What Sony’s PlayStation 4 ‘end-of-life’ means for PSVR and PSVR 2

When Sony executive John Tsuyoshi Kodera told investors this week that the PlayStation 4 is entering the “final phase of its life cycle,” there were two ways to parse the news. You could disbelieve it — it’s a mistake, an overstatement, or likely to change — or assume that Sony was dead serious and already planning for the PlayStation 5. Sony later clarified that Kodera was referring to a three-year transition from PS4 to PS5, but the damage was done: Developers and consumers alike are going to spend the next three years thinking not about what’s here but what’s coming next.

Kodera’s statement has huge ramifications for the next version of PSVR. Technically, Sony could release an all-new headset tomorrow for the PS4 and continue to support it for the PS5. By historic standards, that would be unusual. Each new console generation typically makes changes to everything — I/O ports, internals, etc. — so the PS5 might well have different connectors and system architectures from the PS4. Would Sony spend the time and money to make a PS4 version of PSVR 2 right now, knowing that it might need to update the accessory again for PS5?