Sony has unveiled five new games for the PlayStation VR2. None of them makes you really want to invest a large sum in the helmet for the moment.
Did you know ? Sony launched the PlayStation VR2, its new virtual reality headset, this week. To accompany this fairly low-profile launch (you won’t find it at Fnac, Amazon or Micromania), the Japanese firm dedicated a few minutes of its February 23 presentation to the accessory linked to the PlayStation 5. Five new games have been unveiled, except that none really makes you want to take the plunge.
The Foglands, Synapse, Green Hell VR, Journey to Foundation And Before Your Eyes may be great experiences. But this is still insufficient to build a catalog of weight and make people want to pay 600 € to acquire the PlayStation VR2 – however excellent it may be from a hardware point of view (according to the many tests which praise its visual and its playing comfort). Everything suggests that Sony may do the same thing to us as with the PlayStation VR: market the product, then feed it only too rarely to prevent it from ending up in a closet.
Sony’s unexciting communication about the PlayStation VR2
If we are purely interested in the way Sony communicates on the PlayStation VR2, we could quickly be tempted to say that the firm does not believe in it much more than we do. The State of Play segment dedicated to virtual reality lasted just over 7 minutes (out of the 43 in the presentation). Worse, Sony has decided to put all the presentation videos in the introduction, as if to give the impression of quickly moving on to something else.
The observation does not stop at the video: the summary of the State of Play, accessible on the PlayStation blog, places the five games of PlayStation VR2 at the end of the list. If the order gives an indication of the importance, the signal sent is not very positive.
What do we need for the PlayStation VR2 to become a desirable object? Of several games of the caliber of Half-Life Alyx, a must-have from Valve which has proven that gaming and virtual reality cannot be summed up only in attractions barely worthy of Futuroscope. We are used to extolling the power of Sony’s licenses. Where is, for example, Killzone VR, which would take the form of an ambitious shooter with incredible sensations? The first buyers will tell you that there are already Gran Turismo 7 And Resident Evil Villagebut a quality catalog cannot be summed up in two games.
More than ever, we wonder: what are we going to do on the PlayStation VR2 in six months or in a year? A question that does not exist for the PlayStation 5: we know that we will have Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 at the end of the year, then Marvel’s Wolverine in 2024 — among other big games, exclusive or not, already dated (Diablo IV, Final Fantasy XVI…). The calendar is established and reassuring, when that of the PlayStation VR2 is non-existent. We understand better why Sony has opted for a discreet launch, and which should remain so for a few more weeks, according to information from Figaro published on February 21: “ According to our information, the PSVR2 launch window in France is exclusively for PlayStation Direct, Sony’s new e-commerce site. To be able to try and buy this virtual reality headset dedicated to video games in store, you will have to wait until the end of March. »
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