For months I’ve been thinking about selling my PlayStation VR2. After a damn first, I’m finally ready to let it go.
Months ago I put the PSVR 2 away in a closet. I hadn’t played it in a long time, but I was hoping Sony would release new games that would make me want to release it again. Based on Android Central According to reports, I have to abandon that hope: apparently Sony has cut funding for VR games and there are only two PSVR 2 titles in the works. Two!
The future of the headset has been looking bleak for some time now. Earlier this year, Sony fired developers at Firesprite, the studio that made it Horizon Call of the Mountain. It closed its London Studio, which made PlayStation VR worlds, a game that came bundled with the original PSVR. Since its launch in February 2023, Sony has barely shown any PSVR 2 games in its announcement showcases, and none of those games have been major first-party PSVR 2 titles. Sony doesn’t even make a PSVR 2 mode for it Astrobot despite how much people loved each other Astro Bot rescue mission on the PSVR.
Before the PSVR 2 came out, I was genuinely excited. I was eagerly awaiting new games, such as Horizon and new VR modes for titles such as Gran Turismo 7 and the Resident Evil 4 remake. The price tag stung: I pre-ordered the $599 bundle Horizon – but I thought I’d get my money’s worth by finally tackling some VR classics like Pistol whip in addition to new PSVR 2 titles. (I knew the PSVR 2 couldn’t play PSVR games, but I didn’t mind.)
I was also excited to finally own a VR headset and spend some time with it. I’d messed around with a few VR headsets before – I remember being blown away by an Oculus Rift demo at a PAX conference – but I really thought the PSVR 2 would be particularly great. The Edge The nerd in me was impressed by the technology: I was eager to play 4K games on the PSVR 2’s dual OLED screens and see how developers could use eye-tracking to create new ways to play .
Let’s just say I didn’t get my money’s worth. I have tinkered: What the bat? was wonderfully stupid, filled with VR chaos. Runner I felt like an action hero in an old-fashioned anime. Gran Turismo 7 almost made me a PSVR 2 believer. No one’s heaven was a riveting yet overwhelming journey into space. And Before your eyes made me cry into my headphones.
But my playing time mainly consisted of slogging. Nothing was compelling enough for me to keep coming back to in the long run. The only game I beat was Before your eyes, and that’s because it only lasted about an hour and a half. After reading The Verges mediocre review from Horizon Call of the Mountainit ended up in the back of my backlog, and I never got around to it. Resident Evil 4 on PSVR 2 made me nauseous. Looking back at my playing history, I’ve only put about 20 hours into PSVR 2 games.
Getting everything ready to play was also quite a job. The PSVR2 has to be connected to your PS5 to work. That meant that every time I wanted to play, I had to take the PSVR 2 out of the box, plug it in, and – because the PSVR 2 also doesn’t have hand tracking – cross my fingers that the Sense controllers were charged so I could actually do something to play.
Plus, I didn’t like how the PSVR 2 isolated me in my own home. Since I could only play while tethered to the PS5, I didn’t have the option of going to another room – unlike Meta’s Quest headsets, which I can use anywhere in the house. Because my partner and I live in a small apartment, we usually both share the living room when one of us uses the entertainment center. Yes, when I used the PSVR 2, she could see my game on our TV. But because I couldn’t easily make eye contact when she was sitting right next to me, I felt like I was shutting her out.
My PSVR 2 is collecting dust
So my PSVR 2 is collecting dust and I don’t see any reason to break it out again. (I know Sony is launching an adapter to connect the PSVR 2 to a PC, but I don’t have a beefy gaming PC, so that’s not important to me.)
I should have known better when I pre-ordered the headset. Sony has a habit of going it alone when building platforms that aren’t its primary console. After all, Sony’s support for the first PSVR was pretty half-hearted. The PlayStation Vita was loved despite Sony’s support, not because of it. It took forever for the company to put some flagship games on its PlayStation Now cloud service. It insists on forcing PC players to use PSN accounts for single player games even after dropping that planned requirement for Helldivers 2 next response – all the better to steer you towards a future console purchase.
I think I’ll get the PSVR 2 out of the closet soon. But I’m only moving it so I can sell it to someone else.