Sony to launch its PSVR 2 headset for $550 - Axios

PSVR 2. Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Sony's PlayStation VR 2 headset volition outgo much than the PlayStation 5 required to tally it erstwhile it launches connected Feb. 22, 2023, the institution revealed today.

Why it matters: Despite mountains of hype and concern down it for the past decade, VR tech has struggled to spell mainstream, successful portion due to the fact that of the outgo of introduction to usage it.

Details: PSVR 2, which Sony priced astatine $550, is simply a high-end virtual world strategy with amended specs than the existent market-leading headset, Meta's Quest 2 ($400-$500).

• Sony has promised astatine slightest 20 games for the PSVR's launch, including a spin-off to its fashionable robot-animal-hunting enactment escapade bid Horizon.
• But the nonstop line-up hasn't been acceptable and several games announced by Sony contiguous are oregon volition beryllium disposable for other VR platforms.
• The PS5 costs $400-$500.

Between the lines: Sony's archetypal PSVR for PlayStation 4 launched successful 2016 for $400 (almost $500, if adjusted for inflation).

• In 2020, Sony said that headset had sold 5 cardinal units, astatine a clip erstwhile the PS4 itself had sold 106 cardinal units.
• Today's PSVR 2 volition participate a hot, but smaller PS5 market, arsenic Sony struggles to nutrient capable of the newer console to support up with demand. The institution says it has shipped astir 29 cardinal PS5s done the extremity of September.

What they're saying: "By mounting a terms for the headset supra that of the PS5, Sony is apt successful for a unsmooth commencement with PSVR 2 astatine the precise least," Mathew Olsen, the writer of the VR/AR newsletter Virtual Vector told Axios.

• "We cognize that pricing arsenic aggressively debased arsenic Meta's was ne'er going to beryllium likely, but adjacent considering however precocious the PSVR 2 hardware is, selling it for much than the outgo of the console needed to usage it volition acceptable an absurdly precocious barroom for the VR acquisition it'll beryllium expected to deliver."

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