Rob Fahey Friday 7th October 2016 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Sony Interactive Entertainment

In a week's time, what is arguably the first truly great commercial experiment of the new VR age will begin. For the first time, consumers will be able to go out and buy a VR headset that's (relatively) inexpensive, that doesn't require a costly hobbyist PC to operate, and that provides a "good enough" VR experience for gaming and other applications. If there's to be a sweet spot in the virtual reality market, Sony will be planting its flag firmly in it next Thursday.

Reviews of the device have started to appear and are pretty much what you'd expect. It's good; we've known that from the countless demos and trade show appearances PSVR has made this year. It's not as technically accomplished as the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift, but it's a far more comfortable, well-designed piece of hardware, and its technical shortfalls are far fewer and less noticeable than you'd expect from such a cheap device running on such comparatively low-powered hardware. It's certainly an entirely different class of experience than any of the "toy" VR experiences currently offered by mobile tech like Samsung's Gear VR, a situation which Google's newly announced Daydream headset seems unlikely to change.

So yes, this is the sweet spot, if such a thing exists. Good enough to actually want to use, unlike current mobile VR devices, cheap enough to be accessible to a wider audience of gamers and enthusiasts, and with common sense (if occasionally frustrating) trade offs between complexity of setup and physical arrangement, and accuracy of control. If a VR headset is to rescue this putative Year of VR from the somewhat disappointing launches of HTC and Oculus' consumer devices - both of which saw interest plateau in the post-launch period - then it's going to be PlayStation VR.

"It's not unreasonable to expect that PSVR will be for all intents and purposes supply-constrained through into early 2017, making it comfortably the most commercially successful of the tethered VR platforms"

Is that what Sony has in mind, though? One peculiarity of the PSVR launch is that beyond the specialist press, it's something of a non-event. Marketing support for the launch is minimal; there's far less hype and visibility around the product than there would be around, for example, the launch of a major game. Here in Japan, PSVR barely warrants a mention in Sony's current barrage of advertising, which is promoting PlayStation 4 with TV and streaming site commercials that highlight the launch of games like Persona 5 and Yakuza 6, the arrival of new console hardware, and oh yeah, PSVR is a thing too.

One could argue that Sony would be foolish to push PSVR too hard given that pretty much the entirety of its early shipments are spoken for by pre-orders. We still don't know how many units of PSVR will ship for launch, or how many are projected to ship by year-end, but every indication is that the numbers are relatively small, at least by comparison with the PS4's installed base. It's not unreasonable to expect that PSVR will be for all intents and purposes supply-constrained through into early 2017, making it comfortably the most commercially successful of the tethered VR platforms - regardless of whether the company spends a single cent on further marketing.

However, the slightest glance back over the history of hardware launches in the games business and beyond would demonstrate that companies generally do not row back their marketing budgets just because of being supply-constrained; if anything, this encourages them to redouble their efforts. That's because supply constraints act as a multiplier on marketing budgets. When demand is outstripping supply, every extra notch that you can ratchet up that demand through your marketing efforts guarantees more media coverage, more word of mouth and more visibility for your product, creating a halo of desirability around the platform which can give a long-term boost to sales that lasts for months or even years after the initial supply constraints are lifted.

"A huge marketing push, widespread coverage of shortages and the resulting desirability halo that would build around PSVR would be great for the VR headset, but might negatively impact the now overshadowed PS4 Pro"

That Sony has seemingly decided to eschew that strategy for PSVR is interesting, but probably speaks to a confluence of a number of different factors. For a start, it's rare for a platform holder to be putting not one but two major new pieces of hardware on the market at once, which is what Sony is doing with PSVR in October and PS4 Pro in November. A huge marketing push, widespread coverage of shortages and the resulting desirability halo that would build around PSVR would be great for the VR headset, but might negatively impact the now overshadowed PS4 Pro. That would hurt all the more if, as is likely, PS4 Pro is not supply constrained while PSVR is. That's definitely a factor playing into Sony's decision making here.

There's something else in play too, though. Lots of software is on the way for PSVR, and there's actually a pretty respectable line-up at the outset - but reviews of the system are fairly blunt about the extent to which much of it feels more like it's demoing the hardware, and the concept of VR itself, rather than being a proper, full-strength VR game experience. The games aren't just short, they expose kinks in the PS Move control system (which may be fixable or may be an innate problem PSVR just has to work around forever) and sidestep major issues instead of tackling them - for example, the Batman VR title's decision to make the player jump from location to location, rather than walking between them, to avoid motion sickness.

In short, while there's interesting and even accomplished stuff in there, it all sounds rather like the kind of thing that you play to show off a new system's capabilities, rather than the kind of thing that makes you say, "you've got to go out and get PSVR so you can play this game". The enthusiasts and the VR faithful don't need a killer app - they just need enough of a taster to convince themselves that the killer apps will come, given time - but the general public absolutely does. It's easy for enthusiasts - a category which, if you're reading this, probably encompasses you - to underestimate the psychological barrier VR needs to overcome. For many consumers, the prospect of strapping on a headset that looks like a Daft Punk cosplay prop, isolating themselves from the world around them and potentially looking like a complete tool as they flail around with objects nobody else in the room can see is a pretty big ask.

"It's important that when the majority of consumers start to experience VR, their experience of it is fantastic, not just a demo or a proof of concept but a game that makes them want to own this technology right now"

A great killer app game that gets the world gushing will overcome that barrier. That may be on the way; all eyes are on January's Resident Evil 7, which could potentially be VR's first truly huge AAA title. Until that kind of game is available, though, Sony may be well advised to focus on the VR faithful and keep its marketing powder dry. That's certainly what seems to have happened so far; this is entirely anecdotal, but I've been surprised at just how few people have asked whether I'm getting a PSVR (and if they can bring an offering of beer around in order to have a go on it). Far fewer people have asked me about PSVR than have asked about PS4 Pro, or even Xbox One S. Enthusiasts know about it; the average gamer simply doesn't seem to care yet.

Given the hurdles facing mainstream VR adoption, that may be for the best. It's important that when the majority of consumers start to experience VR, their experience of it is fantastic, not just a demo or a proof of concept but a game that makes them want to own this technology right now. Saving the marketing blitz and letting PSVR's software library mature first could be the best way to prevent the so-called Year of VR from ending with the Winter of VR Discontent.