By now, it’s quite clear that PlayStation VR is off to a healthy start with Amazon and GameStop selling out of all their stock. The health of PS VR can also be traced to developers who will reap twice the revenue from it when compared to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. As for Japan, PlayStation VR is also off to a fantastic start with nearly all units produced selling out in the first week.

Giuseppe Nelva writes for DualShockers about PlayStation VR sales:

 First of all, we learn that of the 51,644 units sold in the headset’s debut week (announced on Wednesday), about 41,000 were bundles with the new PlayStation Camera, and roughly 11,000 were stand-alone headsets.

According to the firm, over 90% of the shipped units sold during the first week, and offer basically matched demand. 

Obviously the above numbers pale into comparison to, say, a new PlayStation console launch, but they need to be judged in context. Like the Apple Watch which was a new product category for Apple, PlayStation VR is also something entirely new for Sony. From there, Apple Watch relies on iPhone and cannot function without it – PS VR shares a similar challenge which means the unit sales (though nowhere close to this) can never scale beyond the number of PS4s on the market.

Make no mistake, both products will eventually be untethered from their host, but that’s likely still a few years off. But perhaps more importantly, like Apple Watch, Sony must now convey to consumers the value proposition of having PS VR. Part of that will be through marketing, while other parts of it will be tied to new content from developers and additional refinement of the hardware.

Like Apple Watch, there’s clearly something there and consumers are interested; let’s just hope that Sony has a lot more in the pipeline for PS VR to keep the momentum going. I suspect 2017 will bring with it an interesting E3, PAX, and TGS.

Discuss:

Do you think PlayStation VR sales are off to a good start?