Sony wasted no time in announcing that the company sold upwards of 3 million units of their PSVR systems and 21.9 million PSVR games, announcing two new games in the process. Unfortunately, analysts don't seem to share their enthusiasm.
Sony thanked their fans and PSVR adopters for "the amazing support" and said they're "thrilled that so many of [their] gamers have experienced the magic of VR". Having launched in October 2016 though, these aren't quite the numbers that you'd expect from such an enthusiastic milestone announcement.
The company also thanked the developers and publishers who helped them in achieving the milestone. They even posted a list of top 10 played games with PSVR as follows:
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
- PlayStation VR Worlds
- Rec Room
- Resident Evil 7 biohazard
- The Playroom VR
- Job Simulator
- Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
- Batman: Arkham VR
- Farpoint
- Superhot VR
Having said that, it's clear from the list that PSVR has still got a long way to go before we can even remotely call it a mainstream technology. The fact that Skyrim tops the list says enough - they, or should I say we, are a relentless bunch that keep buying it on pretty much everything, so I'm not sure whether it's representative of the tech's popularity.
NPD's analyst Matt Piscatella put things into perspective further with a bit of number crunching, revealing that PSVR was purchased by less than 4 per cent of PlayStation 4 owners, which isn't exactly a stellar success for a two year old technology.
Moreover, Piscatella isn't enthusiastic about the future of VR either, both on the console and PC side. Not long after Sony posted their milestone , Piscatella "Immersive VR (the PC and Console stuff) is niche, highly likely to stay niche. Can be a nice little business, but that's about it imo."
Sony
So, there you have it - even if it can be a fun gimmick, PSVR is still not the bees knees that Sony would have you think. There are numerous obstacles towards making it an absolute gaming must and we may have to wait quite a bit more before it becomes a proper mainstay.
