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As of tomorrow the price of the PlayStation VR Starter Pack is being slashed in all territories. Officially the pack still costs £350 today in the UK, so that’s a £90 reduction, while the US price falls from $399 to $299 as does the Euro pricing.
The Starter Pack contains the essential PlayStation Camera and (in Europe) a copy of PlayStation VR Worlds. Consumers today will usually get a couple of bundled games for £350. And we’re yet to see how generous the bundle deals will be when the price cut comes into effect tomorrow.
Either way it should boost sales of the headset at a time when a strong lineup of software is hitting the hardware. Such as adorable adventure title Moss and the action-movie aping Blood and Truth, Top-gun antics in Ace Combat 7, and the distinctly unsettling Transference.
Originally launched back in October 2016 at £350, the only official and permanent price change since launch has been to reduce the Starter Pack down to the same price, although there was some heavy official discounting on the headset last Black Friday.
This price cut should make the headset more of an impulse purchase. At present there are 2m headsets sold as the end of the last year, compared to 70m PS4s at that time. That means any developer looking to PSVR must balance the far smaller install base of the hardware with the potential boon of a less competitive market.
To date Sony has done a good job of getting software onto the platform, and this should help further that. For more on PlayStation’s VR Strategy read our take on its Paris Games Week press conference.
