 How's it going lads and ladies? It is Petrifying Pumpkins here and I want to talk about this article over here that you've probably seen by now or at least heard talked about by now. This article is from IGN by the author Taylor Lyles and it goes into detail on like a review of the PSVR2 after its first year anniversary like a lot of us have kind of been doing lately in the PSVR2 space. This one is certainly negative. You can tell just by reading the title and there's been a lot of backlash from PSVR2 YouTubers and you know social media account users or whatever you want to call the people you follow who do PSVR2 content. Basically, a lot of them disagreeing with us, dismissing us as unfair criticism from IGN and you know mainstream media in general as we've kind of been seen for a long time when it comes to virtual reality headsets and what I wanted to do was go over us. As you can see with certain highlighted colors here, I want to see what they got wrong, what they got right, try and be more even handed about it because I don't think it's something that should be dismissed entirely like some people seem to think. Well, I do think there is blatant misinformation or just like you know uneducated facts thrown out here or opinions. They definitely do have some things right. So the stuff that I think is wrong, I've highlighted in red, the stuff that I think they got right. So I highlighted this in green and as you'll see if we scroll down the whole thing you get a gist of this. I think the green outweighs the red, you know, certainly more green as we scroll down further and further and I'm not going to read the whole thing but I will go over the parts of highlights and explain why I think it's right. But I will ignore the first one here because I'll get back to that laser if I can remember us which I probably won't fast forward to just over a year after its release and the PSVR2 has not achieved its total potential. Between its lack of first-party exclusives, now I've highlighted that red because that's simply not true. Day one was three first-party exclusives and then firewall ultra came out just a few months later. So that's four first-party exclusives in just the first year. Consoles don't do that good. PlayStation 4 did not launch with four first-party title. Well, maybe in the entire year did but you know it was considered this is considered kind of standard. Maybe it's not amazing but for us who were being on PSVR1 and we went to this, you know to have Gran Turismo 7, they want to have Resident Evil, well I'm sorry that's third-party. To have you know Horizon Call of the Mountain was really, really impressive and you know it was very promising as well. But she doesn't stop there. Steep price, that's true. 600 euro is steep. In a world where people are looking at quests which is the dominant headsets and they see the price at that's us and it's a standalone, it doesn't need a PS5, you know obviously you can't argue that the price is steep. Lack of backward compatibility, that's true. I mean it's not a positive. And retail delays, that's another truth. You know this thing wasn't even available to buy in any retailer. You couldn't just walk in, you had to order directly from Sony themselves at least in the major markets. That wasn't the case for me here in Ireland but in America that's what you had to do. Canada etc. So let me scroll down a bit more and I think they get a lot wrong here. So yet as I pointed out before it's released last year, one of the major measures of success for the PS4 II is a strong showing of exclusive content and that part has generally failed to materialize in the year since release. Absolutely false. Absolutely false. I basically covered it already in the um this part up here but yeah the first year for PS4 II has been amazing. Maybe it's exceeded my wildest dreams to a degree for year one. For year one. Then we go down a little bit further. So take the PS4 II's launch lineup which featured over 40 games. It's an impressive number but upon closer inspection only three of those games were true PS4 II exclusives and only one of those games Horizon Call of the Mountain went beyond an optional viewer mode. This is where I take issue that only three of these games were true PS4 II exclusives. Why is that a bad thing? Why is it a bad thing to only have three PS4 II exclusives among 40 games? Shouldn't the main selling point be that there is 40 games? You know you're acting as if everybody else has already bossed all those games. I mean you don't do this for console. You don't be like oh Call of Juicy is on PS5 but it's also on Xbox. So that's a bad thing. And then this other part down here at the very end which is that this is something I find it hard to get my head around as well. Basically diminishing hybrid games like Resident Evil's by saying they're only optional viewer modes. When many of us know that these hybrid games are far superior like for example Resident Evil Ace is just way better than Horizon Call of the Mountain. And Horizon Call of the Mountain is good. Really good maybe. But Resident Evil Ace an optional viewer mode and Gran Turismo 7 an optional viewer mode are fucking phenomenal. Best in class. So this is not a valid criticism. And it's not even subjective. It's no sorry. Yes it's not even subjective. It's objective. That's not a bad thing that is optional. Shouldn't be highlighted like that. Like a little dig. By comparison Mesa