Video summary
The video presents a somber and critical assessment of the current state of virtual reality, arguing that the industry has effectively collapsed into a "barren wasteland." The speaker highlights a disturbing trend where major studios are either shutting down or pivoting away from dedicated VR development to focus on flat gaming or mobile platforms. This shift is described as particularly painful for enthusiasts because it feels like a forced abandonment of the medium, likened to watching beloved titles being pushed into the arms of inferior alternatives. The loss of key developers and the absence of high-quality, ambitious projects in recent major events like the State of Play and Summer Game Fest serve as evidence that the future for VR is bleak, with only a few exceptions like *Forefront* offering any hope amidst the decline.
A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the specific failures of the PlayStation VR2 generation, which the speaker views as riddled with red flags from the outset. Issues such as the exorbitant price point, the lack of standalone controller sales, and the absence of support for major third-party titles like *Resident Evil* or *Gran Turismo* are cited as proof that Sony failed to deliver on its initial promises. The speaker predicts that even the upcoming PS6 will likely drop VR support entirely, leaving the platform with only mass-appeal games like *I Am Cat* and *Gorilla Tag*. This situation is contrasted sharply with the flat gaming market, which continues to thrive with massive releases like *GTA 6*, highlighting how VR is shrinking while other sectors expand.
The transcript concludes by reflecting on the broader implications of this decline, suggesting that the industry's reliance on Meta's subsidized Quest 2 may have actually caused more harm than good by creating an artificial boom followed by a crash into mobile-first gaming. The speaker expresses deep sadness over the fact that current VR games often lack the production value and ambition seen even ten years ago during the platform's early days. Ultimately, the message is one of acceptance: virtual reality as a dedicated market for high-quality experiences is effectively dead, surviving only on life support through grassroots PC modders until perhaps a distant future revival occurs when the speaker is long gone.
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me kind of watching that studio like a
hawk. I hope that we can see another
announcement from them soon and that it
is virtual again basically. I mean if
they have to go flat now basically will
feel like a studio closure for us if
they pivot to flat or pivot to mobile.
Sorry about that. You just caught me
watching myself make very accurate
Nostradamus like predictions about
Skyance Interactive and how they would
be pivoting away from virtual reality
and to flat gaming which has come to
pass very sadly. They're working on
their next game is going to be a flat
game. Apparently, while that's not as
bad as them closing down, luckily that
didn't happen. To us as virtual reality
fans, it might as well have been a
studio closure because they're gone from
us now. They're gone from our tender
embrace. And that's not the only studio
that have gone. Within 48 hours, we've
lost Vertigo, Amsterdam, as well, the
creators behind Metro Awakening, Vior,
they're gone. Also, Arizona Sunshine,
but it's going too fast. That's the new
trend now. Going fast. Same as Moss.
Same as Alien Rogue Incursion. And you
know what that makes us? That makes us
cooks. basically us virtual reality
enthusiasts. We're sitting in our cook
chair. We're watching our beautiful
wives, aka Arizona Sunshine, Alien Rogue
Incursion.
We're watching them being pushed to the
arms of another man. And in this case,
the other man is flat [music] gaming.
And uh it's actually even worse than
cooks because, you know, when it comes
to cooking and whatever, the man who is
the cook is usually getting some kind of
enjoyment out of that. But we're
suffering here. That's [music] why it's
non-con non-consensual
cookoldery and uh it feels like it
should be illegal. There's nothing we
can do about it though. We just have to
sit down and watch it happen. And it
wouldn't be so bad if we had more
beautiful ladies coming along, but we
don't because who's going to make our
beautiful games? Who's going to make us
the next Arizona Sunshine or the next
Alien Rogue Incursion? These studios are
gone or they're pivoting to flat. We're
sitting in a present now where the
future is very very bleak outside of
like the immediate future where we got
flatos. I'm looking forward to that. I'm
looking forward to Forefront and I'm
looking forward to absolutely nothing
else. There is nothing else out there
that's really grabbed my attention
personally. Now I know you in the
comments will say Bootstrap Island or
you know probably another few things
that I've never heard of before or that
I have heard of but I'm just not
interested in. That's fine. Everyone has
their own tastes. But then what happens
when those games run out? Because, you
know, it's getting it's getting thin out
there. I don't know what 2027 is going
to look like. I assume a barren
wasteland. We just had the state of
play. We just had Summer GameFest. As is
now sadly expected. No mention of
virtual reality. We've just become
complacent. We've become used to that.
