In an article for The New York Times, Nick Bilton reveals the first sales numbers for PSVR (and thus any VR headset) ever publicly released:
The headset, PlayStation VR, has been scarce in many stores, especially in Japan, since it went on sale in October. In an interview at his Silicon Valley office on Friday, Mr. House revealed PlayStation VR’s sales for the first time, saying consumers had purchased 915,000 of the headsets as of Feb. 19, roughly four months after it went on sale.
Sony’s internal goal was to sell one million of the headsets in its first six months, by mid-April. The company will almost certainly surpass that forecast. “You literally have people lining up outside stores when they know stock is being replenished,” said Mr. House, describing the scene in Japan, one of the largest games markets […]
Sony’s primary competitors, Oculus from Facebook and HTC, have not disclosed sales of their premium headsets. One research firm, SuperData Research, estimates there were 243,000 Oculus Rift headsets and 420,000 HTC Vive headsets sold by the end of last year.
Those sales numbers are interesting, and make the PSVR sound much more popular in Japan than here. The lack of a killer app makes me loathe to invest in PSVR. My colleague, Devindra Hardawar, had a pretty good review of the product when it was first released and nothing about it made it seem like a must-buy.
That being said, the fact that I already have a PS4 Pro means PSVR is likely going to be my first VR purchase when the time is right.