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PlayStation VR2 launch sales may be outpacing original PSVR1 headset.

Spyxos

Member
Sony's PlayStation VR2 may not be attracting mainstream gamers en masse, but the new headset is actually selling at a more rapid pace than its predecessor.

psvr_2_sony_blue-860x545.jpg


Sony's PlayStation VR2 headset has sold an estimated 300,000 units, which isn't terrible performance when compared to the original PSVR1 headset.

Reports indicate that Sony's PlayStation VR2 is failing to gain traction in the gaming market. According to IDC analyst figures reported by Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki, the PSVR2 has sold around 300,000 units in its first month on the market. Video game news outlets have responded to the news with reports that the PSVR2 is selling poorly, leading to doom and gloom coverage of the VR market.

IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo even went so far to say that Sony may need to cut prices to avoid total disaster: "I suspect a price cut on the PSVR2 will be needed to avoid a complete disaster of their new product."

However, data released by Sony appears to indicate otherwise. Taking a quick look at Sony's PlayStation VR sales, we see that the original PSVR1 sold 915,000 units in the first five months since launch (October 2016 - February 2017). The PSVR2, however, managed to sell 300,000 units in its first month of availability. In a single month, the PSVR2 has already sold 1/3rd of the PSVR1's 5-month unit sales. This is also significant considering the PS4's installed base had significantly outpaced the PS5's installed base when each of the VR headsets had launched, and that the PSVR2 is more expensive with a $549 price tag.

We can't get a complete comparison because it is hard to know exactly how many units the PSVR1 sold in its first month on the market.

Though we can make a rough estimation of attach rates based on the headset unit sales weighed against the appropriate sell-in figures provided by Sony.

91001_77_playstation-vr2-launch-sales-may-be-outpacing-original-psvr1-headset.png


If the PSVR2 sold 300,000 units, and Sony has sold at least 32.1 million PlayStation 5 consoles, then the headset's attach rate is around 0.9%.

The attach rate is likely lower because the PS5 figures are based on data as of holiday 2022 and does not include the PS5s sold in the Jan - March 2023 period that coincides with the PSVR2's launch.

So what about the original PSVR1? What kind of attach rate did it have in a similar period? We can't determine that exactly because the first PSVR1 sales figures that Sony had released include the first 5 months of sales; from October 2016 to February 2017, Sony had confirmed the PSVR1 sold 915,000 units worldwide.

91001_415_playstation-vr2-launch-sales-may-be-outpacing-original-psvr1-headset.jpg


Based on the above data, we can determine an attach rate for the PSVR1 for this period. Our data shows that sold had sold a total of 57.3 million PS4s through Q3 FY16, which coincides with the PSVR1's October 2016 launch. Therefore the PSVR1 would have an attach rate of 0.15% after five months of sales.

The PSVR2 is almost at a 0.1% attach rate after a month of sales, granted the PS5 install base is a lot less than the PS4's install base during the original HMD's release, but the PSVR2's rate of sales isn't terrible when compared to its predecessor.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/9100...e-outpacing-original-psvr1-headset/index.html
 

Markio128

Gold Member
I think you can only buy them direct from Sony still, at least in the UK. The PSVR1 was available everywhere.
 
All the threads discussing psvr2 sales have been locked. Have no idea why? Where is the main thread discussing idc sales projections of only 270K units?
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
Sorry for saying this, but In reality there "should" be much more frontloaded sales exactly because the PSVR1 "should've" paved the way for it so-to-speak. The poor retention rate for VR headsets means that this isn't just valid as a disappointment for Sony and their PSVR2, but for any iteration of VR headsets on the market. This is probably also the reason for why Meta isn't talking about Quest 2 sales numbers.
 
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nowhat

Gold Member
Sorry for saying this, but In reality there should be much more frontloaded sales exactly because the PSVR1 should've paved the way for it. The poor retention rate for VR headsets means that this isn't just valid as a disappointment for Sony and their PSVR2, but for any iteration of VR headsets on the market. This is probably also the reason for why Meta isn't talking about Quest 2 sales numbers.
Didn't OG PSVR launch much closer to the holiday season? I think waiting for a full year will be much more comparable than shouting wolf just quite yet.

(I have mine, like it, but it's not the best thing since sliced bread. Yet. Where's my Wipeout dammit!)
 

K2D

Banned
All the threads discussing psvr2 sales have been locked. Have no idea why? Where is the main thread discussing idc sales projections of only 270K units?
Because there's a lot of negative focus and fud? Some even seem to want VR or spesifically psvr2 to fail. Probably healthy with a reset and hopefully the haters have got it out of their system..?
 

Markio128

Gold Member
Sorry for saying this, but In reality there should be much more frontloaded sales exactly because the PSVR1 should've paved the way for it. The poor retention rate for VR headsets means that this isn't just valid as a disappointment for Sony and their PSVR2, but for any iteration of VR headsets on the market. This is probably also the reason for why Meta isn't talking about Quest 2 sales numbers.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true - not everyone wanting a VR set can afford one straight away. Also, releasing the PSVR2 so soon after Christmas can’t have helped either. Not to mention there were more PS4 gamers than PS5 gamers at their respective launches.
I say, give it a year to see how things are looking then.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
That's one way to twist it, the other would be that vr today has far higher adoption/acceptance and psvr2 is a far superior product, and it still failed to outsell the original. Nice spin.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
I don’t think that’s necessarily true - not everyone wanting a VR set can afford one straight away. Also, releasing the PSVR2 so soon after Christmas can’t have helped either. Not to mention there were more PS4 gamers than PS5 gamers at their respective launches.
I say, give it a year to see how things are looking then.
The PSVR2 is a great VR headset, A LOT better than PSVR1. It should've outsold to its base in no time. So why didn't the PSVR1 base run to the stores? Yeah, the price is steep, but it's also not exactly a secret in the scene that retention rate for VR is beyond awful. That's why VR companies have been running out of funds all over the place. It's a tough market..
 
