it's a tough sell and it's hard to advertise properly.
 
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