GameStop CEO: Sony’s VR Headset is dropping this fall
So, I can’t just close my eyes, embrace how old I feel, and successfully wish VR away. That’s what it’s looking like. I can’t wish away a lot of things: my overeating, pee boners in the car during traffic, and now apparently virtual reality.
Alas.
The PlayStation VR headset might ship this fall, according to GameStop CEO Paul Raines. In an interview segment with Fox Business, Raines discussed GameStop’s virtual reality strategy, saying that “we will launch the Sony product this fall, and we are in discussions with the other two players.” He doesn’t use the name, but there’s not much this could refer to except the PlayStation VR headset.
This is the first we’ve heard about a PlayStation VR (formerly Project Morpheus) release date for quite some time. Last year, Sony said that the headset would ship in the first half of 2016, but that timeline has started looking increasingly tight. A fall launch — in time for the holiday season — makes a lot of sense. This would make it the last major VR headset to ship, after the Oculus Rift’s planned March 28th launch date and the HTC Vive’s release in April. While Sony has yet to announce any pricing for either the VR headset or its games, several upcoming titles were announced at an event last year. It has not yet responded to a request for comment on Raines’ interview.
Here’s the entire relevant quote, in response to a question about how GameStop was investing in virtual reality.
We are right now preparing for the launches of the major VR products. So we’re now in discussions with Oculus, with HTC Vive, and with Sony. The market size is really hard to measure right now, but there are a lot of different measurements — all of them start with a [billion]. In fact, I saw a Goldman Sachs report the other day that said that the virtual reality segment will be worth about $80 billion by 2025. So it’s a big launch. We’re getting ready for it. We will launch the Sony product this fall, and we are in discussions with the other two players.