During a presentation to GameStop GME 0.44% executives and investors on Thursday, Koller said Sony SNE -3.44% will be offering consumers over 500,000 in-store demos across retailers from June through December this year.

The one major difference between launching the PlayStation 4 a few years ago and PlayStation VR is that this new technology “needs to be lived to be believed,” according to Koller.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/15/gamestop-playstation-vr-demos-key-to-sony-marketing/

That's pretty cool. I'm glad they are putting in the effort to make this work.

i'll keep an eye on my Gamestop's. I know 2 around where i live, it would be cool to actually try out VR.

Figured this would be the case. Gotta demo it to know what it is, and GameStop is kind of the biggest game-specific fish in the NA pond right now. Go in to trade in a game, pick one up maybe, and hey, why not put the PSVR on for a few minutes to see what this VR thing is really like.

Too bad I permabanned myself from Gamestop's. I can see why they wouldn't put something like this in Walmarts, but should at least put some in Target or Best Buy.

500,000? damn Sony goin all out on this thing, nice.

This is from gamestops mouth not sony meaning, they'll likely have a demo installed in a lot of other places too not just gamestop.

Hopefully the one near me has a demo because as much as I'm down with PSVR I need to actually try out the thing before spending that much money on one.

This is good news though because for it to take off people really need to demo it and what better way to do it then in the store itself.

Clever. Hopefully it extends to Australia and eb games.

I wonder what that number really means - it don't imagine that's the number of demo units Sony is sending to shops (product itself is believed to sell less than 2m units in 2016), but maybe it's their estimate how many people do get the chance to demo PSVR at retailers in that time frame?

I think these units could average about 200 unique customers demoed to, which would put it at 2.5k demo units - I hope it's a bit more than that.

My guess is it's the number of the locations. Demo units - let's say 20.000 - 30.000 - being destributed to a part of those, staying for a couple of weeks, moving on to the next chunk aso. 

"Sony will be offering consumers over 500,000 in-store demos across retailers from June through December this year."

That's six to seven month. I can't imagine a demo unit staying for that long at one place. After a few weeks regular customers know the product. PSVR won't be purchasable till mid October. This is an important part in a lengthy marketing campaign, with the objective to reach as many individuals of the target audience, cause attention, interest, desire and action.