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Markio128

Gold Member
The PSVR2 is a great VR headset, A LOT better than PSVR1. It should've outsold to its base in no time. So why didn't the PSVR1 base run to the stores? Yeah, the price is steep, but it's not exactly a secret in the scene that retention rate for VR is beyond awful. That's why VR companies have been running out of funds all over the place. It's a tough market..
In all honesty, it’s an expensive bit of hardware and only the hardcore are going to rush out and buy it at launch. A lot of PSVR owners will likely still need to upgrade to a PS5 as well.
 

Romulus

Member
That's one way to twist it, the other would be that vr today has far higher adoption/acceptance and psvr2 is a far superior product, and it still failed to outsell the original. Nice spin.

The other thing is there were about 20 million more ps4s when psvr1 launched than ps5s with psvr2. Considering both were at the early to mid point of the generation, that number is huge.

20 million more consumers to sell to is nothing to sneeze at.
 

Rubik8

Member
I think it was smart to release in February. Let the library build and word of mouth increase before a big holiday push. We early adopters will be beta testers, I don’t mind.
 

JaksGhost

Member
That's one way to twist it, the other would be that vr today has far higher adoption/acceptance and psvr2 is a far superior product, and it still failed to outsell the original. Nice spin.
"Despite only being available thru Sony's Direct store the headset was still able to move more than 1/3 of the what the original PSVR was able to do in a lesser time period."

Spin the spin! Seriously though I see performance increasing once it makes an appearance in brick-and-mortar stores. Hands-on displays can do wonders.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Sorry for saying this, but In reality there "should" be much more frontloaded sales exactly because the PSVR1 "should've" paved the way for it so-to-speak. The poor retention rate for VR headsets means that this isn't just valid as a disappointment for Sony and their PSVR2, but for any iteration of VR headsets on the market. This is probably also the reason for why Meta isn't talking about Quest 2 sales numbers.
What? Quest 2 has sold significantly more than all the Occulus sets pre Quest 2 combined from sales figures and their statements.
 
Good news, hope more triple A software are being made

Everybody, listen to this person.👆They get it.

The more this thing sells, the more devs will take VR seriously, and the more great games we'll get made for it (and PC VR by extension).

Even if you're mad that Sony didn't provide PSVR2 support for PC or PSVR BC, PSVR2 is the most important VR headset for promoting strong serious developer support for VR on the whole (with PC VR being so expensive and mobile VR being so full of gimmicky stuff and not nearly enough big budget games).

A dev can port games across PC VR and PSVR2 with minimal compromise; despite there being no direct cross-compatibility between the two platforms.

So if you're a PC VR fan, you should not be hating on PSVR2.
And if you're not a VR fan at all, then what are you doing in this thread?
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
The other thing is there were about 20 million more ps4s when psvr1 launched than ps5s with psvr2. Considering both were at the early to mid point of the generation, that number is huge.

20 million more consumers to sell to is nothing to sneeze at.

Ya but you have to look at the type of person who would buy the headset to begin with, they tend to be early adopter/hardcore game type to begin with. The core customer that bought PSVR 1 is already a PS5 owner in most cases. So that 20 million is a big group of not likely to buy VR to begin with.
 

Romulus

Member
Ya but you have to look at the type of person who would buy the headset to begin with, they tend to be early adopter/hardcore game type to begin with. The core customer that bought PSVR 1 is already a PS5 owner in most cases. So that 20 million is a big group of not likely to buy VR to begin with.

That's a really difficult point to even begin to know. "Most cases" and "not likely" combine to be a huge guess.

20 million more ps5s really ups the install base. And even if a measly 200k bought the psvr2 it absolutely decimates psvr1 sales.
 
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Crayon

Member
We still don't know what sony's projections are. 20% over under on 300k is like a rounding error compared the the sales numbers we are used to talking about.

What we really need to know is what is up with the direct-sales only. Is there like.... a reason? Or rather, is it a good reason that makes sense? Are they trying to control or constrain the launch in some way?

Edit: Reminder PSVR was like by far the best selling headset after quest.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
That's a really difficult point to even begin to know. "Most cases" and "not likely" combine to be a huge guess.

20 million more ps5s really ups the install base. And even if a measly 200k bought the psvr2 it absolutely decimates psvr1 sales.

It's not really a huge guess, what kind of person do you think drops $500 on a vr headset? I don't think it makes sense to say 200k from a casual base would have bought it, more like 20k from that group.
 
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Corndog

Banned
Unfortunately we probably need to wait for slightly more comparable timeframes, sales are rarely linear with time.
I think we will need to wait until next year to know whether it will be successful or not. I personally think it will struggle.
 
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