Over the course of 2016 Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has promoted its PlayStation VR by staging numerous demos at events and through various tours. For UK consumers these have included EGX, Insomnia58 and the Future of Play Tour. Apart from paying to get into the events themselves all the demos have been free, gamers just needed to book an allocated time slot via the trypsvr.com website. If you’ve not yet tried the head-mounted display (HMD) several GAME stores do have demo stations available, but there’s an issue, its not free.
The videogame specialist retailer launched a demo promotion last week, with stores encouraging customers to come in via their individual Twitter accounts. What unusual is the fact that the stores are actually charging for the demos, with a range of prices depending on the amount of time customers wish to play.
Thinking about purchasing #PSVR ? Come and try it in store today! £5 for 10 minutes or £15 for 30 minutes!
pic.twitter.com/IIIHNHSSI2
— GAME Cyfarthfa (@GAMECyfarthfa) October 22, 2016
For a ten minute demo the cost is £5 GBP, at 20 minute demo is £10 while a 30 minute session is £15. Customers will need to book a time and date, providing their name and contact details. While its very unusual for companies to charge for demos there are a couple of caveats to the promotion. Firstly if a deposit has been put down on a PlayStation VR and customers provide proof of the deposit, then the 30 minute demo is free. Also if a demo has been paid for and afterwards that person then wants to buy the headset, the fee is deducted off the deposit.
While those two last additions may sound fine in theory the news has naturally been met with a backlash on Twitter. Demos in whatever format have always been free, the whole point is to encourage people to sample a product, and if they like it to then purchase it. You wouldn’t expect to walk into a store and have to pay for an Xbox One or PlayStation 4 demo.
PlayStation VR costs £349.99 just for the headset, you’ll still need to buy the PlayStation Camera on top of that (if you don’t already have one) to make the system work. There’s also the PlayStation Move controllers to consider, whilst not an essential purchase – most titles work with the DualShock4 controllers – they will be needed for certain videogames so do double check.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of PlayStation VR, reporting back with any further updates.