has dominates it. Yes it has. That's just the facts. Because it has desirable exclusives like Resident Evil 4 viewer. Now that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. You're telling me this is bad. Having Resident Evil Ace and Resident Evil 4 remake as optional viewer modes no good. That's a bad thing. But over here having the original version of Resident Evil 4 the 2005 and the graphics look like they're from 2005. Having that version on Quest is why it's dominant. They don't add up to me. You kind of try to justify this by saying that it was built ground up. But I mean what's the difference really if you look at the two games side by side. Both of them have the 2D cutscenes. Both of them have motion controls added in. Like you're acting as if nothing was no work was done when it comes to optional viewer modes. But there is considerable work done that Sony themselves funded. Which should be taken into account. And listen I don't. It's one thing to have this opinion up here. If that's what you believe that fine. That's what you believe. But then to do this down here. Then it feels like there's an agenda. You know. Because this is a complete contradiction. This is a game by the way. Up here. Resident Evil 4. Let's pretend this is talking about Resident Evil 4 remake for PS4 or two. That's a free update. Anyone who owned Resident Evil 4 remake got that for free. Down here. You have a game from 2005 where they charged you again to buy it. Anyway elsewhere third-party support for PS4 or two has mostly been okay. Games like Super Massive, The Dark Picture, Switchback and the now defunct first contacts Firewall Ultra were met with lukewarm receptions. That's true. They were. Particularly Firewall Ultra has been complete. Like really divisive with people. And Switchback while it's in a much better state right now. It did launch in a state that some people would say is you know not acceptable. She then mentions you know that C-Smash was one of the best exclusives. Though the latter will become a multi-platform release this April. The reason I got that highlight sort of read. Not because it's wrong. That is going to become a multi-platform. But because it's not a bad thing. You know Baldur's Gate launched on PS5 and then it came out to Xbox a couple of months later. Stalker is going to come on Xbox. But then it's going to come on PS5 at a certain time after that. But you're not going to put that against Xbox. You're going to have that as a positive. That's a pro for Xbox that they have a timed exclusive. But here it's a negative for the PS4 or two to have timed exclusives. Despite housing the PS4 or two is AAA viewer platform. Sony doesn't seem interested in having its first party studios work on viewer games. So yellow. You're wondering why is this in yellow. It's because it's apparently true. So obviously she's ignoring the year one first party titles, which is why that part is wrong. However, if you're looking at it from a today perspective and looking toward tomorrow, then this is right because we don't see Sony with any kind of indication that they're working on a first party PS4 or two stuff. We had the insomniac leak where we first party studio with a viewer pedigree and we know their roadmap for the next 10 years is just a bunch of Marvel games with no viewer support for any of them. Obviously that could change. But as it is now, you know, bleak when it comes to PS4 or two, that doesn't mean that as team of so be are not working on a PS4 or two game, we just don't know about us. It doesn't mean that maybe, you know, Sony Santa Monica don't have something in the works for PS4 or two. We don't know, but just the fact that Sony isn't communicating with this with us that they are. So it's understandable why you would think there's no PS4 or sorry, there's no first party support for PS4 or two. So I can't criticize that too much. However, you just know that they're ignoring the games that released year one, which is not cool. Going to scroll down again, abandoned by its creator, one year laser PS4 or two, first party support leaves a lot to be desired. No, it doesn't. I'm not going to go over this again, because that was the whole first part of this video. But yeah, one year laser is actually first party sports really fucking good. Year two is another question. And then we get the tweets of people complaining, including colleague IGN colleague echoing some of this stuff. But we've talked about this tweets in the podcast before. So I'm not going to go over why what's wrong about that. We'll scroll down again. The lack of AAA support in viewer is a recurring issue in the market. Yes, it is. So you might not think it is for PS4 or two, because we've got like quite a few AAA games on PS4 or two. But in general, overall in the market, that is true. After all the enthusiasm for Half-Life Alyx, the anticipated wave of big budget viewer releases has failed to materialize. Again, not specific to PS4 or two, because we did have a little bit of a wave of AAA titles at launch on PS4 or two. But yes, the big, you know, Half-Life Alyx was kind of supposed to be this big turning point where you know, PC viewer was really going to take off and a lot more these games were going to happen, but they didn't. So that's another kind of understandable out point or outlook to have a view point to have. That's why I said out point, because I was trying to mix those two words together, scrolling