Sony will likely announce the price for PlayStation VR, the company’s upcoming virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4, at E3 in June, says Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter.
Speaking with GamingBolt, Pachter also reiterated his earlier comments that the device is likely to dominate the VR space if it’s positioned at a cost of $500 or lower, thus putting it significantly cheaper than both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
“I think that PlayStation VR will be a big deal [at Sony’s E3 this year],” said the analyst. “They’re showing it at GDC, hands on, and we’ve all seen it a bunch. I would imagine E3, that would be their big announcement. So you’re gonna have Oculus, and Vive in the marketplace by E3, and I think that Sony is kind of under the gun to announce pricing. So I think that will be the biggest announcement from Sony at E3.
“I’ve said it before, if it’s under $500, it’s going to be a bargain, and it’s going to probably take ton of share,” he added. “Because obviously, if you’re one of the 35 million, now probably closer 40 million, PS4 owners, you can buy a PSVR headset, and that will work out of the box.”
Elsewhere, Pachter said that he’d rather pay $500 for the likes of PS VR rather than a high-end device such as Oculus Rift, suggesting that the technology hasn’t progressed beyond that of a novelty yet.
“A lot of people push back, and say that it’s underpowered… but, you know, and I’ll have a better feel for this next week when i get my hands on it at GDC, but I don’t think most consumers really care. I think VR is fun, and it’s novel, and the point is, if I get a ‘dumbed down’ version of it for $500, instead of a super high quality one for $1500, I’ll take the $500 version all day long.
“And I frankly think that VR now is still just a novelty… I mean, there’s nothing in VR yet that I look at and feel that I must have, and it’s a lot easier to spend $500 on something like that just for the novel experience, than $1500.”
Sony will be hosting a PS VR event at GDC later today, where it is anticipated the format holder will go into detail on the device’s release date and more. Whether or not they’ll actually save the price announcement for E3 as Pachter suggests, we’ll just have to wait and see.