PSVR2 Sales Explode After Sony's Deep Price Cut, Up More than 2,000%

$350 is still too steep to buy something that could possibly make me vomit. I have had VR sickness a long time ago (like..late 90's long time ago), and I have been hesitant about it ever since.

Maybe $3.50 would be better.

Just never had any interest in VR and $350 still being expensive with lack of interest. Also im not looking to further press the field with the time for gaming i do have with another platform

Still not interested, i may pick it up once it is $150 in 2030 or so

I'll admit I'm a bit interested at that price. I do really want to play that Metro game coming out.
Unfortunately the sale came at a time where other things came up that demand the money I would have put into getting it. ☹️

Maybe if it's still at that price a couple weeks from now I'll consider it.

@GamingFan4Lyf see if there are any VR arcades near you. If you're interested, I'm sure they'll let you try one of the modern VR headsets to see if you still have issues.

I'm replying to @GamingFan4Lyf for this, but this goes for anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in virtual reality.

If you ever do want to try out a VR headset (not necessarily PSVR2, but could also be a Quest), while I do praise games like Boneworks, Pavlov, or Blade and Sorcery, I strongly recommend you to not have those be your first games in VR, as those games are best for experienced VR players who are able to combat motion sickness.

I instead recommend you to ease yourself in with less nauseating VR games, like for instance, Superhot VR, We Are One, I Expect You To Die, Job Simulator, or Moss. Those VR games are much lighter on beginners as they have you stationary or teleporting, rather than giving you the ability to move with the control stick.

Beyond that, for more intense VR games, you can enable vignette settings to prevent motion sickness if you still have some, notably with ambitious yet cautious games like Half Life Alyx and Assassin's Creed Nexus.

And as previously mentioned by Mortal, you can also try out VR arcades or arcades with virtual reality systems to test out what VR games you may be interested in, or what intensity you can handle.

And even if you're not into VR in the way it currently is, that's perfectly fine. VR is still a growing platform adapting and growing every day, and it's never too early or too late to jump in or jump back in.

Maybe if there were a PSV2-exclusive Team Asobi game, I would bite. Without one? No, I'm good. I'd rather put that $350 towards the PS5 Pro.

I'm not getting one, but my suggestion to those who do bite is to make sure and snag one of the PC dongles before they're more expensive than the headset.

2350% of what, a dozen? Two dozen?🤷🏻‍♂️

This reminds me of Sonys $500 3D display, not a monitor, not a tv, a display, that went down to $300 right quick. People may complain about the lack of PS VR2 games but I bet there are more of those than there were 3D games. 😂

I can't imagine myself spending $350 for an accessories where i must wiggle myself to play it. Not to mention the accesories already lost support from 1st and 3rd party studios. I rather spend it for physical games.

What's interesting is it actually selling that many. I know people that were interested in the PSVR2 but the price kept them from jumping in. Just shows that there's at least some interest there if it were more affordable.

@Yousef- Maybe, but nothing will beat motion sickness better than practice.

I loved my psvr and I love my quest 2, but it feels like sony treats this like they did the vita. So odds are the vr games will be multiplatform and I can just use my quest 2 to play those on my pc. If they put more first party support on it I'd consider it.

Some people just like to waste ducats. On something in which most support is gone nonetheless; especially on the first party/hardware manufacturer front.

After decades It's become Pretty Clear the Sony strategy when it comes to console peripherals.
Spoiler alert, it doesn't include long term future consideration.

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Still not willing to bite unless I see Sony announce at least one first party game for it! $350 is still allot for something that has been mostly abandoned, maybe if it keeps selling that will change... probably not.

basically this is a stock clearance sale as they have a surplus of unsold units.

they will/have stop making it and that is the end of PlayStation VR

Psvr fire sale going well. I still don’t see Sony producing more units because selling them at these prices must be a loss.

Didn't they just cut funding for PSVR2?

Why would I support such thing at $350.

Quite a negative bunch today. Its the best way to play GT7, and very soon all other racing games on my PC too. It's bonkersly good.

@CieloAzure obviously you don't have to support it, but for anyone who's genuinely interested in it, it has enough games to last for years even if no other game was released from today on. And more keep being announced. So, though Sony first party games are pretty much non existent, it's well supported by third parties.

@Boxmonkey Looks more like the final stock clearance to me. A last hurrah, and with no more systems easily available to purchase, there’s no pressure on SIE to publish new PSVR2 games any more. The end for all PlayStation VR efforts.