down to this part here. So analyst Piers Herding says that because Sony has positioned its viewer headset as a support product for the PS5, combined with slow sales means the third party viewer game devs will be looking at the quest ecosystem as a less risky proposition. That's just how it is. That's just the facts. Look at Rec Room. They don't want to develop on PS4 or two because it's not financially viable. You look at the contractors, developers, they're telling us that they're thinking about the PS4 or two, but they're not going to commit to us. Look at the Ghost of Tabor developers who are saying on their discord that Ghost of Tabor's PS4 or two version is probably just going to cost them money. They're not expecting to make money on this. So that's why all these games are and all these developers are prioritizing more successful platforms like the Quest. And then of course, this highlights the Rec Room thing, which we just touched on. So I'm not going to go over that. Even for the games that it does put out those, Sony's marketing for PS4 or two has a history of being underwhelming. I think we can all agree on that. According to a source, Sony would only market their games exclusively with PlayStation blog posts. And this is something we've been complaining about for what feels like forever now. And there's also the, you know, the sizzle reels that do the trailers, but they're like, you know, not really promotion. They're not TV spots or anything. They're just kind of trailers they put on their channel. Well, maybe some of them have been on TV, I just haven't seen them. But they're mostly just things they put out on their channel every once in a while where they highlight the same few games over and over again, like Ghostbusters keeps getting in these things. And what she's talking about these kind of highlights is the real things where she says, you know, she talks about the games that were included with the exception of resident before remake viewer, our majority of these games are not exclusive to PS4 or two. Well, that's true. I've highlighted that in red because that's not a bad thing. It is not a bad thing that your headset can play good third party games. That is a good thing. It makes sense to highlight these things. Sony have had PS4 trailers where they highlight destiny, you know, destiny was on Xbox, destiny was on or laser game to PC, destiny is a multi-platform game, but they were highlighting us in their own adverts. And there was no criticism of that. It made sense, you know, you want to show off. Yes, we've got the big Ghostbusters IP or whatever else they have among us, you know, what it was. Well, Sony took a similar approach with the original PS viewer. That headset had less competition and was pitched as being a more affordable alternative. I highlighted this one green because I think this is a really good point. It's something I haven't really thought about because I'm so used to the quest being the affordable alternative. But actually, yeah, the PS4 one did come out in a time where there was no quest. And everyone was talking about the PS4 one is that, hey, this is the cheapest way to get into viewer. So that's a really good point. That's how the market has shifted now. That's not that's not how it is for PS4 or two marketing and price point aside, the PS4 or two was sold exclusively on PlayStation Direct for the first few months. Again, that can't be beneficial. You know, you want us as many places as possible, you want to be able to walk into a Best Buy over in America, Walmart, whatever you have over there, and just pick up your PS4 or headsets without having to go through a website where, you know, it may or may not be well advertised that that's the only place to get them. So the common man doesn't just walk through the streets and see a sign up in the shop saying, oh, PS4 or two headset for sale. Not a good thing. We skipped down here. We got some kind of analyst from Om Dia, Gigi Ashvili, he believes that just over one million PS4 or twos were sold in his first year on paper. That does not sound bad. But Sony's reportedly made two million PS4 or twos before release and reduce shipments a month before release. Then of the reason I have that highlighted in red, even though it's backed up with sources is because after these articles came out, I believe these are the Bloomberg ones by the stomach Gucci. I can't remember. He's turning the Japanese sound in the name, which I can't remember. But this guy was kind of called out by Sony saying, no, that's not true. We never reduce shipments. So that's why I've got that in red because Sony have come out and dismissed this. The next part here, it also lagged behind the original PS4, which was able to surpass one million less than a year after launch and two million units by the end of 2017. Now, the only reason I'm saying that this might not be rice with whites and yellow is because we're going by what George Gigi Ashvili believes, not any hard numbers. So we don't actually know how many PS4 twos have been sold. He suspects it's around a million. I suspect, based on what developers have said, that he's probably rice, but he might not be. So that's why that's yellow. What's more, it appears that the PS4 two sold poorly during the 2003, sorry, 2023 holiday season. And this is based on what we saw with the road to viewer tracked Amazon sales of the Mesa Quest two and three compared to PS4 two, which