Sony ramping up Move production for PSVR push

Sony is increasing the production of its motion-sensitive PlayStation Move controllers ahead of an anticipated deluge of new titles.

Speaking at Develop:VR in London today, Stuart Whyte - Sony London Studio's director of VR product development - said Sony is tracking the number of players who own Move controllers, and hopes to increase this as the PSVR userbase grows.

"Currently, two thirds of the games released so far on PlayStation VR are Move-compatible or require Move," Whyte told attendees. "As we see more Oculus and Vive titles come to PSVR, we're expecting this number to increase. Sony is increasing the Move production capacity to [cater] to this."

PlayStation Move first launched in 2010 as a response to the huge popularity of Nintendo Wii, but struggled to match that console's success. However, the tech has been given a new lease on live thanks to its use in PlayStation's virtual reality titles.

It's a safe bet that more Oculus and Vive developers will bring their titles to PlayStation's platform given that it is currently the market leader in VR with over 1m headsets sold. Whyte shared more learnings from the first year of PSVR, revealing that PS4 Pro users are more likely to own the device.

"The ratio of PS4 Pro attachment for PSVR is high," he said. "One in five PS4s sold now are Pros, but that ratio [for PSVR] on PlayStation Pro is higher again.

"It's definitely worth supporting the extra power available on Pro when you're developing for PSVR, but it's still also super important to run on a base PS4."

Since PlayStation VR first launched in October 2016, more than 140 titles have been released for us and 75% of this content are games rather than less interactive experiences. Whyte predicts games will continue to be the main sales driver for virtual reality, citing the fact that they already provide 70% of revenue for mobile app stores.

"This is going to be true for VR," he added.

He continued: "We're currently sitting at five games sold per headset, so we're seeing a really strong attach rate from our first year. Many of those games to date are smaller experiences, they're experiences that we as developers [use to] get to know the platform built around one or two mechanics.

"We feel that for VR to get to the next level, we need bigger, built from the ground up VR AAA experiences."

Sony London's answer to this is Blood & Truth, a new VR shooter that is inspired by the London Heist section of last year's launch title PlayStation VR Worlds. The game will be optimised for PlayStation Move, although Whyte said the team hopes to include standard controls as well.