PSVR Sales Reach 1.3 Million Units This Year

PSVR sales have reached 1.3 million units in 2018 alone, according to the latest information from SuperData. That means that Sony’s VR headset has outperformed the likes of Oculus Rift, HTC, and Samsung this year. The news will be a useful signpost for Sony after reports suggested that the headset hadn’t performed as well as the company had hoped since its 2016 release.

The 1.3 million headsets figure that Sony managed to shift this year means that the PSVR is the best selling VR hardware of 2018. The data, supplied by SuperData, shows that the PSVR sold 200,000 more units than the Oculus Rift Go, which has sold an estimated 1.1 million units so far. The Samsung Gear VR was the third best-selling VR HMD, shifting around 600,000 units. Both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive Focus only managed to sell around 100,000 units this year.

The news comes at the tail end of a year that saw Sony apparently readjust their expectations for PSVR sales after admitting that the VR market hadn’t performed as well as first hoped. Exactly what has pushed Sony’s hardware head and shoulders above its competitors isn’t clear. With that said, the gear has been invested in heavily by Sony, with a clearer focus on lifting VR gaming out of a niche market. Games like Astro Bot have proved to be a major hit with the system while ports of Skyrim and Doom have shown that big-name developers are looking to break into the market as well. And while it seems the system may be at a turning point, our own Paul Tamburro has some suggestions on how the peripheral could be improved upon.

Sony recently unveiled a PSVR “Mega Bundle” that includes the headset, camera, and five titles which could see a few more sales in Sony’s favor in the lead up to Christmas. However, the bundle is currently on available in Europe and Sony hasn’t announced any similar deals for the US market yet.