Speaking to Reuters, President and Global CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Andrew House, said the virtual reality gaming market needs increased competition to create an audience, and that it’s current lead over space rivals is a cause of discomfort.
Since its launch on October 13, 2016, PlayStation VR has certainly not set the world on fire. In fact, in a little less than eight months, it only had sold one million units, a humble number compared to the 60 million PS4 units that were reported at the same time. However, while a million units doesn’t look very good compared to PS4, it is notably a strong number in the VR space, and a number that saw it considerably ahead of its space-rivals the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Essentially, Sony has cemented itself a dominant position in an embryonic market. And apparently, this is a cause of concern for Sony.
“I‘m not entirely comfortable being the market leader in VR by such a margin that seems to be happening right now,” said House. “With such a brand new category you want a variety of platforms all doing well to create that rising tide and create the audience.”
According to data from IDC, Sony has sold more than 500,000 headsets in the three months through June, a figure “unmatched” by Facebook’s Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, according to the researcher.
House also offered up brief comment on Nintendo’s new hybrid console, the Switch, saying that Sony has not seen any impact on PlayStation sales due to the arrival of the console back in March.