Rumor: Sony Might Be Abandoning First-Party VR for PlayStation

Hundreds of Sony's virtual reality patents have been sold to Meta.

Virtual Reality technology is still not quite the surefire thing that developers wish it could be in the world of entertainment. While VR has improved by leaps and bounds over the years in terms of quality and usability, the tech is simply not everyone's cup of tea no matter how good it gets. Sony has long been enthusiastic about VR, with its first headset dating back to the '90s with innovations like the Glasstron personal display series and even a Japan-only original PlayStation VR adapter.

The biggest leap Sony ever made with the technology was the launch of PlayStation VR for PlayStation 4, which did well enough at retail. On PlayStation 5, however, it's been a different story, with PSVR2 not making anywhere near the splash of its predecessor and has largely been treated as an afterthought by Sony. Now, word has come that Sony might be backing away from any first-party VR ambitions for PlayStation, as the company is selling 419 global patents to Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.

Meta is the creator of the popular Oculus series of VR headsets, which is technically a competitor with PSVR2. If Sony is selling to Meta, it doesn't look too good for the prospects of PSVR2 at this point. The last truly notable PSVR2 title to be published by Sony was the VR-capable My First Gran Turismo, a small, free introductory game for the series. Beyond that, PSVR2 development has been coming from third-party devs more than anywhere else.

Sony hasn't officially announced anything about quitting on PSVR2 or moving away from VR altogether, so this is just speculation. Still, given the nature of the deal and everything else we described, it seems like Sony is just about done with VR for the time being.

Source: Push Square