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[Sethbacca]

No, it's a very different case: Sony tried to compete against Nintendo in a consolidaded market where Nintendo had almost the monopoly until the PSP: the portable consoles. PSP did a great job, but as you mention the Vita game budgets were almost PS3 level budgets and with the very limited audience they had wasn't profitable to make AA or AAA games for it, so they did stop supporting it and moved away to focus their efforts on home consoles (something their home consoles also needed) and gave Nintendo the whole portable consoles market.

Modern VR is a very different case: it's an emerging market and as in many areas (like game subs and cloud gaming) Sony innovated and pioneered in console VR, where they have the whole market. Their numbers differ but all analyst agree that VR market will grow a lot in the next 7 years or so, becoming over 3-4x bigger than its current size. A few random examples:

As when Sony did invest in game subs back in 2010 and in cloud gaming in 2013 (before than Nintendo and MS), they invested in console VR because it has a huge growth potential for the long term and they think it's better to join the market early to lead it since the start and secure patents, an extensive library and fanbase to be better positioned in the future once the market matures. And well, in addition to this to use it as another unique selling point of their main product: the console.

As the hardware gets smaller and less intrusive the space is going to explode. The trillion dollar corporations in the space may not be killing it at the moment but I think a lot of what's going on now is ground work for where the space will be in a decade.

 

[R6Rider]

The naysayers are ignorant imo. I feel privileged to be a psvr2 owner so far. Hopefully they go the hybrid route like the RE series and put vr modes in many 1st party games (TLoU pt1 and pt2). Can’t wait to see what they’re working on.

PSVR2 has been the most fun I've with games in a long time. Would I like more first party titles? Of course, but the library of other fantastic games is too often ignored or discounted.

Not to mention how amazing the Sense controllers are with haptics and adaptive triggers.

 

[yurinka]

Yeah. VR hardware is niche atm but software sales are the life blood of any gaming market and I hear software attach rate is quite a lot higher than consoles.

I don’t think it’s remotely possible for this market to die at this point.

Outside Quest 2 VR is a very expensive toy, meaning VR owners pretty likely spend on games more than the average player. So makes sense that the attach rate would be higher than in consoles.

 

[CamHostage]

Sony's entire PS5 run has been baffling, with a great start but then some huge dry spells and inscrutable moves. Shipping PSVR2 in February as almost a soft-launch (with a full-scale re-launch campaign never to follow) and only a tiny bit of internally-produced titles announced much less released (we've got two games and one conversion from Sony at this point, correct?), I just don't get what the plan was?

It's fine hardware for those who could/can afford it, and the third-party software library isn't bad. (As a Vita fan, I've known how it is to live without much Sony support, though they at least had a slew of titles early and put some additional titles on the board to look forward to for those first 3 years.) If you're enjoying GT7 VR or some of the quietly enjoyable indies, it's better to have the hardware now than to have waited until Oct/Nov for more marketing muscle when it would have been the same games being played then or now. Still, it's still strange to me that they squeezed this out to market with seemingly no gameplan going forward. I for whatever reason looked at the small quantity of announced Sony or brand-name games in the February launch as a sign that they were saving up some titles for Christmas, but at this point it's clear that wasn't the case.

 

[THE DUCK]

1st party means published by the platform maker, in this case PS Studios. That includes 2nd party games, which are the 1st party games developed by studios not owned by them (like Bloodborne or Death Stranding).

In think you meant games internally developed by PS Studios. So not counting 2nd party games and not counting Bungie.


In the first few months they released Horizon CoM, GT7 PSVR2 and Firewall Ultra plus moneyhatted games like RE Village, RE4 Remake plus, and including also signed other 3rd party games to get a bigger year 1 lineup than PSVR1 (and maybe any other headsets) including most of the biggest VR games like Beat Saber, Moss 2, No Man's Sky and so on.

Pretty likely they made a way bigger effort for their full year 1 catalog than any other VR headset

I'm not saying the launch lineup was bad, but like any device that relies on software to keep it relevant, Sony has to show continued support. The psvr 1 support doesn't exactly inspire confidence to begin with. So between that and cost, and lack of appeal in general of vr (not sony's fault) it's an uphill battle.

