According to a report by Silicon EraSony expects to increase the number of PSVR games from 150 to 280 over the course of 2018.

Citing Japanese financial publication Nikkei, the report holds the 80 percent increase in games planned for 2018 is primarily due to the fact that Sony has shipped over 2 million PSVR units worldwide since launch, making the platform ripe for further investment.

PSVR has a little under a tenth of the number of non-VR games currently listed on PSN. However Sony says they’ve sold more than 12.2 million copies of PSVR games across retail stores and PSN since its October 2016 release—a testament to Sony’s aggressive investment and overall success of the fairly inexpensive headset. An ‘all-in’ first generation headset can still be purchased for less than $400, making it an easy buy for anyone already in the PS4 hardware ecosystem.

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Because Nikkei’s report is likely referring to the Japanese market, we expect the number to be a rough estimate in terms of Western titles planned for 2018 release—not all Japanese games come to Western-facing PSN stores—although the same goes for Western-developed games in Japan.

While it’s unlikely we’ll see a PSVR 2.0 version in 2018, as the system has already seen a minor hardware refresh a few months ago, this year is shaping up to be a big drive for quality content to keep PSVR players playing.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Xron

    Great news, now get us new controllers :D

    • Max

      I’d take being able to use two cameras for tracking over new controllers, or even all these games.. Tracking is psvr’s biggest flaw imo

      • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

        Yea, I look forward to a better camera or camera system next gen.. but man those controllers.. they are literally PS3 controllers forced to work with VR. I would like a better camera right this minute, but I’m much more fascinated by the idea of what Sony’s first controller made FOR VR will look like (excluding the Aim), and by then they will have insight from where VR development has been going and will go and that will inform their controller design. Though if I could only pick one thing to upgrade, I’d pick visuals. Would love better draw distance and resolution in Skyrim so I could really enjoy the view the way that world deserves.

        • gothicvillas

          It still looks crap even on top end PC. I have Titan X gaming pc with Vive and some times when i play downstairs on psvr it just feels and looks often on par with my pc. Mind you, im on a base ps4 model too. All I’m saying, even 4k headset will not make such a difference when ps5 comes out.

          • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

            Yea, I guess it’s hard because everything is life size so space between pixels is so noticeable. I never thought about how high resolution will have to go to look really good. Still I’d be okay with a moderate resolution bump as long as the extra power of PS5 increases draw distance and prevents (some) developers from having to blur things that aren’t directly in front of you, so you could actually dart your eyes around like you normally would. Frame rate is also something that could be improved. I’m a console gamer so obviously I’m not picky about frame rates, but I think they would be much more appreciated in VR. My buddy says Vive didn’t make him sick like PSVR because of frame rates, I always wonder about that. Anyway hopefully Sony does something genius to get better visuals out of PSVR2 than we would expect from the hardware. Can’t wait to see what happens.

          • Hans Wurst

            I even prefer PSVR to Rift and Vive beause it has less of a screen door effect, despite the slightly lower resolution. The panel is just the best in the biz from a technical standpoint (RGB matrix and 120Hz)

        • Hans Wurst

          So you’re using a Pro already?!

          • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

            Oh yea! I have had it since launch, over a year now. Same with PSVR. Some games are very pleasing on Pro and many aren’t. Uncharted 4, Horizxon Zero Dawn, and Skyrim in native 4K are my standouts. Rachet and Clank looks great on Pro as well. I actually have the newer model PSVR now and gave my old one to my brother who has vanilla PS4, so I plan to chill with him sometime and swap headsets back and forth to see how some games compare on Pro and vanilla. I really want to check Skyrim, Resident Evil 7, and Doom… also Wipeout Omega if the VR update is out by then. Anyway I remember the VR Worlds Shark Encounter experience looking way better on Pro. Pro launched a month after PSVR so had a short amount of time with PSVR on vanilla… not enough to really know how much it improves most games.

      • Hans Wurst

        Don’t see it…do you use wrong lighting conditions?! My tracking is fine..the controllers are sadly missing a fucking stick and I don’t understand why they don’t fix it!

  • impurekind

    Nice!

  • PJ

    If the PSVR got Oculus Touch style controllers, and room scalling. I could be very tempted to get one

    • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

      Yea, I love my PSVR but visuals, camera, and controls are all just under where I would like. I have always believed Sony made the right call considering the market right now, and I think that is reflecting now, but I can’t wait for improvements next gen. Most curious about what controllers will look like. They will be the first controllers built for VR by Sony (aside from Aim), and will have the advantage of all the insight they get from VR development this gen and consumer habits. It hurts knowing I have to wait haha.

