Sony Sells More Than 1 Million PlayStation VR Headsets

Sales of PlayStation virtual reality headsets exceed expectations.

President of Sony Interactive Entertainment Atsushi Morita said sales had “exceeded…expectations”, and were continuing to grow, since hitting the market last October. “I believe that VR technology is the greatest innovation since the birth of television. VR allows you to travel to World Heritage Sites or to space while staying at home. It’s like a time machine or a door to anywhere.”

The Sony VR Headest: Steals a march on its competitors and is cheaper.

Pricing

The relatively low price, in comparison to the likes of Facebook’s Oculus, and the HTC Vive, has helped push the Sony VR headset into an early lead. The VR headset has also been designed to work with the PlayStation 4 rather than requiring new hardware and equipment. 

Early lead

Sony has found itself in a good position in the infant high-end VR experience market, and is taking an early lead against its rivals in the console market. There are also a reported 60 million PlayStation 4 users that Sony can try and leverage.

Microsoft, who unveiled their next generation console last week, the X Box One X, were suspiciously quiet about VR on the console, but are expected to make some big announcements about their own plans for VR on their console in the coming months.

Boost production

As a result of the unexpectedly high number of sales for Sony however, Morita sad that the company was facing the good problem of having to boost production to solve a supply shortage.

According to researcher IDC, Sony was responsible for selling and shipping 429,000 VR headsets this year, out of a total market number of two million. That number however excludes cheaper VR headsets produced and sold for the smartphone market. The Samsung Gear VR for instance has sold over five million headsets worldwide since its launch late last year.