PSVR games will not work on the PSVR 2 after all

Sony confirmed as much, the reason why and possible solutions up for debate

The new, seriously upgraded version of PSVR for the PS5 just got its first bit of bad news, but… it’s complicated. For everyone involved no less, including consumers, developers and Sony itself. (Image: Sony)

These last few weeks marked the beginning of Sony’s marketing push for its latest virtual reality peripheral, the PlayStation VR2, which will launch at some point before the end of March exclusively for the PlayStation5 and it’s all been good news… up until now: although the specs, design and first games developed for the product impress, there’s at least one PSVR2 weakness revealed so far and it has to do with backward compatibility. Hideaki Nishino, Sony’s senior vice president of platform experience for the PlayStation, confirmed during the most recent episode of the official PlayStation podcast that the games of the current PlayStation VR will not work with the upcoming model.

When asked about whether PSVR titles would be playable on the new peripheral, Nishino stated that “PSVR games are not compatible with PSVR2, because PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truly next-generation VR experience”. This is, of course, corporate speak for “No, they will not” wrapped in PR sugarcoating. It’s not a given that these scenarios are mutually exclusive: a new VR product could deliver “next-gen experiences” and be compatible with its predecessor. The systems these peripherals work with, the PS5 and the PS4, are compatible…