Sony Expects Early PSVR Sales to Reach “Many Hundreds of Thousands”

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Oct 15, 2016

Sony is setting high near term sales figure expectations for PlayStation VR’s rollout.

Speaking with CNBC earlier this week, Jim Ryan, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, spoke to the company’s confidence in early traction of the PSVR headset.

“We know from the data we have from pre-orders that the interest we have is significant,” Ryan said during a TV interview, further saying that PlayStation VR sales will be in the “many hundreds of thousands” as the headset rolls out. “We think to be able to offer PlayStation VR… [at $399 dollars] it’s extremely affordable and we think the takeup is going to be massive,” he said.

Hints of strong demand for PlayStation VR came earlier this year when major US game retailer GameStop said the headset was sold out “literally in five minutes,” and called it the “quickest sellout in GameStop’s history.” Amazon’s own pre-order allocations also sold-out within minutes of going live, while pre-order stock from major brick and mortar retailers like Target and Walmart lasted just a day or two.

playstation-vr-review-unboxing-1

PSVR launched earlier this week on the 13th after more than two years in development. The ‘Core Headset’ package (which excludes the required camera and optional PlayStation Move controllers) runs $400, while the ‘Launch Bundle ‘ package (including camera and controllers) goes for $500. The headset hit shelves with around 30 launch titles, and the company says there will be 50 by the 2016 holiday. According to CNBC, Sony says there are some 160 PlayStation VR games currently in development.

PlayStation VR Accessories Hit Major Online Retailers

One reason for PlayStation VR’s strong demand is likely price. PSVR is cheaper than the leading PC VR headsets, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, by $100 and $300 respectively (for the Launch Bundle, with the Core Headset package even less). There’s also Sony’s impressive install base to consider; with some 40 million PlayStation 4 systems in homes around the world, the company already has a large inbuilt audience with which to market their VR headset. And for newcomers to VR, the ‘all-in’ cost of PlayStation VR remains cheaper too, with the PlayStation 4 system needed to power the experience now under $300 compared to a significantly more expensive gaming PC needed to run the Rift or Vive.

PlayStation VR Review: Console VR Has Arrived

Early reviews of PlayStation VR have praised the headset’s design and capability (despite being powered by three year old console hardware), but have pointed out the system’s comparatively poor tracking precision.

Now that the ‘big three’ first generation consumer VR headsets have hit the market, we expect to see sales and bundles heading into the holidays as they begin battling for consumer traction.

Me

As a Vive user, I’m so glad the PSVR does this good ! VR all the way !
- Rey Barrera
  
  I agree. This might be an opportunity for fanboyism to disappear. I have the PSVR but Vive and Oculus are definitely on my radar. It was such a great experience playing Eve online that I just hope the tech is here to stay.
  - Steve Chambers
    
    If you’ve got the money then just get the PSVR & Vive if you’ve got the Vive then the Oculus becomes a redundant headset as it’s just a cheaper PCVR option (unless you have an xbox then Oculus does have a possible use).
- Steve Chambers
  
  Agreed, we need at least one of the big 3 do be a big hit so game support becomes more common, it doesn’t matter which headset really but it’s good that it’s Sony because they are going all in & are forcing their in house developers to make games for it & squeezing the balls of it’s commonly used devs to get VR support for their games. Good news for Vive & Oculus on RE7 VR too as Sony are only making the VR support a timed exclusive so both other headsets will get to play RE7VR as well, it’s good to see Sony are being sensible & not monopolising the games like Oculus briefly tried to do.
- RandomTiger
  
  As a Vive user I hope PSVR pushes a greater focus on comfort.
VRgameDevGirl

I have already read that lots of people got sick after using it. I tried it and can say it caused VR sickness worse than rift. (vive does not cause VR sickness for me) it could be because the games don’t run at a “real” 90 fps along with the locomotion. I noticed a sort of motion blur when i played it to. Plus it seemed “flat” like it was missing the depth. Plus, the resolution seemed worse than DK2. Anyone else notice this??
- Get Schwifty!
  
  Not surprising about the VR sickness if its not running at real 90 FPS… if that is the outcome then it means the Oculus attempt at a software solution for slower systems may result in the same issues (see I don’t just say nice things about Oculus!). I say “may” because Oculus always seems preoccupied with it so I am assuming their solution has that issue in mind. It’s interesting you have it with the Rift but not the Vive, I wonder if for some folks it has something to do with peripheral vision processing in the brain and motion awareness and slight difference in optics is enough to trigger?
  
  The lack of depth, was that possibly that particular content? Not everything gets the stereoscopic effect, that’s a function of the program supporting VR (or so I thought) so maybe its the demo(s) you looked at you think?
  
