Who could have foreseen that a $550 peripheral stuck to a $500 console, with no backwards compatibility and bad first party support wouldn’t sell well?
Sony Reportedly Pauses PlayStation VR2 Production to Clear Backlog of Unsold Units
Submitted 8 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Zehzin@lemmy.world 8 months ago
skozzii@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Don’t forget their history of just dropping products, or stopping support.
Atleast if it was usable on PC people would be willing to buy it as they know development isn’t going to just stop one day and they have an expensive brick.
helloharu@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s was the lack of backwards compatibility that killed it for me. I’d had niggling considerations of PSVR1 for some time, then PSVR2 was announced and I was all ready to hand over my money. Until it became clear there was no backward compatibility. So I own neither.
Zehzin@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Maybe one day PS4+PSVR emulation will viable, and when that happens you should play Astrobot. It’s my favorite VR game and possibly the best platformer of last gen.
szczuroarturo@programming.dev 8 months ago
Yup. It was similar case to me. Especialy since i had the ocasion to play ps vr 1 and it was dope even if motion controls were a litle janky. And then ps vr2 came and all my hopes and dream were crushed. Honestly until Nintendo decides to ship full vr only console/hybrid i dont expect anyone to provide apropriate support to vr. For all their faults they do support their consoles with games to the death.
DustyNipples@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The lack of an AstroBot game is unforgivable, or Blood and Truth for that matter.
I can’t justify a PS5 never mind another €500 odd for the headset.
Got a Quest 3 and it’s absolutely brilliant.
HerrVorragend@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Well, who could have seen it coming?
Just about anybody, would be my guess.
I bought the PSVR1 at launch back in 2016, excited to finally BE in a virtual world. And for some games, I was absolutely blown away by the immersion. Skyrim, Dirt and RE were awesome in VR. Especially Skyrim was everything I was looking for.
I waited and hoped for more true games but all that kept coming was mostly short ‘experiences’ that felt like early 2000s shovelware, just in VR.
The best VR games were not Sony games but mostly third party games remade for VR.
When the PSVR2 came out, I decided to wait and see if Sony had learned their lessons and had at least many deals with third party studios to remake existing games in VR.
For now, it does not look that way, and a few exclusive tech demo games and some years-old PC ported games just do not justify buying a PSVR2.
mrfriki@lemmy.world 8 months ago
People play software, not hardware. No enough quality softwares no sales, period. If we are talking about a niche product this is even more relevant.
Davel23@fedia.io 8 months ago
This has been the case with console addons all the way back to R.O.B. the Robot, if not earlier. People won't buy an addon if there are no games for it. Companies won't make games for an addon if no one buys it. Catch-22.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
that’s why the manufacturer needs to lead the way with a killer app.
FryHyde@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
But… R.O.B. wasn’t an add-on. It was a way to market the NES as a toy rather than a console, in the wake of the video games crash of 1983-85. Was just a way to sideload NES systems into the houses of wary consumers.
Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
You either need the company to commit to making software for it even when hardware sales are lacking (Wii U is a decent example, had really good Nintendo made games despite bad sales), or be a company with such a dedicated fan base that they’ll buy your product regardless of if the software support is there or not (Apple for example).
skozzii@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Sony building walls around its ecosystem is going to be its downfall. If they dropped exclusives and went full on PC it could save them, but anything short of that is going to be bad for them.
Last gen about half of my friends didn’t get the new playstation after owning the PS4.
Typically we have all had consoles and PC’s, but they have finally decided to drop the sony ecosystem. Some of them even bought series-s box with gamepass for their kids… I mean even Microsoft allows crossplay as much as possible, which Sony is reluctant to do.
The other half of my friends with playstation 5’s have said that they are not going forward with the PS6.
Sony is on a death spiral as far as the playstation brand goes. As players switch away, it’s going to speed up the decline as the people left will leave the platform to play with others.
Open up PSVR and the exclusives and PlayStation can thrive again and grow, not decline.
Itsamelemmy@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
I agree that the headset needs to work on pc. That’s what has kept me from buying one and sticking with the rift s currently. But the ps5 game wise is so much better than the Xbox. There’s no reason to buy an Xbox if you have a pc. Sony has quite a few excellent exclusives. They’re starting to come to pc as well which is nice, but they’re still on console first and not everything makes the jump to pc.
any1th3r3@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
NB: Careful, that reporter has apparently been wrong on a number of accounts regarding Sony’s PlayStation business in the past, eg:
- Sony: "We have not changed the production number for PlayStation 5"
- Sony: “We have not cut PSVR 2 production numbers”
I wouldn’t take this article too seriously / as gospel (although PSVR2 has probably not been selling like hot cakes).
LordTE7R1S@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
I was very much eager to buy one until I saw its price tag
Peffse@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’d love to see the process they used when they decided to throw away backward compatibility with PSVR1 software. Surely at least one person on the team said it was a bad idea.
I thought out of all the VR hardware manufactures out there… Sony would be the one who had the best chance to get it right. They’ve got a static SKU of hardware for all software devs to target. They’ve got multiple organizations in every known type of electronic device. Yet here we are on round two of them flubbing the potential.
Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I understand the difficulties, but if they did something to make sure it was backwards compatible, I would consider getting it. If they could get Alyx, I would be buying one now.
No Man’s Sky is pretty much the only reason why I want to try it. I’m pretty happy with my PSVR1 otherwise.
Eggyhead@kbin.run 8 months ago
I really want a PSVR 2, but I just don’t trust the library will be there to justify it. I might get a quest because I can do more with it than just game.
boredtortoise@lemm.ee 8 months ago
The Resident Evils, Pavlov, Gran Turismo are really good. Some more great games and a lower price on the device should increase interest?
FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Maybe lower the prices, like half off or something.
Grass@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
It would sell easy if they didn’t use some weird hardware only on a select few PC graphics cards. Even if PC support was enabled by modders it would still sell but the hardware requirements are simply too much of a hindrance
maxprime@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
If they finish working on PC support then they’ll have no problem clearing their stock.
stardust@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Yep, would get this over the meta headsets that I have stayed away from if it got full PC support. Until then just going to wait to see if Valve releases anything new.