 

[Justin9mm]

PSVR2 has been the most fun I've with games in a long time. Would I like more first party titles? Of course, but the library of other fantastic games is too often ignored or discounted.

Not to mention how amazing the Sense controllers are with haptics and adaptive triggers.

Can you mention what must play games you think one should have on PSVR2? I haven't bought many.

For context, I own GT7 & RE Village which are good. I just started Saints and Sinners which I'm enjoying. Played a few demos, Horizon I'm waiting for price drop, the Star Wars one also probably waiting on discount but not sure if worth it even though I didn't mind the demo. I didn't fancy C-Smash VRS. I didn't like Hubris demo all that much either. I'm wanting Switchback VR but too expensive at the moment. I'm really interested in Propagation Paradise Hotel, that seems right up my alley. I own After The Fall which I also haven't played yet. I'm more into single player shooters. Sounds like you played a lot so wanted your opinion on any sleeper hits?

 

[DinoD]

Sony 2024 ."What's the PSVR2?"

 

[Tg89]

hopefully never, just cut the losses on VR, it ain't it.

 

[yurinka]

Sony's entire PS5 run has been baffling, with a great start but then some huge dry spells and inscrutable moves. Shipping PSVR2 in February as almost a soft-launch (with a full-scale re-launch campaign never to follow) and only a tiny bit of internally-produced titles announced much less released (we've got two games and one conversion from Sony at this point, correct?), I just don't get what the plan was?

They planned to invest in bigger IPs than in PSVR1 like Horizon, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, Tetris, No Man's Sky or Beat Saber for the first year, and also to have a larger lineup for the first year than PSVR1. Their plan was to have higher sales in the PSVR2 launch window than in PSVR1 and they achieved it.

Sony recently released Firewall Ultra and have a Ghostbusters game planned to be released October 26th.

 

[CamHostage]

They planned to invest in bigger IPs than in PSVR1 like Horizon, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, Tetris, No Man's Sky or Beat Saber for the first year, and also to have a larger lineup for the first year than PSVR1. Their plan was to have higher sales in the PSVR2 launch window than in PSVR1 and they achieved it.

Swell.

...It's hard for me to consider there to be much of a "plan" if there's one launch title, one launch expansion mode, and then some handshake deals to get a single name-brand publisher to add a VR expansion mode into a game plus some PSVR1 re-ports (in absence of there being any backwards-compatibility) and a slew of PCVR and Quest VR port-overs. (And particularly so a "plan" that continues through its first holiday season with no new big moves.) As "plans" go for product launch and support, this is a pretty hands-off plan.

They have a larger lineup for the first year than PSVR1 because there are more VR games out there to port or bring onto the platform, plus it's more compatible with modern VR play features and it runs on hardware much less fussy/underpowered to get running on.

That larger line-up hasn't been coming from any of the mainline publishers (albeit with the miserable state of publishing in this era, precious little seems to be coming through the halls of mainline publishers on any platform), whereas PSVR1 in its launch holiday window had at least toe-dip titles from Warner Bros, EA, SEGA, 2K, Square Enix Europe, and Ubisoft. (And not only are they not dipping toes, they're pulling lines out of the water; EA has two new games with VR modes in its PC releases but no PSVR2 integration/plans, for whatever frustrating and confounding reasons are going on there.)

And that larger line-up is not coming from Sony as a publisher itself yet either, whereas PSVR1 just in its first Christmas had Playroom VR, PlayStation VR Worlds, Rigs, DriveClub VR, Until Dawn Rush of Blood, and a mode for Bound. Sony launched 8 months ago with two home-grown games (I'll count GT7's VR features, it's pretty awesome) and has already ended its efforts in PSVR2's inaugural year by releasing just one more in August.

Times have changed, no hardware gets support like the old days, but I don't see how even PSVR2 superfans can say they weren't hoping for more by now. That's how this thread started. I'm not saying the library can't be enjoyed by VR fans, but for PlayStation fans wanting PlayStation games, Sony has not done as much to support its own VR platform as it did last time, and for gamers looking for brands they recognize, those names aren't here this time either. Batman and Star Wars Battlefront Xwing Mission and Star Trek: Bridge Crew and EVE may not have been the best or deepest VR experiences ever made, but they at least gave you some landmarks when you were looking at buying into the new hardware. This time, you've got to be into VR already or be comfortable jumping in mostly blind at that price because you won't be recognizing most of the games and most of the game makers when you go to buy titles on the store.

