It’s easy to forget that Sony launched a fancy, expensive VR headset for PlayStation 5 just a few years ago. It’s seemingly only going to get easier going forward.
That’s because Sony just sold 419 VR-and-XR-related patents to Meta, per a report from ZDNet Korea. 43 of those were filed in the United States alone, and they include patents for things like head-mounted displays.
It’s unclear what exactly this means for Sony’s future VR efforts, but doing this just three and a half years after the launch of PlayStation VR 2 (amidst product shortages, per GamesRadar) suggests that the company isn’t especially interested in making another headset anytime soon. It should be noted that PSVR2 has not been officially discontinued, even if it has been difficult to find in stock recently.
This isn’t terribly surprising, even if it is a bit of a bummer for those who value high-end console VR experiences. The PSVR2 headset was hailed as an excellent piece of hardware by Mashable and other outlets when it launched in 2023, but a critical lack of software support over the years has made it feel like a dead platform, even if it technically isn’t one at the time of publication.
On Meta’s side of things, acquiring several hundred VR patents is interesting given the company’s recent up-and-down relationship with the technology. Earlier this year, Meta laid off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division and shut down the VR portion of its Horizon Worlds app. However, the company also just announced VR glasses, a new product category, so it seems like Mark Zuckerberg’s VR ambitions haven’t died just yet. This latest development is another point of evidence in that direction.