      • gothicvillas

        New PSVR will launch with PS5. Maybe 2019 Q 3?

        • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

          Yea, hopefully PSVR2 is ready by launch, but I’d be okay with it taking a bit more time for the VR to come out. More time means better hardware at a lower price. I just hope PS5 is backwards compatible with PSVR1 because then resolution and draw distance can get bumped up on our older games. Immediate Skyrim upgrade.

          • Joey Sfb

            PSVR2 won’t make sense for the existing PS4/PS4 Pro. With only 1.8Tflop GPU power and even less cpu resources its not possible for them to drive a screen higher than 1080p@120fps. Sony make the right call to invest in a real RGB panel that minimize the screen door effect without the need to increase its screen resolution. I have bought a PS4 Pro /w PSVR1 swap the internal HDD to a 1T SSD and bought mcable ‘gaming edition to improve its visual. For those that want to improve on PSVR visual after the PRO upgrade should get the cable.

            http://www.marseilleinc.com/mcable-gaming-edition/
            https://youtu.be/MjJzibFTaqA

          • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

            Thanks for the tip! Yea, I wasn’t saying PSVR2 on PS4; I was just saying PSVR1 on PS5… so you can play all your VR games for this gen on the PS5 using Move and Aim controllers. Would be good while you are waiting to get PSVR2. Then if games are already compatible with PS5, easy for developers to go in and increase draw distance on different things and use PS5’s power. Ideally the games would also work on PSVR2 so we could get a resolution bump once we get PSVR2, maybe even HDR for some games if that tech gets cheap enough to put in PSVR2 :)

  • Mr. New Vegas

    HOW 180??? HOW??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I own PSVR from day, and been keeping eye on games, as far as triple A games i cant even count 20! if we take all the demos, experiences and aps even than i dont believe there is 180.
    This why excellent games are far in between, Sony thinks they have 180 games so thats enough.

    • kool

      Sony already has 4 aaa games coming and theres atleast 20 more that have been announced. E3 will bring atleast 5-10 more aaa releases for the year. I hope the aim gets some of that love.

      • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

        Would really love Fallout 4 to be squeezed onto PSVR with Aim support!

      • Mr. New Vegas

        Can you please list these games?

        • kool

          Here are a few of the best known:
          Inpatient
          bravo team
          firewall
          moss
          blood and truth
          golem
          the persistence
          soriento
          apex construct
          ark park
          eden tomorrow
          budget cuts
          blunt force
          megalith
          v of war
          gun heart
          Dwvr
          Frontier
          Pyschonauts 2

    • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

      Haha kinda true. The consoling thought though is that developers are just doing small games to figure out what works in VR. They don’t want to go all in on a long game if the game isn’t any good. Then they lose money. Every time you see a demo, just remember some developer is just training for a real game. A lot of developers have gotten practice so we should be seeing more and more fuller games. For example The Inpatient is coming this month and that is after the small Rush of Blood game. Rush of Blood was practice for The Inpatient, but Rush of Blood is awesome even though it’s short. Great for Halloween parties.

    • Hans Wurst

      PSVR got more exclusive games in its first year than the whole XBox brand. I call that impressive. Some people are never happy it seems.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Easy calculation from the day of announcement:

    Oculus and Vive are on very fragmented and unoptimised platforms that require the original 800€ headset price + at least a 1000€ set-up with an AMD/Nvidia compatible card, which according to last number only account for 45 millions userbase. While Oculus is quick to set-up, Vive is still a nightmare of cables, chargers and stands, but both are on a crap OS (Windows, which has to be booted-up, launched into, then another app has to be logged-in, and everything has to work, then only can you launch a game) and for a single desk/bedroom environment.

    PS4 was a 50 millions (now ~75 millions) standard/optimised platform with an entry price of 800€ for console + VR set-up. But it’s also the most straight-up experience: put the headset and push a button, all this while in a social couch living-room environment (remember they were the first to launch cinema mirroring and local multiplayer).

    There’s not even a strategy or analysis needed to be made, except at announcement 2 years ago to predict these sales were of course going to be the case.

    Hope they produce a great PSVR 2 next year.

    • Rogue Transfer

      The Oculus has more cables back to the PC than the Vive – which only needs power cables to the two Lighthouses, rather than three USB camera cables for the Rift for equivalent roomscale. Not to mention, the Vive can run on a single Lighthouse and track both controllers & headset easily for 270° and faster setup.