  Given all the glowing reports I still expect it visually to fall above the Gear and lower than the Rift/Vive HMDs, but now I’m concerned if the real 90 FPS thing is an issue. All we need are a bunch of kids hurling in front of their televisions on Christmas day LOL to throw VR back into the dark ages.
  
  EDIT: Whats interesting is you’re a dev…. you are in VR more than anyone else on here I suspect than other devs, which means you are probably more “VR-sickness” resistant than most people : /
  - VRgameDevGirl
    
    I played the underwater with a shark experience. It was from the worlds game. Also played eve valkyrie. Still had less depth it seemed. And the reason vive doesn’t cause VR Sickness is because of the room scale and movement. As long as you move with your body or teleport, you can’t get sick. Rift still uses a gamepad so using it to move will cause VR Sickness. When touch comes out that will help alot. Im actually not IN VR as much as you think. I am desiging and testing my game, I do alot of “Putting it on, test something, take it off” i really don’t Play much. To busy building. Lol. And i totally agree about how PSVR could give the wrong impression on VR. People need to know that PC VR gaming is the way to go.
    - DiGiCT Ltd
      
      The less depth can be explained as they use
      more skyboxes as backgrounf instead of 3 renders, the same goes up for Mobile VR it is a graphic card limit on preformance.
      Another cheating tricl is to replace far away meshed with 2d texture replacements to get more performance.
      This can make the near distance object higher poly as the ones further away.
      
      Dont compare PSVR with a vive or even a rift as it is more betwen those and a mobile VR, and tricks need to be applied to get higher FPS
      - Walter Sharrow
        
        There is something psychological about the lack of clarity over distance in VR.
        
        When an object is close, you’re mind doesn’t strain your eyes to look at it too closely. It has enough detail for it’s size on-screen, so your brain maps that information and moves on. But when you are looking far ahead, you’re mind hammers your eyes for as much detail as possible. Since this is VR, all your eyes can really focus on are the individual pixels. There’s nothing to “Zoom In” on. Unable to get the information it needs, your brain relentlessly hits up those pixels, making you VERY aware that there’s nothing there to really see.
        
        I noticed this alot in Scavenger’s Odyssey, since you are often traveling to some point in the distance. My alien hands were just as grainy as the twisted ship wreckage in the distance, but since I didn’t stare to intensely at my hands, so I never noticed their pixelation.
        
        I think, at least for now, developers should focus on close-in experiences, and avoid the far away horizon. It’ll make pixelation MUCH less noticeable.
      - DiGiCT Ltd
        
        We use currently a fog in our map on far distance, this makes it more comfort to look at as the far away is more for decoration rather then gameplay.
        It is true a computer just renders everything in high detail if you dont setup a lod system, however the eyetrack tech will be the key to solve this issue but that might be in the next gen HMD.
      - Get Schwifty!
        
        That is a very interesting breakdown and explains a lot of what I have noticed playing, sometimes staring “into space” as my eyes pan around as if searching for detail that just isn’t there (but the wiring in the brain expects it).
    - DiGiCT Ltd
      
      PC VR is simply the high end atm as the hardware to render is the PC itself, all the HMD in general you could define as being a screen on your face in a simple way of speaking.
      Upgrading your PC in future using the old HMD will still let you have better visions due to being able to boost MSAA on higher levels with keeping framerates high.
      If you would double the pixelf per screen it also means your VGA needs to render double the ammount of pixels, thats why you see different approaches how VR looks at the best in a certain platform.
      The differnces are mostly due to hardware limitations and devices like a phone and PS4 are lower on performance as a high end PC.
      I can agree PC looks the best, but i cant say it will also have the best VR games, as that is another topic on it own.
- Al
  
  I have a DK2 and the PSVR and can say that you are completely wrong here. The PSVR is years ahead in clarity, comfort and performance over the DK2.
  
  I’ve also seen no FPS “drop” in any of the games and demos tried. Yes, it has much more stylized and simpler graphics but that can be (and is) an asset in reaching the required performance and is a non issue.
  
  So, I call your entire post FUD.
  - VRgameDevGirl
    
    When I tried the PSVR it looked blurry, and very low res. I felt like DK2 just had a better display. I feel like PSVR is like going back to standard definition VS HD like Oculus and Vive. Right when I put it on I got this tickle in my tummy from the odd motion blur type thing when you look around. (even very slowly) It wasn’t butter smooth like the oculus and vive.
    I love all VR and i’m not just ripping on it. I was looking forward to PSVR and was planning on getting one, but after trying it, i was so disappointed. I guess I would have to try it again maybe?? I can say for sure that the ergonomics and comfort are the best yet though. I can’t wait till they all decided to go the hanging style route.
    
