At this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony made more than a few jaws drop when they pinned an October 2016 release date on the PlayStation VR.
It wasn’t the unveiling, per se — or at least it wasn’t just that. What really caught most gamers by surprise was the price point. At $399, the PlayStation VR will be $200 cheaper than the Oculus Rift, which hit shelves on March 28.
Sony has always shown a willingness to take a loss on each unit sold just to keep their prices relatively low — they did it for both the PlayStation 3 and 4 — but according to Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida, things are different this time around.
“According to our hardware team we are not going to lose money selling PlayStation VR for the price we announced,” he told Eurogamer.
Along with the Oculus Rift, HTC’s Vive, and Samsung’s Gear VR, the PlayStation VR is just the latest in a line of consumer-level virtual reality headsets coming to stores this year. Does this finally mean the market is ripe for an onslaught of affordable VR products?
Lucky VR founder Jeff Lande thinks so. His startup has spent the last couple of years preparing for what they see as the inevitable advent of consumer-level virtual reality peripherals by making VR games for the other gaming industry — the one based largely in places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
Ironically, Lande credits the mobile gaming industry, which itself has helped bring land-based casino gaming revenues to record lows by giving gamers much the same – live dealers across many popular games even while on the go, while bringing together “the critical mass of elements necessary to finally deliver amazing VR at a consumer price point.”
“We see this as a massive opportunity to get on the ground floor of this platform shift to VR and create casino experiences designed specifically for this new technology from the ground up,” he told Casino Life Magazine.
It remains to be seen whether ground-based casinos can draw back their clientele with VR gaming, but one thing’s for certain: 2016 will henceforth be known as the year VR finally came to play.