Sony Celebrates 5 Years Of PSVR With Free Games
The upcoming selection of November's free PlayStation Plus game will feature some extra virtual reality titles as a five-year celebration of PSVR.
Amazingly, it’s been five years since the launch of PlayStation’s VR headset. While VR technology is still yet to fully take gaming by storm, it’s had some successes and the anniversary of the PSVR is certainly one to celebrate.
How is Sony celebrating its five year VR anniversary?
Sony released a comprehensive blog post that announced that all PS Plus members will be receiving three free VR games in November. Although it didn't specify which games will be available, we do know the VR games will be bonus additions to the regular free games.
In the blog post, the Senior Director of PSVR, Isabelle Tomatis, said: "Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day PlayStation VR was introduced to the world, and we want to take this moment to thank all of our fans and our talented development community for embracing this platform and supporting PS VR through the years."
The announcement went on to give us some interesting data about the most played PSVR games by playtime, with further breakdowns by region. According to Sony metrics, the most played games are Rec Room, Beat Saber, PlayStation VR Worlds, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, and Resident Evil 7 Biohazard - which came with a VR mode exclusive to the Sony device.
Click to enlargeAdditionally, European and North American players seem to be mad for Rec Room, whereas Japan’s players mainly went for RE7. The rest of the article featured some nice quotes from developers, explaining their thoughts on the hardware and its future.
What is the future of PSVR?
Sony has already confirmed that the next version of their VR headset is in development for the PS5, having already shown off the controllers. Additionally, the blog post does mention some upcoming VR titles by name, including Moss: Book II, Wanderer, After the Fall, Humanity, Puzzling Places, Zenith: The Last City, and more.
In terms of VR in the wider industry, it’s still a way off from becoming the guaranteed future we all expect. Pricing and recommended hardware are still the biggest entry-level issues, while must-play games are few and far between. We can only really think of Half-Life: Alyx as a true sign of VR’s true potential.
