Sony launched PlayStation VR 2 in early 2023, bringing with it relatively few exclusives to go alongside a good number of updated games previously launched on other headsets. Now the company has given us a glimpse into the top 10 PSVR 2 games sold across North America, Europe and Japan.
Here’s the end-of-year rankings for 2023:
| Rank | US/Canada | EU | Japan |
| 1 | Pavlov | Pavlov |
Kayak VR: Mirage
|
| 2 | Beat Saber | Kayak VR: Mirage | Beat Saber |
| 3 | Kayak VR: Mirage | Beat Saber |
Horizon Call of the Mountain
|
| 4 | Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge | The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR |
The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR
|
| 5 | Horizon Call of the Mountain | The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution |
DYSCHRONIA: Chronos Alternate
|
| 6 | Job Simulator | Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge |
オノゴロ物語 ~The Tale of Onogoro~
|
| 7 | The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution | Job Simulator |
Crossfire: Sierra Squad
|
| 8 | The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR | Horizon Call of the Mountain | Firewall Ultra |
| 9 | Swordsman VR | Moss: Book II |
After the Fall – Complete Edition
|
| 10 | Pistol Whip | Swordsman VR | Drums Rock |
Notably, of the top 10 across the US and Canada, four were available on the original PSVR: Beat Saber, Pistol Whip, Job Simulator, Swordsman VR. This initially suggests a good uptick in new content breaking through, making way for new faces in comparison to last year’s PSVR chart, which reflected an expected ossification of popular games taking top spots in the headset’s seventh year of existence.
However, of those six “new” games to break onto the PSVR 2 year-end chart, only two were truly new to VR. Pavlov, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution, Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge, and Kayak VR: Mirage had all been previously released on Quest and SteamVR headsets, leaving only the Sony-funded launch day exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain and The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR from Supermassive Games as completely fresh entries.
This underscores the ongoing issue of Sony ostensibly not throwing its full weight behind PSVR 2—certainly not to the extent that Meta is supporting content for its Quest platform, which now includes Quest 2, Quest Pro, and the newly released Quest 3 headset. To boot, Quest sales volumes over the holiday season across Amazon outsold PSVR 2 by a shockingly large margin, which is a tough pill to swallow considering Sony has sold 50 million PlayStation 5 consoles—a fairly large adressable market of gamers the company could more aggressively look to convert.
We’re hopeful for 2024, even if Sony hasn’t intimated any upcoming exclusives, which—love it or hate it—is still one of the most important ways to attract and anchor users to new VR platforms.