found that Mesa headsets significantly outsold PS4 two. It was like a raise of 30 to one, which was absolutely ridiculous. That's true. PS4 two looks like the evidence is there that it's sold poorly. And I don't think the quests are doing amazingly well. They're doing decent, probably, but not setting the world on fire, which kind of makes this look even worse for PS4 or two. So he's saying, based on these numbers, the PS4 two accounted for 5% while all Mesa Quest headsets combined accounted for 75%. Maybe that should be yellow. Because, you know, we don't definitely know. But it seems like it's probably rice. So what happens next? Last December, SAE's head of global business said in an interview with Financial Times that the PS4 two was a bit of a challenging category right now, adding that he thought there was a higher expectation January for what viewer would do to gaming. So that's kind of a little bit of a red flag that he's talking like this. And that's what he said. So that's green. But a year after release, it's clear the PS4 or two biggest problem is that it just doesn't have the games it needs to make it worth the price. I disagree. Again, this is just dismissing what we have on year one, which seems unfair and unreasonable. And it doesn't look like the matters would be improving anytime soon. The reason I have that in green is because we don't look like we have a year two that's going to be better than year one. Right now, as it stands, that could all change tomorrow with the blog post or stays of play or whatever. But as it stands, right now, that's true. So Gigiash really reiterates his predictions that Sony's head says is kind of screwed in the coming years, citing the fact that the lack of first party games that is in yellow because we do have first party games, it's just that going forward, we don't know if we will have first party games. And you know, half right, you know, until Sony prove otherwise, the onus is on them to do that. And then the rest of it is true, though, you know, the layoffs, the studio closures affecting PS4 two developers, make PS4 or two's future look fairly bleak, I think that's true. These things certainly don't help PS4 to future do that. Therefore, they lessen the outlook of PS4 to skip on down here, where they're talking about the PC compatibility with PC or sorry, PS4 or two. So they said yet, whilst they kind of put this as a positive, even though I won't say that's yes or no yet, because I'm not really sure what the extent is what exactly does it mean. Sony haven't clarified what exactly they mean with the PC stuff. Is it just going to be plugged into the PC? Are we going to be using a PS5 to do this as well? Too many questions remain. Anyway, yet, PS4 two is entering the PC viewer market at an awkward time. GGS really told IGN that recent steam hardware service data suggests that there is no significant growth in that space. That's just true. The number of viewer headsets owners with gaming PCs using steam is not keeping up with the rapid growth of new steam users. So it's like stagnating over there on PC. So really, how beneficial is it going to be for PS4 to go on PC when PC is not in the best position right now? Future support for PC viewer games makes it more comparable to other headsets on the market and will likely broaden its appeal to an extent. Which I agree with, but I would put the emphasis on to an extent. Again, I don't see any reason why this is going to light the world on fire on PC and all of a sudden starts sunning millions and millions. I think it'll be a limited benefit. Currently, the PS4 two is declining a year later and is at risk of suffering the same fate as the Vita. And the reason I have that yellow is because kind of even though kind of seems that way, we still don't have any hard data to back that up. So it's not something I can confirm. Even though kind of feels that way. And that's the end of the article. So when you go over all of us, even though when they come to I think the main sticking point for people to disagree with this has to be, you know, all the stuff they talk about with exclusives in the year one and how the year one was bad, even though it really wasn't. But I think it would be a mistake to dismiss the entire article because of those mistakes. You know, I think most of this is green. Most of the stuff I've highlighted is green. These points are green. So that's why I'm going back to the title. Why do I have this in red is because I think it could be changed to a year since its release, Sony seems to be abandoning PlayStation Viewer 2, not to have abandoned, as it stands right now, they haven't abandoned it, but it does the outlook right now. If this title was to be abandoning, I would agree with it. And it would be forcing Sony to prove me wrong and to prove them wrong, which is why I kind of, I'm happy enough, like a lot of people think this is a terrible, you know, this article 50-50 has its positives, has its pros. The positive is maybe Sony see this and is like, okay, we need to show people a roadmap for PS4 or 2. That's a potential positive. The negative is that consumers read this and they don't buy a PS4 or 2. So it's up to us to figure out which is, which is more positive or more negative. I don't know. Anyway, I've talked enough about this. I want to hear your thoughts and this in the comments below if you have any. 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