Still more than I'd personally want to pay for one but I believe this is the price it should have originally launched at to give it a fighting chance of survival

2350% of 5 people isn’t a lot.

Let alone the fact this will be a couple of days boost before it drops to nothing.

Got my PSVR2 at launch and I have the opposite of regrets. Worth every penny. With an already great library and more to come this year I'll be spending a lot of time in the virtual worlds. So I hope this, along with the the PC support, makes Sony re-focus on it so the years ahead are supported too.

Hope Nintendo does some axtual VR with the Switch 2.

In the end I miggt have to get a good gaming PC anyway xD

What a bad day for the poor people who cannot afford it, and proclaim its immediate death. My condolences!

Don't worry, you might still be right about it being a clearance of stock, and that funding from first party is still and will be absent.

There's a huge enough library for me to eventually sell this and recuperate losses. That is one of the things the poor people don't get - owning a headset is like having 200-300 dollars in the bank. But it is strapped to your face instead.

Or I might not sell because I am (too) slowly working my way through a library of titles. Although, no Astro Boy is a slap in the face, I am still sort of boycotting PlayStation. They seem to just double down on decisions I don't like.

@KundaliniRising333 Sony have handled the PSVR 2 very poorly, but in what world can it be considered a cash grab? There's no doubt it was expensive at launch, but considering the cost of the components, it was a fair price.

The problem is that it was a premium, tethered headset with almost non-existent first party support. An excellent piece of tech in itself, just without much reason to invest in it.

Reminds me of all the articles and WiiU sales increasing 300% after some game release.

It's sad to see. They butchered this thing with the price, or at least Jim did. Now they finally put a price on it to move it, and it works, only after it's likely a closeout. I guess cheap psvr2s will generate more interest in quest 4s? Raising all boats and whatnot...

This will still do serious damage to VR as a whole. Just as virtual boy did. I've loved my time with it, but, as it goes, I loved it so much it's demise has forced me to pursue Meta and PC.

Maybe with luck the sales surge will make them reconsider the market

@Ainu20 The lenses. The delayed launch. The price. That combination ruined it. It was priced more then the console (quest is subsidized but it's also the whole console) it's a different market than $1000+ kits, and it's a fresnel headset in 2023-4 sold as "premium". It's like a premium phone with a resistive touch tft screen at the same price as an iPhone.

I love it but that combination of outdated optics and form factor at a relatively high price for market really did a lot of harm. Launching right before quest 3 obliterated it.

@EfYI Owning another headset is like having money in a face bank. Owning a PSVR2 looks more like egg on our faces.

Edit: at this price it's a must buy though.

@NEStalgia I don't disagree with any of that, but that still doesn't make it a cash grab. I know it's not you who said that, but that was the gist of my post.

It's clear Sony didn't want to subsidize this like they usually do with their hardware, because they never expected to sell that much software on it. Just a poorly managed product all around, but still not without its merits.

@GamingFan4Lyf VR in the 90s is a whole different thing than now, nausea issues included. I played it back then and I've been playing it now since 2016. And even since 2016 the little nausea that still came has been SO much improved. And if you're extremely sensitive, like a friend of mine is, it will completely disappear after a session or two. I think you can safely buy in now.

@PuppetMaster There are many different types of games for it, and less than half of them require you to "wiggle yourself" to play. Most shooters are played with normal controllers, only requiring you to aim to shoot. Racing games can be played normally or with a steering wheel, only letting you turn your head in addition. Platformer like Astro Bot and Max Mustard are played normally, but the characters move "right in front of you". And 99% of the other games require slow and deliberate movements, not "wiggling"

@Gringorilla Hey, good for you if you enjoyed your expensives big goggles and i know not every VR games require moving around. But i just want to play games normally without wearing big goggle in front of my face and moving around.

@EfYI if you think you are getting 300 back on an item that costs 350 new.

Then I’ve got a tin of striped paint I can sell you.

I said this from the very beginning, the psvr2 was always to expensive in a tanked economy.

I'd of loved to have one but with work drying up and essential items becoming double the price, then it became something what was desired but could never get.

Bur it just shows hiw high the price was that as soon as the price comes down it's selling.

Maybe this could be the turn around for it getting more games, maybe not first party, PlayStation hasn't got the resources but more third party devs may bring their games over.

I'll get one in the end just for the experience of vr. We will see

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

It costs 500. I will sell it for 300 eventually. Are you upset about it?

@RBMango
You’d rather put £350 towards very slightly better resolution and performance, than get an entirely new platform with new games that is phenomenally immersive?

