With Sony’s PlayStation 5 on the horizon, the VR community is hungry for news on a potential PSVR 2. But the CEO of one of the biggest VR studios out there warns we’ll likely have to be patient on that front.
Patrick O’Luanaigh, who heads up Phantom: Covert Ops developer nDreams, said as much in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz. O’Luanaigh reasoned that, in 2020, Sony’s focus should be on the launch of the PS5 itself, and not a potential peripheral to launch alongside it.
“But I wouldn’t expect [PSVR 2] to be announced at the same time as PlayStation 5,” he reasoned. “This year the focus has to be on the core of the business… so I think they’ll be all over PS5 this year, and when that’s solid, I think that’s when you’ll see what they’re doing.”
Rest assured that O’Luanaigh, who repositioned nDreams as a VR-only studio before even the launch of PC VR headsets, still thinks there will be a PSVR 2.
“I think Sony knows that, if VR is going to continue beyond the next year or two, they need to update their hardware,” he reasoned. “Because it is dated, and it will be even more dated by then. I’d be very surprised if they didn’t continue to support VR.
O’Luanaigh’s comments are in line with what we’ve heard from Sony itself over the past year. Last May, PlayStation’s Head of R&D, Dominic Mallinson, stated that there was “no reason” for a potential successor to launch alongside PS5. But we do know that Sony is prototyping a new headset and that PS5 itself will support the original PSVR. The console is scheduled to launch this holiday season, and so far Sony insists that the COVID-19 pandemic won’t delay its arrival. Earlier this week, we got a look at the new controller, DualSens, which might provide some hints about where VR is going on PS5.