    Maybe when the new PS4 comes out that supports 4K, the headset will be better.
- Me
  
  VR sickness is mainly due to the games/experiences themselves, not really the tech behind.
  
  The only way the hardware would cause more sickness would be due to lower than 90 fps even with all the reprojection/atw/whatever enabled, and I don’t believe Sony would allow that. So my guess is probably the poor game design.
  
  Regarding depth, that’s probably due to the smaller field of view. Resolution should be a bit lower, again games are less gpu-heavy, so high aliasing, but the screen door effect should be less noticeable.
  
  Disclaimer: I haven’t used it myself, only a friend of mine, but this sums up the most testimonies I’ve seen.
  - Steve Chambers
    
    Yeah, a good example of that is by comparing the HatsuneVR demo & the Kitchen demo (that’s some scary shit btw) as Kitchen is very high graphics they had to skimp on the rendering resolution so aliasing is really bad there but in HatsuneVR it really shows off just how good the image quality can be. The PS4 pro should make most games hit an image clarity close to that of HatsuneVR. Kitchen is still good on the standard PS4 it’s just obvious that it’s not really powerful enough to make it shine.
- Kardes21
  
  What did you play??
- Kardes21
  
  No motion sickness for me and 10 others in my friends and family.
MadBlax

Was at best buy on Thursday, and they had at least 20 of them stacked up behind the counter, and the guy said they had lots of them, so definitely not sod out in Canada.
Walter Sharrow

I was at Best Buy at 9PM on Wednesday for the “After Hours” PSVR launch. There were 4 of us in line for 22 bundle sets. One guy hadn’t even tried VR before, in any format. He just bought everything new for the PS4.

By comparison, during the Wii U launch, there were at least 3 dozen people in line at Best Buy, some of whom had to wait another week. The same lines were at Walmart and Target, with Gamestop telling people they wouldn’t have any more for 2 months! There is no shortage of PSVR units.

I REALLY love VR, and PSVR has been great! The PSVR experiences I’ve played over the last few days have been some of the best stuff I’ve EVER played to date! The hardware is solid, the content is Triple-A, and the tracking is serviceable. But I don’t know if most people really care about VR.

I love VR. I’m a VR fanatic. I fear that myself, and the other people here, are a rather small niche community. We funded Oculus on Kickstarter. We bought their development kits. *WE* buy up all of the pre-orders. But the vast majority of people don’t know about VR, and some people who have tried it didn’t like it and prefer 2D gaming. 2D Gaming is simply, cheap, and easy to do. VR keeps making me sweat! It’s not a “Chill out” kind of experience. It’s an amazing and intense trip for people that want more.

There’s about half a million rabid VR fans in the United States, right now. Across the globe, maybe a 4 ot 5 million. That number isn’t growing very fast. I fear this VR movement might crash due to people expecting too much from it, too quickly. It’s going to take time to grow. It’s also possible it might never be as popular as 2D gaming.
- Get Schwifty!
  
  I think it will take off- I honestly think the biggest issue there hasn’t been nearly enough demo units out there long enough and I still think most people have never heard of it. Give it time, it is going to be a strange turn this go round for adoption as it seems industry is actually seeing the potential first.
  - David Herrington
    
    Yeah I think this is true. I think the number of people who had even heard of ANY VR offering was like 28% of the population with Oculus and Vive being some even crazier low number.
    
    Time is what is needed for maturity. I also think that we, the rabid fans, can be the largest enemy to VR as we expect so much and lose perspective of what meager beginnings we came from.
    - Get Schwifty!
      
      Whats strange to me is I have seen a _few_ ads for VR products, but not many and I can’t say any have been great. I suspect that FB/Oculus, not sure about Vive, will at a key point do some kind of media blitz once they feel the generation 1 questions are resolved and they have a solution that is fairly refined. Could be six months, a year maybe two, I would think CV3 worst case, but they are a social media company, they have their own built in apparatus to reach as someone pointed out to 1 in 5 people on the planet.
      
      The other possibility is when Apple gets it’s AR/VR products going (undoubtedly they will) then they may also play a large part in getting people’s attention. I think they are much more tuned to AR than VR, at least at first if I recall several comments made by Apple.
      - Kardes21
        
        Big games are coming and unique experiences. Resident evil 7 will push units.
- Al
  
  Sneaker net here is the best way to convey (and sell) the PSVR. Until someone tries an HMD, they have no experience to grasp the tech (and some have a hard time just grasping the concept).
  
  However, once they go to a friend that has the kit and try it, chances are that they will also very much want it.
  
