Sony caught short on popularity of its PlayStation VR

TOKYO-Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that PlayStation VR, a virtual reality system for PlayStation released last October, cumulatively sold through 915,000 units worldwide as of February 19, 2017. Sony finally broke the silence on VR sales by revealing on Sunday that it has sold 915,000 units of its PlayStation VR headset during the device’s first four months of availability.

“We were expecting it to be a lot smaller than it has turned out to be”, he said. With PS VR, players must own a PlayStation 4 video game console, which starts at $299.99.

Nonetheless, House says the company’s future goal is to sell a high single-digit percentage of the entire PS4 userbase.

The Times led its story about virtual reality’s consumer appeal with that figure, getting it from Andrew House, the chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment worldwide. According to the NYTimes, House is specifically amazed by how Sony’s Japanese fans supported the PlayStation VR. PSVR went on sale on 13th October 2016, and it seems likely that Sony will achieve the target that it has set for itself ahead of schedule. Farpoint will be surely a highlight for the PSVR headset, but the release of the Aim controller could be even more important for the PlayStation VR system.

Sony’s PlayStation VR surpasses its expected sales when it recently hit the 900,000 plus mark.

That’s particularly interesting when you consider that PlayStation VR has only been available for a few months and is considerably less powerful that either the Rift or the Vive. The PlayStation VR is powered by Sony’s best-selling PS4 juggernaut, which has an install base of over 50 million units.