 It's been over a month now since Sony's confirmed that a successor to the PlayStation virtual reality headset is coming. We don't know when it's coming or even what it will be called, but we know what's happening. We've seen the new controllers first and as the weeks go by we're even starting to see games being confirmed to release on us. DevKids are about to roll out if they haven't already so the ball is rolling in that regard. For all of us virtual reality fans on PlayStation, it's all been a sigh of relief. It seems that the PSVR has performed well enough that Sony are saying okay this is a good start, we see something here, let's improve the hardware and give it another go. This is something that nobody was really sure they would do. After all, PSVR sold more headsets than any of its competitors but that's still only somewhere between 5 and 6 million units. Some people will compare that to console sales and see it as a small amount. Well personally I don't think that's the very best metric to use but that raises the question then. What does the PSVR successor need to do to be successful? And if it doesn't achieve those goals, whatever they may be, will this be the last VR headset we see from Sony? This question is going to be open-ended, I don't have the answers because of course I'm not running the show over at Sony, however I still think it's worth talking about, speculating, so let's talk about it. Before I do get started, please consider hitting that subscribe button, the bell, notification, all that usual YouTube shout-out, I'm very sorry to say this, I just have to do it, has to be said to help this channel grow, if you like this content. With that out of the way. The idea for this video came to me thanks to this article over at UploadViewer by David Heaney. The article talks about the sales performance of the Oculus Quest 2 where Facebook revealed that its sales have surpassed all previous Oculus headsets combined, which seems like a very impressive statistic to pull-outs and it seems like a very encouraging sign for the future of the medium. Now, I'm not saying it's not either of those things, but with Facebook not giving any units, very similar to Xbox, they do not tell you how many have actually been sold in hard figures, it's hard for me to get excited about stuff like this because I just don't know what that is in terms of actual hard numbers. Yes, it's better than the previous headsets, but what did the previous headsets actually sell? A few hundred thousand? A couple of million? I don't know. Nobody knows outside of Facebook. That brought me back to PSVR. The last official update we got from Sony on PSVR sales was five million units sold. Now this was all the way back in January 2020, so over a year ago. It seems like the headset hasn't managed to cross the six million sold mark yet, so unless Sony no longer feels the need to give up days after every million sold, then I think it's safe to say its sales have slowed considerably. So for argument's sake, let's say the PSVR has sold something like 5.5 million units as of today. Now, let's ask ourselves. When Sony first decided they were going into the virtual reality game, back in the project Morpheus days, what were Sony's goals for the headsets? Were they hoping for a specific number of units sold throughout its lifetime? Or maybe the preferred metric was a certain percentage of PS4 users. Perhaps it was just their way of dipping their toes in the water to get a feel for that America's. We will of course never know unless Sony reveal it themselves. What we do know however is that back when the PSVR had confirmed to sell one or two million, Sony themselves did state that they were not comfortable being the American leader. We also know that they used existing technology in the form of light tracking and move controllers instead of really going all-out and creating controllers better suicide to virtual reality as well as a better tracking system. They didn't even put analog sticks on the move controllers for Christ's sake. So when we put all that together it starts to paint a picture. A picture of a company who were intrigued by virtual reality, but who were also very wary of us. They didn't want to be left behind in case it was the next Nintendo Wii, but they also weren't willing to go balls deep and fully commit to the platform. Over the case it seems the PSVR headset performed well enough for Sony to justify giving us another shot for the PS5. This time Sony are putting up their pants giving us proper virtual reality controllers with all sorts of bells and whistles. They've sorted out their ancient tracking solution and they've made the setup process much more user friendly by reducing it down to just plugging in one single cord. And while we don't have much details on the actual headset itself, it's safe to say it'll be a big improvement over what we currently have with the wider field of view and presumably a higher resolution display. This all raises the question of price, but that's a topic for another day I think. You can be sure that development for the PSVR's successor has been much more expanded on compared to the original for PlayStation. And so it only makes logical sense that Sony's expectations in terms of the sales for the successor will also be expanded upon. If the successor releases and sells 5.5 million units in its lifetime that would certainly be seen as a failure by Sony you would imagine. And then it might be time for Sony to end their virtual reality affair just like they dipped out of the handheld Marcus right after the visa failed. Now that is a bleak scenario but how do we avoid us? What does the PSVR's successor need to do in order to ensure that it itself will have a successor? Sales of course is the obvious answer. Sony is a for-profit business at the end of the day but what's the number it needs to hiss? Is anything less than breaking into the mainstream going to be a failure for Sony? Is it too early to expect a VR headset to break into the mainstream? What even constitutes mainstream in this context anyway? Is it 20 million? 40 million? 100 million? What other factors are there to consider? Will the fact that Xbox PlayStation's main rival currently has no plan to support VR give Sony incentive to keep supporting it themselves? Possibly. After all it sure would be a nice feather in Sony's hat to say hey look we have Half-Life Alyx as a console exclusive to say nothing of what other titles may come. Now that is just an example Half-Life Alyx has not been confirmed although I would say there's a very good chance of it happening. So with all that being said PlayStation's next virtual reality headset feels yet again like a leap of faith from Sony. This isn't like going from PS1 to PS2 where PS2 just made logical sense. This next headset is going to be another gamble for Sony one where they have to be very careful with how they present this product. It has to be user-friendly enough, it has to be desirable, it has to have the gains and it has to be priced correctly. And those are just the factors within Sony's own control. Outside of that maybe motion sickness will still be too big of an issue for it to truly go mainstream yes but perhaps the coronavirus will get people more interested in VR than ever before and be a huge boon for the PSVR too or whatever it's going to be called. We'll have to wait and see if this gamble will pay off. I sure hope it will. That is it for this video lads and ladies. Before I end the video let me thank the following Patreon supporters whose names are on the screen as I speak. Thanks to their generosity they're helping keep this channel going and helping me make more videos like this. In particular let me give a huge shout out to the following top tier Patreon supporters. Pete Hawkins, Crumb, Tradition, Chopped517, Daniel the Pumpkin Patch Kid and Columbus Thomas III. Thank you very much for that support lads it is very much appreciated. If you'd like to help me out over on Patreon you can do so. The link to that will be in the description below. If not I'll be happy with just the likes, subscribe, ding in the bell, all that usual YouTube shies. And of course let me know your thoughts and opinions on all of this stuff in the comments below. Finally let me thank Decepticon for letting me use his music in all of my videos. Thank you very much Decepticon. His latest album just came out very recently. You should look that up. Link to that will be in the description as well. I'll see you in the next one lads and ladies. Please stay nice and slippery wet moist.