PS VR2 Sales Slump Forces Sony to Halt Production

Sony’s PS VR2 officially hit the market on February 2023, with an official retail price of $549.99. However, according to media reports, insiders have disclosed that Sony Group (SONY) has temporarily halted the production of the PS VR2 headset devices, a measure expected to persist until the inventory pressure for this product is alleviated.

The source indicated that since its launch, the sales of PS VR2 have been on a decline, yet Sony has produced over two million units, resulting in significant inventory pressure. Furthermore, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the shipment volumes of PS VR2 have been decreasing quarterly since its release, exacerbating consumer skepticism regarding the product strength of VR devices. Nonetheless, Francisco Jeronimo of IDC believes that, despite the impact of the Apple Vision Pro, the shipment volumes for this product category will continue to grow in the coming years. He stated, “We forecast the VR market to grow on average 31.5% per year between 2023 and 2028.”

Sony has yet to respond to this news. However, it was previously reported that Sony had shut down its PlayStation London Studio, which focused on developing games for the PS VR platform, and had participated in the development of the PS VR2 launch title “Horizon: Call of the Mountain.” Besides Meta, Sony has always been one of the primary manufacturers of virtual reality devices. Currently, both companies are striving to attract content creators to their headset platforms to enrich the software ecosystem and enhance product strength.

Regarding the market development of virtual reality devices, Macquarie analyst Yijia Zhai mentioned, “The high price of VR hardware acts as the main hurdle for its expansion. Currently, there are limited games that support VR devices, and that will also lead to lack of motivation for players to purchase VR hardware. This limited content also has a reason – the development cost for VR games is substantially higher than normal titles.”

Sony is still endeavoring to expand the user base for the PS VR2 product. It was also previously reported that the PS VR2 would support compatibility with the PC platform.