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You Can’t Handle The Truth
VR companies have been surprisingly secretive about sales numbers involving headsets. Most market analysts have been forced to rely on dubious estimates to determine just how many devices are being sold. While many experts suggest that the numbers look promising, there has been very little confirmation from the companies directly.
All that changed last month when Sony executive Andrew House shared a shocking revelation in a New York Times interview about the Playstation VR. According to House, PSVR sales have far exceeded anything the company anticipated and they are set to meet their sales goals in a fraction of the time predicted. In the interview, House openly admits that even he himself was completely astonished by the PSVR’s success. “We were expecting it to be a lot smaller than it has turned out to be,” he said.
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Supply And Demand
The company had serious ambitions for the VR department when the headset was launched less than a year ago. Sony’s initial goal was to sell 1 million headsets within six months of release. When they reached this goal in February, an entire 2 months ahead of schedule, they found themselves scrambling to keep up with demand. “You literally have people lining up outside stores when they know the stock is being replenished,” said Mr. House.
Early on, company insiders were afraid that PSVR still had too many issues that might dissuade consumers from purchasing the device. Even though the Playstation VR is by far the cheapest option among its competitors (currently around $450 dollars), the tech is still relatively expensive and a lot of people thought that this high price of entry would prevent customers from entering the market. This, in addition to the limited amount of virtual reality content available, had Sony executives setting their sights low.
What they found was quite the opposite. At over one million units sold, the PlayStation VR has surpassed not only the expectations of sales analysts but all of Sony’s VR competitors as well. With the Oculus Rift sitting at around 250,000 units sold and the HTC Vive somewhere near 500,000, PlayStation VR has definitely emerged as the industry front-runner.
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What Went Right?
Aside from the cheaper price, one of the reasons it’s believed the PlayStation VR faired so well was that it was sold as a Playstation 4 add-on. The ability to piggyback on the success of Playstation’s flagship gaming console was a huge boon to the VR’s success. Even though a million PSVR units sold may sound like an impressive number, this figure still pales in comparison to the over 53 million Playstation 4 consoles currently sitting in people’s homes. This pre-existing customer base gives a hint of just how much more untapped potential there still is for future Playstation VR sales.
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Future Investment
Sony definitely seems to recognize this potential and is investing heavily in VR tech. One example of this investment is Sony’s new laser gun controller designed specifically for use with VR games. The controller, which is called the PlayStation VR Aim Controller, tracks the motion of the player’s hands and wrists allowing for a more realistic aiming experience when playing first person shooter games. The amount of available content is also increasing. There is even a community of enthusiasts emerging to help new users get the most out of their PSVR. Sony hopes that add-ons and accessories like this might provide just the nudge its customers need to take the leap into virtual reality.
No doubt that PSVR is currently the best VR Headset in the market right now!! Eagerly waiting for its Aim Controller to go on public sale…
Yes, it’s mainly because it’s an add-on to a widely used device.
well no shock for me as Sony has been a leader in games and all these categories.