There have been a variety of indicators that Sony hasn’t been investing a variety of sources into VR, particularly its PlayStation VR2 headset, and in accordance with a brand new report, the state of affairs may be worse than beforehand believed.
In an Android Central article revealed Thursday, sources mentioned that Sony was slashing budgets associated to VR and that there can be “only a few alternatives for VR sport growth” sooner or later. One other supply talked about that there have been solely two PSVR2 video games in growth on the firm.
Whereas Sony didn’t reply to any of the claims within the report, followers have seen the dearth of consideration being paid to VR. At PlayStation’s most up-to-date State of Play, there wasn’t a single first-party VR sport introduced or highlighted. Whereas we received seems to be at Alien: Rogue Incursion and Behemoth, due out this 12 months, each are from outdoors studios.
It appeared attainable there might be a first-party sport incoming from the Astro collection, which has at all times utilized PlayStation {hardware} in methods different video games don’t,and was used as a tech demo for the PlayStation 5 at launch. Plus, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission was a superb VR title for the unique PlayStation VR. Nevertheless, following up on the Astro Bot reveal through the presentation, Nicolas Doucet, Workforce Asobi studio head, instructed Digital Traits {that a} VR mode was unlikely.
“We’re focusing 100% on PS5,” Doucet mentioned. “Rescue Mission was nice enjoyable to make. Each medium has its robust factors. Within the case of a third-person sport, whether or not you’re employed on TV or VR is radically totally different. This concept that we might add a VR mode isn’t relevant to this type of sport. It’s relevant to some first-person video games like racing, however not for this type of sport. So our selection was to go 100% for TV to actually have as many individuals as attainable enjoying this sport.”
Sony hasn’t mentioned quite a bit about VR publicly, however it hasn’t ignored it fully. Govt Eric Lempel instructed Barron’s (through VGC) in October 2023 that VR was an essential class for the corporate, however that it had a variety of room to develop, saying it was a “nascent enterprise.” It’s additionally been engaged on increasing who can use the headset, just lately asserting an adapter for $60 that may let customers join it to their PCs. Sadly, lots of the headset’s options gained’t work when linked to PC.