  In short, expect the demand to explode in a fairly short order.
  - Steve Chambers
    
    that’s what every reviewer has been saying since launch “if there is a store demo or you have a friend that has it just go & try it for yourself” It’s rare to see a hardware launch this positive. I think the last one that went this well was the 360 in US/EU or the Wii in Japan.
- David Herrington
  
  I agree 100% about what you said. “We” are the people who are buying up all the VR. We are the rabid fans drinking the koolaid.
  
  But I will say one thing. Traditional 2-D gaming IS predictable, and it has also gotten stagnant. Kids want new cool things… if they can afford it. VR is new and amazing, and I think there is still a good chance for VR if enough people try it and we can get enough great content.
  - Steve Chambers
    
    Its not for kids. not being as ass either it just literally doesn’t work for kids as the headset eye separation isn’t adjustable, it’s designed to fit the range of later teen & adult eye separation range. It even says on the box & in game warnings that children shouldn’t use it.
    - David Herrington
      
      When I say kids, I meant those who are young enough to be a kid but old enough to possibly afford it. 15-21 years old. Age gives you perspective on those young-uns ;)
  - Kardes21
    
    Exactly. I think devs will see high adoption for software they make. Big experiences like Mass Effect built ground up for VR maybe a ways off, but 5-7 hour experiences at 59.99 will sell well to the early adopters and that will bleed into bigger and better experiences.
- Steve Chambers
  
  4-5 million isn’t a solid install base? developers would argue with you there.
  Also it’s a no brainer that there wouldn’t be lines in the US for PSVR launch, it’s been common knowledge that the pre orders have been sold out for over a month & most retailers send items by courier at that price. In Japan & parts of Europe however its another story, just look up the news reports from Japan on launch day, stores with lines as long as 100 meters. Here in the UK they are all sold out until late November’s restock so people are bidding for them on ebay & they are all going for as much as or more than a Vive. I think this is going to make VR mainstream, maybe not in the US but in Europe & Japan/Asia its blowing up, those markets combined spend more then the US on games by more than 3-1 so US success doesn’t matter.
- Kardes21
  
  It won’t die off. The Wii was like $200 new. I’ve demoed VR to many people and they all want in, but find the cost of entry a little high (none of them have ps4). Also, as a dev, making a game with VR in mind will surely prove profitable if the market gobbles whatever you make. Finally, PSVR is high quality despite the price, and will eventually cost peanuts for people to try in 3 years when $500 will get you a ps4, headset and a few games.
Steve Chambers

If anyone is having tracking issues then don’t assume it’s the headsets fault, mine is tracking perfectly now, just remember that it uses light to track so don’t have any bright lights on in the room & don’t have a window behind you, I also set my camera back to 6.5 feet & now it follows the headset flawlessly & even the move controllers are close in precision to the vive’s tracking (although it gets a little choppier when you start reaching out 5+ feet from your seated position.)
Steve Chambers

It was the same story back in the NES days, mass market wasn’t used to staring at a constantly moving screen so that made people sick, within a couple of months those stories completely died out though as people got used to the new experience, VR will be the same.
me

As a previous owner of a DK1, DK2, Gear VR and CV1 – the PSVR is soooooo comfortable to wear – long gone are the sweaty racoon eyes, fogging lenses that the rift offered. I initially had drifting issues with PSVR and was ready to return as a faulty unit, however after resetting the camera directly in front of me at 6feet I have no issues what so ever – it was simply USER ERROR. Yes the image may not be as clear as the rift, however it really has to do with the content that is offered. I ended up selling off my rift as it was just not getting used. A few months later, looking back on the store there is really no offerings that make me wish I had not sold it off. I have already spend more time with my PSVR and cant get enough. Batman VR while a short experience, has been one of the best I have had in the VR world. I really cant stress enough how comfortable the PSVR is to wear and the gameplay/experiences are amazing! The move controllers work fine, with the exception of turning 180 degrees to the camera – however has not been an issue for me yet… THANK YOU SONY!!!
- Dunnlang
  
  There are drift issues in applications which do not use the camera though. It’s not all user error.
  
  I still love the PSVR. It’s a lot of fun and very comfortable.
  - me
    
    I find that the application drift is so minimal and easily corrected with holding the options button.
Roger Stephen Roth

Finally Virtual Reality is becoming mainstream and Sony did it! They finally understood how to create a market for the VR technology by popularizing it with the video game market. I just feel so disappointed with the Nintendo Switch or NX which came out with a tablet and handheld. I was hoping Nintendo would do something amazing to challenge Sony and Microsoft but from the looks of it that is not going to happen. VR gaming was going to be the next great big thing and now finally after many years it has happened. I am very excited as a video game fan.