Putting Sony’s 4.2 million PSVR sales in context

Headset's attach rate is somewhere in the Sega CD/32X range.

Nearly three years after consumer virtual reality became a real thing, the market is still trying to determine whether it’s a growing market niche or a dwindling technological fad. Entering into that debate this week comes Sony, which is now trumpeting 4.2 million PlayStation VR headset sales through March 3 of this year.

While 4.2 million is certainly a big number in and of itself, its actual import depends a lot on what you’re comparing it to. So to put Sony’s latest report in context, we’ve gathered a bevy of relevant comparison numbers for you to peruse in both chart and list form. Use this as a handy reference for your next debate about whether console virtual reality is a “dead end” or not.

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Here is a closer look at the PSVR sales.

I was always wondering, why people thought PSVR sales were good. IMO they are not. Not at all.
And that goes for other VR-Devices as well.

Your thoughts?

Kinect launched with Kinect adventures for $150 and at the same time you could snag a Xbox 360 4gb for $200

PSVR launched at $399 with no games/camera. The unit was only available for $199 on holidays 2017 and 2018. If Sony can make a permanent price drop to $199 including one game and the camera they could hit 10 millions easily.

This. + add in the fact that VR in general is a one-man show when played while Eye-toy ripoffs are for party groups. The fact that it will easily do 6 million units, thus becomming the only relevant VR platform is absolutely massive. Next-gen if doen right from day 1 they could sell way more.

Selling a peripheral basically the same price or even higher than the console itself is a tough sell. Plus the games are a trickle as it requires a whole different design philosophy and resources.

Theres like a couple of games that look cool in VR, but most of them just looks like various levels of Job Simulator. There are surprisingly a lot of VR games being made, but they just look like demos. When we get more actual games, then I think VR could be very successful.

When people say the sales are good they compare it with other VR headsets. 4m sold headsets is indeed quite good.

This "first gen" of consumer VR is pretty much a payed beta and I hope the ppl buying into it (like me) are aware of that. Sony uses it to identify better solutions for tracking etc and establish game design philosphies to make good use of the capabilities VR brings to the table, while also bringing in some cash to finance their efforts (and by all we heard they are running in the black with VR). The next gen will be much more streamlined, as the soon to be released Oculus Quest and Rift S already show to a degree, and that's when Sony will expect a broader audience to buy in and make it a more worthwhile business.

This post is kind of painful. I thought most people had basic logic to think 'yeah this comparison doesn't make much sense'.

Hahaha yes. I stand corrected ;) 

Peripherals always limit potential because you have to own the original device and then be one of the few from that subset willing to purchase a secondary device. I applaud Sony for doing as well as they did with the PSVR, being a "day one" owner myself.

I'd like to see how other peripherals compare like Wii Fit Balance Board and Eye Toy (despite them being much much cheaper). Even when they sell extremely well, there's pretty much always a point where all support just disappears. That hasn't been the case with PSVR yet.