Whatever Happened to PSVR2?

I went into Game for the first time in a while yesterday. I was met with a bit of a surprise. PSVR2 – a steal at nearly £600 with a game. I’m not sure who is doing the stealing, but it isn’t whoever bought it.

And that’s all good and well. People can buy what they want for whatever price they want. I can call them ridiculous, they can ignore me. It’s the circle of life.

But once the initial surprise of the cost had worn off, a different realisation dawned on me.

I spend a lot of time reading gaming forums and comment sections and social media posts. I like to try and get a pulse for how the gaming community is feeling on things. It often informs articles here.

And you know what? I’ve barely seen any chatter about PSVR2 since it was released. It’s an amazing piece of tech with games I’m sure are worth playing, if you’re invested enough to get the equipment anyway. And it’s very rare I see conversation about it.

Now, there are two provisos to this. The first is obvious: this is an expensive bit of kit during a cost-of-living crisis. That is to say, it’s not getting the chat because the vast majority of people aren’t buying it. And that is fair enough.

Because it could be the greatest thing in the world, but if only the biggest fans are invested enough to hit the buy button, it’s not going to get chatter online.

And because of this, there is a second proviso: most of those people are probably in very specific areas of discussion focussed only on PlayStation or only on VR. This doesn’t negate the point of the article – the opposite, in fact. The community is relatively tiny.

Is This a Problem? – PSVR2

Sony said that it sold well – better than the original PSVR. Which you’d expect, given that that device had its diehard fans and this is a big step up from the original. The built-in audience – combining the two holy relics of PlayStation and VR – are hungry for this product.

But will it continue to grow?

This isn’t some doom and gloom hypothetical. I’m genuinely curious. Because until yesterday, I had basically forgotten it existed. If it hadn’t been for this article, I would have instantly forgotten it existed after leaving the store too.

There’s a group of people who aren’t interested. There are a group that are interested, but can’t get it because of the price. Presumably for many of them, that won’t change unless there’s a reduction.

I’ve spoken before about how annoying the market for VR is, and how it stops the format from taking off. I would still like to see the dreams we all had for the format come true. PSVR2 is not going to be the device that makes that happen.

But with time, price reductions and changes in the economic climate, maybe we’ll see more people getting excited about it once more.