Sony ... have a Ghostbusters game planned to be released October 26th.

Sony Pictures Virtual Reality is not from the same corporate arm as the PlayStation division; they're part of Sony Pictures, not Sony Interactive Entertainment. SIE Third Party Relations can maybe take credit for getting SPE to include PSVR2 alongside Meta Quest in the platform slate for Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, but there's no co-pro.

 

[yurinka]

Swell.

...It's hard for me to consider there to be much of a "plan" if there's one launch title, one launch expansion mode, and then some handshake deals to get a single name-brand publisher to add a VR expansion mode into a game plus some PSVR1 re-ports (in absence of there being any backwards-compatibility) and a slew of PCVR and Quest VR port-overs. (And particularly so a "plan" that continues through its first holiday season with no new big moves.) As "plans" go for product launch and support, this is a pretty hands-off plan.

No other VR headset had exclusive VR versions of IPs like Horizon, Gran Turismo and Resident Evil at launch. PSVR2 had the best launch window lineup any headset ever had.

They have a larger lineup for the first year than PSVR1 because there are more VR games out there to port or bring onto the platform, plus it's more compatible with modern VR play features and it runs on hardware much less fussy/underpowered to get running on.

That larger line-up hasn't been coming from any of the mainline publishers (albeit with the miserable state of publishing in this era, precious little seems to be coming through the halls of mainline publishers on any platform), whereas PSVR1 in its launch holiday window had at least toe-dip titles from Warner Bros, EA, SEGA, 2K, Square Enix Europe, and Ubisoft. (And not only are they not dipping toes, they're pulling lines out of the water; EA has two new games with VR modes in its PC releases but no PSVR2 integration/plans, for whatever frustrating and confounding reasons are going on there.)

They have a larger lineup because they signed with basically all remotely important 3rd party publishers in VR.

There are others, who are big in console but not in VR, who didn't publish on PSVR2 because they didn't release any VR game since then or had a timed exclusivity elsewhere. Their next VR games will be in PSVR2, excluding those moneyhatted.

And that larger line-up is not coming from Sony as a publisher itself yet either, whereas PSVR1 just in its first Christmas had Playroom VR, PlayStation VR Worlds, Rigs, DriveClub VR, Until Dawn Rush of Blood, and a mode for Bound.

Crap compared to Gran Turismo 7, Horizon CoM, RE Village, RE4R, and all the other games PSVR2 is getting. The first year PSVR2 will have a lineup with more quantity and more quality.

I'm not saying the library can't be enjoyed by VR fans, but for PlayStation fans wanting PlayStation games, Sony has not done as much to support its own VR

Yes, you said that to get PS Worlds, Bound, a limited version of Driveclub etc. was better than to get Gran Turismo 7, Horizon, Resident Evil and so on.

Batman and Star Wars Battlefront Xwing Mission and Star Trek: Bridge Crew and EVE may not have been the best or deepest VR experiences ever made,

True, they had some good point but were average games being generous. And I say that having friends + coworkers who made one of them.

Sony Pictures Virtual Reality is not from the same corporate arm as the PlayStation division; they're part of Sony Pictures, not Sony Interactive Entertainment. SIE Third Party Relations can maybe take credit for getting SPE to include PSVR2 alongside Meta Quest in the platform slate for Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, but there's no co-pro.

It's a Sony company publishing a Sony owned game of a Sony IP for PSVR2, meaning it's a first party game. No SIE Third Party Relations involved. But yes, the VR market is small and Meta Quest is the market leader by far, so Sony Pictures originally made the game for Quest 2 because back then PSVR2 didn't exist.

