No need to be a jerk about it.
You're right, it may have launched at an unreasonable price also for the time, but it was cheaper than what was available on PC at the time, so $399 actually seemed like a bargain when it came out. This was when other VR headsets for PC were going for around $800 for something like the Vive.
Times have changed though, and we've seen VR headsets for as low as $300 brand new like when the quest 2 first came out.
Quest 2 is HEAVILY subsidized, Facebook/Meta have said as such themselves. By hundreds of dollars per unit, in fact.
Not to mention the PSVR1 dropped in price pretty quick. You could find it for about half the launch price after a year. I know I did, that's when I first got one.
Nah. If you were looking for second-hand units in random eBay or Craiglist listing, maybe. But retail chain stores were not chopping the units down 50% MSRP a year after its release.
Whatever this headset offers, I can tell you, most consumers are not gonna see a huge difference over it and what something like the quest 2, or original PSVR offered. If anything, it has felt like VR is fading from relevance, even among gaming enthusiasts.
Quest 2 literally sold 10 million units in a single year.
These companies are acting like it's in some position where they can ask top dollar price, when it's still in "convince people to buy" phase. They can't just improve the technology slightly, charge more than the console it's for, then people will just flock to it like PS5 itself.
What makes you think PSVR2 is just a "slight improvement" over the PSVR1 tech? I don't think you take almost seven years between hardware iterations for marginal spec improvements? We're talking about a platform holder here; if they use that time for significant hardware improvements between their own consoles, why would they not have that same mentality for a high-end peripheral in a growing segment of the gaming medium?
Logic does not compute.
They're going to get a rude awakening I think.
People said the same when they increased the price of PS5 yet look where we're at now. Some lessons seem never learned, apparently.
We're still in a phase where they need to be proving the technology was worth the price people paid for PSVR, not to mention what this price is. $549 for a lot for something that most people don't want unless you get it in their hands at a reasonable price.
It's a two-way street, and some people are NEVER going to want VR unless they can pick it up for the price of a typical controller. But at the point where things are, maybe those shouldn't be among your valued customers to appeal to? The time for VR for them will come in time down the line.
For the people this device is primarily aimed at, I'm fairly confident they will be wanting to pick a unit up at the price it's being advertised at. The one thing that could mess projections up is lack of BC, but if there is a breakout killer app or two among the initial launch lineup, that can more than make up for that drawback.
But some of you who are trying to make it sound like this thing is an immediate Virtual Boy level bomba, are just being ridiculous IMHO.
