Without official figures from the respective companies, the success of launches by Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR are hard to judge. Yes there are software data sales and other indicators to go on, but concrete information has been hard to come by. For Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR it might be a little early anyway as the worldwide launch only occurred six days ago, but for the Japanese market at least sales figures do seem to be good thanks to a recent report.
From data provided by Media Create, Japanese videogame website 4Gamer has reported that PlayStation VR sold 51,644 units last week. The data is weekly running from 10th to 16th October, and as the head-mounted display (HMD) only arrived on 13th, that’s just three days worth of sales. Most of these will have been made up of pre-orders but some of it could have been direct sales where stock was available.
For what is essentially a peripheral those do seem to be good numbers so far, adding to the positive UK software chart data VRFocus reported on this week. This showed six PlayStation VR specific virtual reality (VR) titles in the top 40, with two further multiplatform VR videogames on the list as well.
SuperData Research, one of the main companies providing market intelligence on playable media and digital games reaffirmed earlier this month its previous sales forecasts for the device, saying that PlayStation VR is expected to sell 2,602,370 units this year alone.
With PlayStation 4 having a worldwide user base in excess of 40 million, the VR industry is looking towards SIE to gain a major foothold in the higher end market, with an easier mass appeal than the more expensive Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
VRFocus will continue its PlayStation VR coverage, reporting back with any further updates.