PSVR 2 "Disaster" Can Be Avoided With Price Drop, Says Analyst

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According to estimates from research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), Bloomberg reports that Sony may struggle to meet its 2 million unit launch window goal for PSVR 2, with IDC vice president Francisco Jeronimo suggesting that the $550 price tag may need to be lowered for Sony to make amends.

Bloomberg's direct estimate is that Sony will sell around 270,000 PSVR 2 units between February 22 (the VR console's release date) and the end of March, which is far from Sony's ideal launch target of 2 million units (previously reported on by Bloomberg).

"Consumers around the world are facing rising costs of living, rising interest rates, and rising layoffs," said Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of data and analytics at IDC, explaining the reason for the low sales. “VR headsets are not top of mind for most consumers under the current economic climate," he added, concluding with the remedy for this situation: “I suspect a price cut on the PSVR2 will be needed to avoid a complete disaster of their new product.”

Bloomberg also mentions that Sony's Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki says the tech giant is confident of surpassing the original PSVR console's roughly 5 million sales milestone.

It's important to note, however, that the current climate around the "Meta" devices is far more competitive than previous generations, with alternative googles like Meta Quest 2, Valve Index, and HTC Vive Pro offering more options with fewer limitations, such as the ability to run VR games without connecting to a console and backwards compatibility with last-gen VR games.

Not only does the PSVR 2 require you to already own a pricy $500 PlayStation 5 console (making the cost of affording a PSVR 2 game at least a thousand dollars), but it has few exclusive games to make the sales pitch more appealing to new players and even VR veterans - most notably Horizon: Call of the Mountain, as well as Gran Turismo 7 VR, Resident Evil Village VR, and Fantavision 202X VR for now. But there may be some game changes down the road, such as the upcoming futuristic sports game C-Smash VRS.

The problem that is becoming apparent right now is that the sales dilemma is turning into a new PS Vita cycle. Fewer units in the hands of consumers means less incentive for third-party developers to invest in new games, and fewer games over time means fewer headsets sold overall, ultimately leading to it slowly becoming another sad death for another Sony product, but only time will tell if that scenario will end up becoming a reality down the road.