I can understand all the people saying it to expensive for them, but for those with the money I simply do not understand the stance that it’s better to have a slight res bump than actually open the ability to inhabit game worlds..

@NEStalgia

I will get 200-300 dollars back if I choose to sell. I am laughing that you are upset about this! My friend has bought a Rolex, he will get even more back when he sells it than what he gave. This is just the facts of commerce.

Wow, the spite and venom some people have for VR! Haha!

I totally get it, it’s not for everyone. I’m really new to it. I got mine late last year when I came into some unexpected extra cash (otherwise I’d never have been able to), and got to be honest, I’ve loved my time with it. I don’t get motion sickness, but can’t play it for too long at a time, mainly due to having something strapped to you head. But it’s such a unique and new way to play games, it’s like learning all the basics you thought were ingrained in all over again, and that’s kind of exciting to me.

It’s funny showing it to people. Some friends who I thought would love it really had a rough time… and vice versa. Two people I know actually bought one themselves after trying it.

It’ll never take over flatscreen, and I wouldn’t want it to. I certainly don’t want every game to be in VR. But wanting, or taking glee out of something to fail just because you never picked one up, especially if you’ve never tried it, just strikes me as kind of odd.

Sold mine for a reason. There's no killer app and nothing on the horizon.

So they've sold like 100 units all up now.

Shame there's almost nothing to play on it

@EfYI lol it’s no longer a 500 item.

That's still access to a limited selection of games/modes at the price of Switch OLED, but cheers for the sales boost anyway, I suppose.

Nice... In Sweden it is 620$

@PuppetMaster Eh. Your loss.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

Hahaha... You are precious. A sale is just a temporary price cut, dear.

@EfYI oh dear god. If anything you didn’t want a price cut. Keep it rare.

But if you don’t understand economics I can’t do anything about it.

I payed a hefty sum for the Horizon Call of the Mountain bundle at launch. Barely use it, but it’s still fun when I do, especially with GT7 or Kayak mirage.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

I am getting 200-300 when I sell, and you have to live with that fact, Mr. Economist.

Shall we shelve this wonderful discussion?

@Gringorilla I don't feel any loss at all for not spending $350-550 to strap a big goggle on my face and twerking around the room.

They should really offer the PC adapter for free as a goodwill gesture to early adopters who paid £500+ quid. I love my PSVR2 but Sony pretty much abandoning it after such a short time still stings.

@RagnarLothbrok Have you tried VR at all?

So it went from 2 to 20? Ok. 👍

Too late. Bought a Quest a few months back already and am pleased. This price probably would have swayed me to a PSVR2 to be honest.

It's kind of funny, with so many lessons to be learned when so many usual "voices of reason" here that will defend Sony, Sony business policies, PS superiority, etc, against any and all threats, suddenly have the same irrational disdain for PSVR as if it were to be painted green...

@fluggy Kick your early adopters is Sony 101. IDK why we keep trusting them with their track record. Let us not forget the $600 PS3 shipping with the "Sixaxis" because Sony didn't want to resolve their lawsuit with Immersion, then selling everyone the proper Dualshock 3 after the lawsuit was resolved, for full price, while bundling the $400 price cut models with the DS3. It's not new, this is normal for them. You'd think we'd learn, but, no....

@EfYI Yes, Rolex and PSVR2 are definitely comparable in demand and resale potential. That's why I have 3 Vitas and a pair of WiiUs around, it's a great emergency cash reserve.

Oh man! How awesome would that be if they decided to support it now!?

@HotGoomba I second this. I was definitely a doubter from the moments I returned both PSVR and PSVR 2 after two week trial periods (thanks anyway Sony). For reasons I can't really remember I took the plunge again with Quest 3 and I've never looked back. VR is in a good place at the moment, the variety of games was always an issue but we're seeing some incredible experiences now beyond the gimmicky stuff most people think of. The mixed reality mode is brilliant for a lot of apps like fitness and sports like boxing and table tennis, the latter of which has just incredible physics. I'll never get bored of mini golf and then you've got contemporary masterpieces like Asgards Wrath 2, a fabulous amalgamation of God of War and Breath of the Wild with a runtime to match. I did feel the effects of motion sickness at first but the accessibility options are brilliant for most titles. I'm more likely to put the headset down because I'm sweating rather than feeling nauseous and that's mostly my humid apartment. The library for Quest is excellent and even better if you've got a PC. Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR is truly wondrous. Software sales are frequent, games are good value and I think the medium is here to stay no doubt about it. Sony should have 1 made the device less expensive and 2 made it stream from PS5 rather than have that old fashioned wire running across your room. It was a smart move to eventually make it compatible with PC but the pancake lens' of Quest still give it a huge advantage in my opinion. Anyway, if you made it through this comment, never say never to VR is my humble advice as a gamer of 35 years.