 

[nosoynadie22]

Aside from PD and Asobi, is there any Sony studio that even cares about PSVR? Most of their big studios want to create third-person cinematic experiences that I don't know if they can adapt well to virtual reality. Nintendo lives and dies by its hardware because the same people who create its hardware are the ones who make games to take advantage of and support that hardware, but Sony has development studios that may care more about themselves than Sony's hardware, I think. . that the reason Sony is releasing their games for PC is because their own studios forced them to do so, I just think that the commitment to hardware on the part of the developers at Nintendo and Sony is different

 

[nial]

Crap compared to Gran Turismo 7, Horizon CoM, RE Village, RE4R, and all the other games PSVR2 is getting. The first year PSVR2 will have a lineup with more quantity and more quality.

Yes, you said that to get PS Worlds, Bound, a limited version of Driveclub etc. was better than to get Gran Turismo 7, Horizon, Resident Evil and so on.

RIGS and Rush of Blood are so much better than Horizon COTM, come on. Also, way to ignore RE7 with VR support releasing just three months after launch.

 

[THE DUCK]

They planned to invest in bigger IPs than in PSVR1 like Horizon, Gran Turismo, Resident Evil, Tetris, No Man's Sky or Beat Saber for the first year, and also to have a larger lineup for the first year than PSVR1. Their plan was to have higher sales in the PSVR2 launch window than in PSVR1 and they achieved it.

Sony recently released Firewall Ultra and have a Ghostbusters game planned to be released October 26th.

They didn't invest anything in RE, tetris, no man's land or beat saber. Firewall ultra is a 6/10 game. Ghostbusters vr isn't even a vr exclusive. So basically there was horizon and gt7.

Psvr2 sold 8% more units in a vr market that had 5x sales growth (2 billion to 10 billion) from psvr1 launch to psvr2 launch. That's not achieving success.

It feels like it's someone important at Sony's pet project. What they could do to improve things:

- Lower the price
- support pc
- actually develop a few more titles from scratch
- spend some money for some more exclusives from.third parties
(I.e ea's new rally game is a natural fit)
- improve the small sweet spot issue and refine the hardware

 

[Madjako]

I just bought PSVR2.
Sony just give us Alyx, Spiderman 2 VR and youtube VR and I'll be happy !!

 

[yurinka]

They didn't invest anything in RE, tetris, no man's land or beat saber.

We even saw the RE Village contract where Sony paid Capcom to get the marketing deal and exclusive VR versions of Village and future games of the RE series released on the PS4 generation.

Beat Saber is the best selling VR game ever, so it has prestige and are in a position to ask for money for any new port they make.

Tetris Effect was a Sony timed exclusive in both console and VR. This is not something done free with a popular IP.

No Man's Sky was also a Sony timed console exclusive where Sony even published its retail version.

Firewall ultra is a 6/10 game. Ghostbusters vr isn't even a vr exclusive. So basically there was horizon and gt7.

They are 4 first party games.

Psvr2 sold 8% more units in a vr market that had 5x sales growth (2 billion to 10 billion) from psvr1 launch to psvr2 launch. That's not achieving success.

It feels like it's someone important at Sony's pet project. What they could do to improve things:

- Lower the price
- support pc
- actually develop a few more titles from scratch
- spend some money for some more exclusives from.third parties
(I.e ea's new rally game is a natural fit)
- improve the small sweet spot issue and refine the hardware

PSVR2 is achieving Sony's expectations, which are to outsell (launch aligned) PSVR1.
They are spending more than with PSVR1 in the PSVR2 lineup, with more games signed for the first year and including more popular (so expensive to sign) IPs, including some of them top VR games and some of them AAA IPs.
But yes, they can always improve.

Regarding to add PC support, I assume they want to keep for now PSVR2 as a PS5 unique selling point, a PS5 accesory. And in the future, once they have their own PC store, then to sell there both 1st party and 3rd party games, and once they achieve enough audience in that store, to release there PC VR games too for PSVR2 including both 1st and 3rd party games.

I assume that -as happens in console- their money with VR comes more from the games than from the hardware, which pretty likely it's being sold at a loss. So they don't want to sell a tons of units for PC players losing money per unit when Meta and Valve is getting the money of the PC VR games to be played there.

 

[StealthGoblin]

I have a sneaking suspicion that it'll be Twisted Metal (if Astrobot isn't announced sooner)

 

[crackajack]

Their numbers differ but all analyst agree that VR market will grow a lot in the next 7 years or so, becoming over 3-4x bigger than its current size.

