PSVR2 has sold ~580K in 6 weeks (PSVR sold 540K in comparison), +8%

[エックス・エル]

The VR market will never be bigger without cinematic AAA-games. HW itself only attracts so much, eventually people want games. And in an industry that often has to deal with underperfoming games, it's not asked too much to try something.

But CotM is a cinematic AAA game. So is Wilson's Heart, so is Blood and Truth, so are the Asgard's Wrath games, so are the RE games.

Don't take it the wrong way, but I disagree so much with most of what you say here that I barely see a common ground to hold a discussion on the topic with you.

For example, you claim that "linear games have existed well before VR", but you know full well that there's a big difference between a linear game and "guided theme park"-experience. The former still leaves you lots of options and freedom among the linear path, the latter just pushes you forward on a narrow path and won't allow for much, if any variation.

You keep repeating this "guided theme park" term. That's basically the equivalent of calling Nintendo kiddy.

I mean, you could call Super Mario Bros. 3 a "guided theme park" game. Because Miyamoto wanted it to be like a theme park and you walk from left to right, or sometimes in other directions but player movement is guided by level design.

Using that term is selling the experience short. And experience is a good thing. It's bad faith by pretending something is bad by applying a label that kind of fits and you want people to believe the label signals undesirability.

Then you mention "conversion games" that I already explain are no more than regular games with tacked on VR. These games don't make use of VR's true potential.

RE8 has native VR controls, it certainly realizes the true potential of the medium. RE4 Remake is less thorough in its VR adaptation, it doesn't realize the full potential at all times like RE4 for Quest or RE8 do, but guess what, what is there is still pretty amazing and some people might even prefer the lower amount of physicality, destroying boxes with the press of a button instead of punching them.

Important thing is, the RE4 Remake conversion was possible within a few months of dev time. What is there absolutely makes the port wothwhile. It really helps to have these halfway conversions in addition to the full VR games, conversions like RE8 and made for the medium like H: CotM.

You and others can harp on me for "prove it!" as much as you want, but fact is that no developer has yet bothered to make a high quality, cinematic AAA-VR exclusive game. And until that happens, I'll continue to assume that sw is VR's #1 problem. Form factor is #2. Price is mostly a nonissue, a sub-1000 Dollar hardware is well within massmarket range IF the sw is right.

Price is very much the issue. Best selling Quest hardware is 2 (at launch $300), worst is Pro ($1500 at launch). PSVR was the most affordable 6dof with tracked controllers solution at its time, PSVR2 is not. PSVR had respectable sales until Quest 2 came along, PSVR2 is struggling.

We see a direct correlation between price and sales.

VR games need to be treated as similar to mobile games. It’s a different category and AAA games are not going to perform there.

This remains to be seen. It is true that no AA(A) game (and there are plenty) has matched Beat Saber's 4 million+. But it is a chicken & egg situation.

Not enough core games make the platform unattractive to core gamers. When they release, they're held back by the number of core gamers already (and still) on the platform. But as frequency of releases increases, more new player and returning lapsed players are attracted and also stay on the platform.

I'm confident this process can lead to a healthy core gaming VR platform*. But neither the steady stream of games nor this result are guaranteed of course. We'll never know if the process doesn't continue. But it isn't that bleak that the necessary games don't exist at all. The first steps have been made and on Quest at least I'm optimistic. PSVR2 will struggle to match PSVR1 but if they keep the pace suggested by PSVR lifetime and PSVR2's first year they can turn this into a Wii U that has a chance to follow with a Switch.

*Quest already is a healthy indie and and especially fitness platform, comparable to mobile, also in regards to it going beyond gaming with media consumption.