@NEStalgia I guess many people see time spent developing Vr/games is taking away the time that could be spent elsewhere.

VR2 is a great bit of kit, I think had it released at 350-400 and Sony taken the hit it would have been given more leeway. But upto £1000 to get into ps vr is not cheap.

And at the same time ..
VR just isn’t taking off as most would have predicted a few years ago( when vr2 would be in development), probably a little like we are seeing some push back against AI/meta verde and all that kind of stuff. The general consumer just don’t know what they are ready for.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner They do, and while they're not totally wrong in that, I think a lot of us expected a great compromise to that would be adding VR modes to existing games. Of course, first party games in general are in short supply.

Why not have a VR mode for Concord? Two sinking ships lashed together can't sink faster than one, right? Stellar Blade VR mode...I mean, if that won't sell VR, the human race is extinct anyway. There's a guy, just one lone guy, that makes mods for PC games to convert them to VR. He's done GTA, Mafia, RDR2 (all 3 taken down by Rockstar/2K lawyers), currently Elden Ring, Watch Dogs........

GoT........

HFW......................

ONE dude in his garage can make Sony games work in VR (PC obviously). But Sony can't, while selling the $550 headset.... They really didn't need to have a bunch of studios trying to make the next Alyx, they just needed to put a little effort into taking the games they DO have and adding a VR dimension to it. They can't do that, but they can require PS5 Pro modes.

It's a shame because I do think most of the problem lies squarely on Jim. The whole future of VR on console will suffer because Jim was a bobblehead.

I admit though I'm surprised how resistant to VR the masses are. I get that it's weird looking, and I get that people are more interested in how they appear to others more than what they themselves actually want, which is a social problem of cataclysmic proportions. But the amount of people that will gleefully stick a pill down their gullet to clear acne that comes with a list of side effects that makes a Resident Evil game look cheerful, while violently rejecting putting "goggles" on their face to see a moving picture show is...shocking? Horrifying? Depressing?

Here again with another VR hot take: This is going to go back up to $550 soon and be restocked over then following months. No grand spectacular death, no mainstream acceptance, and no 1st party games. What we will get is a continued flow of 3rd party games as long as people keep buying them on Meta and Steam and PSN, or until the hardware is no longer viable. Every comments section will continue to be "I love VR," "I hate VR," and "I will never try VR."

It went down to £320 in the UK. Problem is, the games are still £60 and are just not worth it. Also, Sony seems to have given up on it completely.

I really would love to have this, GT, Resident Evil...... severe astigmatism though and woud have to order lenses on top of it.
Stupid broken eyeballs

@alasdair91 Um... no? The only one that's that expensive is Horizon (the one PSVR2-only game Sony published and it had a brief discount last month), but GT7, Resident Evils 4 and 8, and No Man's Sky have been discounted a lot and the VR modes are free. Basically everything else for it are indie/digital-only games that have never been the price of a standard retail game. A popular indie platformer called Stilt just got marked down to 1.69

@NEStalgia

You purposefully didn't understand, shame on you.

I just used Rolex as an example of something that not only retains its value, but actually (due to false scarcity) grows in value over time.

Things like the PSVR2 headset devalues over time. I probably paid like 600 dollars (just a random currency most people understand) and expect to recuperate about half.

For you, I'll sell it for 400 dollars because of the extra explanation and service. You have to pay for shipping, not included.

@NEStalgia

Your whole argument about how easy it is to convert into VR is something I have thought about as well. Kudos for writing it out in long form.

Your second point about developing games so as they are VR ready is also something we have seen Capcom do.

I think they purposely throttle what their output is to wait until the market is big enough.

@EfYI I'll counter-offer, I'll trade a WiiU for your PSVR2. I'd throw in a Virtual Boy but that actually IS worth money lol!

You may be right on them throttling output, but at their current rate, they're mostly just ensuring they never build a market before they get to having output to throttle. Closing the studios that knew what to do definitely doesn't help.... They really should have taken GT7's example throughout PS if they really wanted to make a new product pillar. Just such total lack of care around the product, like they haphazardly threw it out but didn't really intend to build success.

