When thinking about PSVR2, it’s easy to get caught up in the question of its success – or indeed, lack thereof. After all, there’s been no obvious buzz in the lead up to its launch, and in recent weeks Sony has had to deny reports that soft preorders led to it halving production numbers of the hardware. But we can save all that tealeaf-reading until after launch, when the picture starts to become a little clearer. For now, let’s focus on whether it deser ves that success in the first place. Having now played over a dozen games on PSVR2, is this a hardware upgrade worth getting excited about?
For anyone who got serious use out of their PSVR1, this is admittedly something of a moot point. Sony has more or less ensured that its followup is a mandatory purchase for these players, first with PS5’s begrudging support for the format, and now with PSVR2’s outright refusal to play its predecessor’s games. Since it’s hard to imagine anyone keeping both headsets plugged into their console, if you want to play new console VR games then this feels like the only sensible choice.
Perhaps this truly was a technical necessity, but – after weaning ourselves through the early months of this console generation on backwards-compatible titles – it seems an odd strategy to launch new hardware with anything less than the largest possible number of games. And one that only puts added pressure on theavailable on day one.
