Virtual Reality headsets are still in their infancy. Every time someone mentions them, you'll always find dozens of skeptics proclaiming VR simply isn't ready for the mass market, or there's not enough content to fuel a successful VR headset. Whether or not that's true still remains to be seen, but it appears Sony's own VR headset, the Playstation VR, has sold beyond even Sony's own expectations. Sony's internal goal for sales of the PSVR was to hit the 1 million mark after 6 months, sometime in April, but it looks like they're going to hit that lofty goal rather early.

Sony's own Andrew House has announced that PSVR consumer sales, as of February 19th, is currently at ~915,000 units worldwide.

“It’s the classic case in any organization — the guys who are on the front end in sales are getting very excited, very hyped up,” Mr. House said. “You have to temper that with other voices inside the company, myself among them, saying let’s just be a little bit careful.”

It turns out Mr. House was too cautious...In an interview at his Silicon Valley office on Friday, Mr. House revealed PlayStation VR’s sales for the first time, saying consumers had purchased 915,000 of the headsets as of Feb. 19, roughly four months after it went on sale.

Sony’s internal goal was to sell one million of the headsets in its first six months, by mid-April...“You literally have people lining up outside stores when they know stock is being replenished,” said Mr. House, describing the scene in Japan, one of the largest games markets.

Mr. House said the supply of PlayStation VR headsets will improve by April. By fall, Sony expects to begin selling them in Latin America.

This is good news for the VR market. If the PSVR continues selling as well as it is, we're sure to see more AAA companies take up the reins and provide more VR content, which could lead to some seriously cool games (like Resident Evil 7, one of the more successful AAA VR games).

Source

 

[flame1234]

RE 7 is successful because of its non-VR mode.

 

[WiiUBricker]

That's good news. VR is the future.

 

[Flame]

now i wait for the crackheads who say nintendo set the path with the virtual boy all those years ago.

 

[Terenigma]

I was one of those hugely skeptical people when it comes to VR gaming being the future. Now? I honestly take it all back.

My friend has one and i have tried it many times and i can say that It is really really fun and an excellent way to game. It doesn't feel as clunky as i thought and the quality of the VR will only get better with time. Like you say, it is only in its infancy and i think there many other ways it can be implemented into our lives. Not just with gaming, with replacing our TVs and Internet too.

VR is very much the future.

 

[DKB]

Very nice.

 

[dogmarch]

I actually find VR so be more useful in the designing field, as it helps with visualization, but I hope this would mean VR would become more prominent in the future. not just in gaming.

 

[leon315]

Thanks, the 915,000 beta testers,

I'll probably get the 2nd gen VR, when it comes cheaper and better

 

[Hells Malice]

Glad to see VR has pretty much officially taken off. I figured it would, but you never know, it might've not been ready. But it's receiving more and more support, and every big company seems to be jumping on board.

Guess it's finally time to find a VR headset to buy.

 

[osaka35]

now i wait for the crackheads who say nintendo set the path with the virtual boy all those years ago.

More of a "how not to do it", at best."If you're going to do VR, don't do it like this. We literally made every single mistake you could make with a video game VR roll-out". I...don't think that's setting any path. That's just screwing up so badly, no one else attempts it for a decade.

I bet their next machine has VR, though, after everyone is like "meh, VR is soooo 2017".

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

I'm excited, but like many others, holding back for now. I actually have the hardware to run VR, but I don't want to shill out $600-800 just yet. This is promising news.

 

[jinzokami]

I like VR. I honestly do. but i still feel like there's a LONG way to go before i can consider it more than just a gimmick.
though, to be fair, i've only ever used the PSVR and that's, like, a distant 3rd place compared to the occuclus and htc vive.
if i had $1000 my first purchase would be an HTC vive just to see VR at its best.

 

[dpad_5678]

$399 lmao. Get yourself a $25 pair of Google Cardboard glasses.

 

[xile6]

The headset is pretty cool but without games its like a car without gas i guess you could push it but its not what it was made for.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

It needs exclusive games to push sales, but with less than 1 million sold it's going to be tough to convince a publisher that they can recoup the costs. (even worse if you consider localization.)

Look at this way, it costs as much as a console, you have to own a PS4 already to use it, so for the average person that's going to be a lot of money that is adding nothing if the guy down the street can play the same games with out it.

It needs to hit like 20 million sales and have some exclusives before I would think about plunking down the cash on it.

 

[nando]

It needs exclusive games to push sales, but with less than 1 million sold it's going to be tough to convince a publisher that they can recoup the costs. (even worse if you consider localization.)

Look at this way, it costs as much as a console, you have to own a PS4 already to use it, so for the average person that's going to be a lot of money that is adding nothing if the guy down the street can play the same games with out it.

It needs to hit like 20 million sales and have some exclusives before I would think about plunking down the cash on it.

well, i think the 2 modes for games like re7 helps absorb the risk.

 

[tbb043]

but it appears Sony's own VR headset, the Playstation VR, has sold beyond even Sony's own expectations

Yeah that's what fads do, sell beyond expectations for a while, then boom, nothing. See the Wii, the Kinect, etc.

 

[Luckkill4u]

PSVR still seems too pricey for what it gives though. I've tried the PSVR and HTC Vive. The Vive wins by a landslide over quality but that was expected. I think the big problem with PSVR is how unobtainable it is. None of the local stores have it in stock. There is no deluxe bundles anymore so you have to buy the Headset, camera and controllers all separately and it brings the price up to the same as a HTC Vive.

Virtual Reality headset for gaming are for the rich. It would be hard to gather money for a PSVR but a PS4 Slim is only $249.99 on sale. It just doesn't make sense...

 

[Silverthorn]

Still too much of a luxury product for me, but I don't see it as just a fad.
I think that market will keep growing as technology improves and prices go down.

 

[FAST6191]

Is this still a world where a fairly middle of the road game can sell two million and still be a failure? I don't know what the demographics are but 70% market takeup is LSD fuelled optimism.

This reminds me a bit of the times people were all excited about the sales of a Nintendo game, sales which might not have cracked the top 10, in a bad week, on the others.

Anyway I look forward to it being hacked, generally doing poorly in the market and me having some nice toys for pocket change. That said there are usually some people that can find a profit in a failing product, and while 70% may be optimistic I am sure a killer halfway decent app could see a fair return. If others are right on it being a sort of incentive for those with it to have and then still have a normal game in the meantime then even better.