@16BitHero The wire isn't necessarily a bad idea. There's a definite tradeoff on the Quests, without having a real wired DP connection, where wireless (which has its own RF and router issues), and wired, both use compressed video streaming with visible artifacting. A worthwhile tradeoff for some games, and not so much for others. Additionally the video encoding requires consuming some of the GPU for the encoding, and maybe some CPU for the network steaming depending on how PS5 handles it's Wifi or NIC. And requires decent processing on the headset for decoding, which is often the bottleneck on quest, even with the XR2 chip. Not to mention streaming uses more VRAM which PS5 is already scarce of. There's definite advantages in image quality, latency, avoiding batteries, headset cost (which Sony didn't take advantage of), going with a true display port connection. Wireless is a compromise of comfort and convenience against diminished image quality, increased latency, and possible connection/stability issues, vs wired with simplicity and qualty/performance at the cost of convenience and comfort.

I don't think wired headsets are a bad decision, the best looking headsets are wired for a reason, excluding the very very expensive commercial-use oriented headsets+Apple running all stand alone. And PSVR does at least get the distinction right now of being the cheapest Display Port connected headset around even at full price, though only by technicality because with the cost of the PC adapter, it's within $50 of the Pimax.

@NEStalgia All fair points, I just like the freedom to move in roomscale apps without the concern for tripping over a cable. Saying that, Asgards Wrath 1 actually looks better than 2 due to the spec compromises of Quest 3 being standalone. I will say if you have good bandwidth then streaming Half Life Alyx for example, looks really incredible. I think as things stand VR is still an emerging technology which means compromises are made for the sake of accessible pricing. I'm nonetheless excited to see where it goes from here.

Man, this "Sony is dropping support for VR" is really freaking tiring. Why can't people have a bit of nuance? Not commenters necessarily, but journalists at the least.

Remember that the truth is usually in the middle of opposing viewpoints. So, Sony is neither fully invested in VR nor clearing out stock to abandon the platform.

They clearly want to have a foot in VR in case the medium takes off, because it could become an important avenue of growth. This spike in sales just goes to show that VR is not dead, nor is PSVR2. There's definitely interest. But don't expect massive investments from Sony, because it's still a niche market and TLOU VR will not change this simple fact overnight.

VR was always going to be a slow burn. It keeps growing little by little, but it should still take many years to become mainstream. Sony knows that, and so does Meta and Apple.

And there are people like me, who've made the switch to VR and never looked back. After 40 years of gaming, I had seen and done it all on that flat screen. PSVR2 came to the rescue, along with a dream come true in the form of GT7 on a racing rig.

@16BitHero Yeah, the obvious ideal would be a headset that has both wireless and ACTUAL DP wired (Quest wired isn't really wired, it's just a wired connection for the same compressed stream it sends wirelessly.) Sadly such a thing doesn't exist. The XR2 on Quest DOES support Displayport, but Meta disables it for some reason (either a tech limitation, or desire to keep PC from competing too much with the Meta Store.) I know Pimax is going to come out with a wireless transmitter for $300 for the Crystal (Heavy), but the problem is the Crystal plain old sucks and that's $2k for a wired/wireless. The Varjo Aero I think did it but that died a quick death (they got out of consumer and went to multi-thousand dollar commercial kits.)

The upcoming Crystal Super seems impressive - it gets very close to zero-screen door for the human eye very wide FOV, eye tracking, seems great on paper. But with interchangeable optical engines and Pixmax's history of early adopter stuff, it's a little iffy, and the other problem is what do you DRIVE that kind of resolution with? Nvidia won't have anything like that for quite some years, and in the mean-time do you get a worse experience having to dial all the gfx down and fps down just to hit the right supersampling targets? It seems excellent but also ahead of its time in terms of something to power it.

$350 is a steal to try VR. The haptic feedback in the controllers, the headset vibrations, and the eye tracking separates it from the pack. It just needs more games that takes advantage of the hardware.

People forget the original PSVR cost more than the PS4, launching for $400 with no Move controllers and $450 with. VR is a very niche market and primarily supported by indie developers. I don't see that changing in the future.

I'll hold off until it can do what the VR did in The Lawnmower Man Director's Cut, of course

unless i see any official announcement, psvr2 is not dead

also, we need to put more nuances in this, of course sony don’t leave the vr market, it’s valuable but they’re not stable enough to invest in it, the discount and increases in sales are proof of that, not to mention it’s bias because meta quest 2 and 3 are less expensive and standalone to boot, so of course people who generally go for the more cheaper option

not defending anyone or a shill, just putting down some common sense

Also, to be fair, vr is a secondary for sony anyway.