It seems that sales of Sony’s PS VR headset are doing better than the company itself imagined. As of February 19, the the Japanese company had sold 915,000 PlayStation VR headsets, showing how quickly the media has been embraced by gamers on PS4. The numbers were revealed during a New York Times interview with Sony’s global chief executive of Interactive Entertainment, Andrew House. Mr House revealed that Sony had been surprised by the virtual reality headsets popularity but were now working hard to solve supply issues.
The issue of availability is a sticking point; PS VR headsets sell out the minute they become available, and currently gamers often have to wait before getting their hands on one. In the interview, Andrew house touched on that by saying that the company is looking to have improved the supply of PS VR headsets by April. Soon after, Sony expects to start selling the popular device in Latin America.
It would appear that the supply issues have come about because of a level of caution from Sony. Virtual reality is still a young sector and House admits to being one of the people that supported making fewer headsets. But now the Japanese gaming giant is scrambling to meet demand as PS VR’s popularity grows.
“It’s the classic case in any organization — the guys who are on the front end in sales are getting very excited, very hyped up,” . .. “You have to temper that with other voices inside the company, myself among them, saying let’s just be a little bit careful.” – Andrew House
Sony on Course to Smash Sales Forecasts
House went on to mention scenes at some Retailers in Japan . . “You literally have people lining up outside stores when they know stock is being replenished,” Thankfully Sony is now working hard to ease the surprise demand in the future. This should go hand in hand with the production of more VR content as well so that the genre continues to thrive.
Back to the present and Sony shifting nearly a million PlayStation VR headsets means that the company is on course to smash its sales forecast. Sony’s forecast saw the company sell a million units in the first six months after its release. That milestone is in mid-April and Sony has nearly reached it just four months in.
From a wider perspective, PS VR’s sales figures show that the medium is gaining mainstream acceptance. And with over 45 million PlayStation 4 consoles sold to date, Sony just requires a small fraction of that number to invest in a PS VR headset for the product to be a huge success.
Its time more bigger publishers created games for PS VR, the players are waiting.
Source: New York Times