I would be very surprised if those predictions come true. Almost looks like some Covid stay at home numbers supported fantasies.
That kinda requires that Apple's headset explodes for some reason, and I can't see why it would. Meta, MS, Sony and HTC seem to be rather stagnant or uninterested already. Or is Pimax, Pico and others expected to be the driving force?

I certainly would be happy if it succeeds and eventually more developers jump on the wagon, also reduce the price. VR is imho no huge game changer at all, some cons are just too big, but it is still nice now and then.

For now I still have VR1 games to play and until then maybe the GaaS wave of sony games surprises with VR support or something else I can't anticipate currently.

 

[yurinka]

I would be very surprised if those predictions come true. Almost looks like some Covid stay at home numbers supported fantasies.
That kinda requires that Apple's headset explodes for some reason, and I can't see why it would. Meta, MS, Sony and HTC seem to be rather stagnant or uninterested already. Or is Pimax, Pico and others expected to be the driving force?

I certainly would be happy if it succeeds and eventually more developers jump on the wagon, also reduce the price. VR is imho no huge game changer at all, some cons are just too big, but it is still nice now and then.

For now I still have VR1 games to play and until then maybe the GaaS wave of sony games surprises with VR support or something else I can't anticipate currently.

These aren't predictions or fantasies, they are basically market projections: they simply extrapolate the current VR market trend a few years more.

 

[Minsc]

I have a sneaking suspicion that it'll be Twisted Metal (if Astrobot isn't announced sooner)

It would make sense given the hard push they made on the device with GT7, that it is a device that should appeal to racing fans, that just maybe they'd release a few other racing games on it as well? WipeOut? Twisted Metal? Etc.

The device can't be the best thing since sliced bread for the racing genre and then also never get any more racing games, that doesn't make too much sense.

 

[Wonko_C]

Aside from PD and Asobi, is there any Sony studio that even cares about PSVR? Most of their big studios want to create third-person cinematic experiences that I don't know if they can adapt well to virtual reality.

A remaster of the Uncharted games with VR support would be amazing: Climbing, using guns while climbing, ducking behind cover, puzzle solving, etc. All of that can be made much more fun and engaging in VR.

 

[consoul]

I just don't see it happening. And that's OK.

 

[Crayon]

Sony could have put one more big one of two more adaptations out by now and it's dissapointing. But otherwise the library is about as good as it gets for vr. Doing backflips to narrow it down to 1-3 games that matter is dumb as fuck. Should I dip into the quest 3 thread and see if every page is has a slew of complaints about all the quest 2 ports for launch? That should tell me something.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

The real number is 12 now and it's not far off from 15.

 

[Ozzie666]

Such a perfect platform for easy rail shooters , blood and truth sequal would be great. Whilst not Sony first party, all those classic arcade shooters would be perfect, House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn, Time Crisis etc. Arcade racers like Wipeout, so many franchises they could tap into that are long dead.

I honestly don't think Sony is going to release anything like a Horizon or Uncharted Golden Abyss. They just put out the hardware and hope other companies take advantage of it and maybe they break even. Disappointing.

 

[ArtHands]

Aside from PD and Asobi, is there any Sony studio that even cares about PSVR? Most of their big studios want to create third-person cinematic experiences that I don't know if they can adapt well to virtual reality. Nintendo lives and dies by its hardware because the same people who create its hardware are the ones who make games to take advantage of and support that hardware, but Sony has development studios that may care more about themselves than Sony's hardware, I think. . that the reason Sony is releasing their games for PC is because their own studios forced them to do so, I just think that the commitment to hardware on the part of the developers at Nintendo and Sony is different

There are rumors that we're getting lots of hybrid VR titles. Maybe some from Sony studios?

 

[ArtHands]

Sony sent it out to die. Luckily, if you are a vr fan there's plenty of smaller devs making great content to enjoy but it's been terrible from a first party stand point.

That reminds me that the PSVR2 is now as old as when Skyrim VR was announced for PSVR

 

[cyberheater]

I would like to jump in but I’m the growing tide of disgruntled PSVR2 users is somewhat putting me off.
Also financial entry requirements are high if you don’t already own a PS5.