If you’ve cautiously resisted hopping aboard Sony’s PSVR 2 train until this moment, all that hard work is about to pay off. Starting this March, Sony will drastically cut the price of the company’s VR efforts to $400 (∼R7,400), down from the original starting price of $550 when the headset first launched in February 2023.
This isn’t specific to the United States. Sony’s blog post announcing the “great new price” for the PSVR 2 mentions that similar price cuts are headed for the UK, Europe, and Japan – leaving out how the change would affect the rest of the world, encouraging users to reach out to their local retailers and distributors for more details.
This is permanent
That’s exactly what we’ve done, though local distributor Gamefinity confirmed that we’ll hear more news surrounding the local price cuts next week. When the PSVR 2 first launched in South Africa in 2023, it carried a steep R13,500 price that has since risen to R15,500. Whether out of popularity or necessity… We’ll leave that up to you to decide.
However, we can make some guesses about the impending price cuts likely headed our way. Considering the absurd hikes that have hit South Africa’s gaming industry and the current Rand/US Dollar exchange rate, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Sony and Gamefinity to target the R11,500 RRP ballpark.
Read More: Valve has a new premium VR headset coming, codenamed ‘Deckard’
But will it be enough to finally entice South African gamers? Even with a discount at hand, Sony’s second attempt to snap up the VR market features some surprisingly frustrating limitations. For one thing, it requires a PS5 to function (and those aren’t what we’d call cheap) – and then there are the exorbitantly-priced games to go with it.
Sony eventually developed a proprietary adapter that would allow PC gamers to get in on the action, no PS5 necessary, and later, added support to the Steam library. But there’s still the problem of the PSVR 2 being a more costly endeavour than that of its PC VR brethren.