      The Vive also doesn’t need the supplied chargers – you can charge via the supplied mini-USB cables direct to your PC with spare USB slots(it only needs one USB & one HDMI).

      • Lucidfeuer

        To set-up an Oculus, I plug 3 cables, 2 for Touch charging and put a stand. To set a Vive I have to plug 3 cables into the receiver, 3 back to the PC, 2 for Wands, 2 for the stand + 1 between the two and 1 back to the receiver, and I have to unfold to stand we had to buy to set up the lighthouses…

    • Hans Wurst

      PSVR 2 won’t come before PS5 in 2-3 years. PSVR is totally fine as it is except it needs improved controllers with sticks on it.

      • Lucidfeuer

        I don’t think PS5 will come in 2-3. If they can continue to iterate, upgrade, optimise and extend the PS4 platform, while would they?

        The PSVR is really cheap and it’s limitation will quickly hinder its sales.

        • Hans Wurst

          PS5 dev kits are already out in the wide and the CPUs have been outdated since years. PS4/Pro are not powerful enough for the jump VR needs so 3-4 years after Pro released and 6-7 after PS4 is long enough. Sony will want to release a new and better headset in 2 years latest, when PC headsets have upped the game. They just have to to be able to compete with PC. X1X won’t play a role at all.

        • Hans Wurst

          Also don’t forget, as usual Sony will keep supporting their hardware (except for the Vita lol)..meaning just because PS5 will be out doesn’t mean they won’t support PS4/PSVR anymore.

  • Courtney A Jeff

    They will neede to have more software and make past games vr ready and continue to lower the price or make big breakthroughs in technology available ahead of the competition.Like wireless headsets needing no sensors.Praise Jesus!

    • Hans Wurst

      NO, all they need is an affordable price…we’ve seen that already around Black Friday when a 199,- PSVR was even outselling the new XBox One X.

  • Courtney A Jeff

    Jesus is Lord and my Lord and Savior.The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world.

    • Rogue Transfer

      Please don’t spam religious propaganda.

    • Andrew McEvoy

      O Lord, please bless this HMD with love in your heart, and take away the sins of walled content and teleportation locomotion only games, for they know not what they do.

      • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

        Amen

    • Jistuce

      But is He in 4k HDR with 180-degree FOV?
      I DIDN’T THINK SO.

  • Sky Castle

    The numbers they trow are meaningless. They touted over a 100 games or whatever in its first year of PSVR release and 95% of them were crap indie games. Double of that only means double crappy games.

    • Hans Wurst

      I’ve bought around 30 games and they are all great, Resident Evil 7, Dirt Rally, GT Sport or Skyrim are on the same level as indie stuff like Ultrawings. You do realise that Sony has better connections to gaming developers than anyone?!

      • Sky Castle

        Did I say there are no good games? Please comprehend what you read before you make an argument.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Meanwhile XboneX has zero present and future VR games. It can’t handle VR because it’s not powerful enough. And Nintendo is stuck in the past with the useless non-android low-quality tablet. Go Sony beat the shit out of MS & and the big N don’t.

    • Pimps

      Psvr is ok but I hate the controllers…they suck. Plus psvr has no porn. No porn no buy. Guess it’s good for kids…i dunno.

      • Reels Rihard

        It does porn but with some through hoop jumping. Looked it up and haven’t bothered.

      • Hans Wurst

        Of course PSVR has porn…lol One can even use it on a PC!

    • Reels Rihard

      Xbox One X, most certainly can handle Vr. It’s just Microsoft being daft about putting it on the system.

  • That’s a fantastic news for the VR ecosystem. It shows that with the right conditions, the business becomes viable

  • KLEEBAN KLIBAN

    This was exactly what I was hoping to hear after I saw headsets selling out for Black Friday deals; Increased developer interest! Now we will have more developers getting their feet wet with VR and contributing new ideas to the think tank, which will speed up software development. Of course there will be demo type experiences first from new VR developers, but the days of frequent AAA games just got pushed forward.

    • Hans Wurst

      Sony just sold around 2.5 million headsets, which is almost than double than the competition combined. Plus they have loads of great studios and contacts to developers and they seem to take VR very seriously.

  • Hans Wurst

    My PSVR is the best thing I’ve experienced in gaming since the PS1.

  • @_world1

    We need a Marvel VR asap