You know, 2027 comes along. I'm going to
be surprised if there's any virtual
reality dedicated studios left. I'm
looking at Fast Travel Games next. I
predict that game is going to come out.
Payday, the Payday game. I can't
remember what the subtitle is. That's
going to come out. It's not going to
meet sale expectations no matter how
good it is in my opinion because we live
in a world where Gorilla Tag isn't
making the sales. We live in a world
where [music] I am Cat is on the top of
the PS or 2 charts. People are not
buying the quality games basically even
if Payday isn't quality. So regardless
of the quality, people aren't buying
those types of games, game games, if you
know what I'm saying. Not to be too
insulting to grill tag or I am cat, but
those are like mass appeal, children
appeal, family appeal kind of things.
Not really why we bought the headsets, I
would imagine if you're, you know, of
the same mind as me. So, the last
resource of virtual reality seems to be
either the Steam frame, which I predict
is going to based on the price hikes of
the Steam Deck, I predict that thing is
going to be way too expensive and it's
not going to change anything when it
comes to the virtual reality market.
Love to be wrong there, of course. And
outside of the Steam frame modders. And
if you're watching this channel, there's
a good chance that maybe you're just PS
viewer 2 only. No other headset. And if
you are PSVR2 only, there's a good
chance you don't have access to any of
these mods. Maybe you're just PS5, PS4
2, because that's what Sony sold us on
at the beginning of the generation or
the beginning of the PSVR 2 generation.
That this is all you're going to need
for high quality titles like Resident
Evil 4, Resident Evil Ace, Gran Turismo,
Horizon, Call of the Mountain. That was
the lie they sold you at the beginning
of the generation and they have failed
to live up to those standards since
outside of some very few and far between
exceptions. But looking forward 3 years
after the headset has come out, what are
you looking forward to? It's for me flat
out forefront. That's it. I cannot think
of anything else. Certainly nothing AAA.
Nothing on that level. There is nothing
on the Gran Turismo 7 level. Nothing
that matches the Resident Evil titles
that we've gotten. We've seen Resident
Evil 9 blank us. Resident Evil Veronica
has been revealed and you know it's to
be expected now that that's probably
going to blank us as well. At this point
now it's a foregone conclusion there
will not be a PS or 3. All right. Even
the hardcore PSVR 2 fans who have been
calling me negative even they admit that
I think and a lot of them would say that
the PS6 is going to just support PS2 and
it's going to continue on that way. But
I'm going to go even even further than
that. Uh I'm going to say do not be
surprised when PS6 doesn't have any PSVR
2 support because the way it's gone. I
wouldn't be surprised if they didn't
save them hassle. Whatever bad will they
would generate by nin PSVR2 owners, we
are just a drop in the ocean. We make no
noise that they can hear. They don't
care and they can afford to do that. So
really this whole PSVR 2 generation has
just been red flag after red flag. You
know a lot of people ignored the price
in the first place. You know that was
the biggest earliest rate flag. Uh it
was hard to ever see PSVR 2 being a
success at that price. But then the
other flags started piling up. You know
Astrobot skipping virtual reality. First
Contact Entertainment then getting shut
down. That was another red flag for me.
The controllers never been sold
separately until Apple this weird Apple
thing came along, but you still can't
buy them from Sony. You can only buy
them from Apple at a ridiculous price,
nearly the [music] cost of the headset
itself. Shuhei Yoshida apologizing for
PS viewer 2. I mean, there's just so
many moments throughout the last 3 years
of just everything pointing to us being
on the road that we're on now. And the
road that we're on now is bleak, barren.
It's a wasteland for PSVR 2. whatever
will be on the road will be stuff like I
am cat you know and I'm not trying to
insult games like I am cat or whatever
they they deserve to exist in this world
too but you know maybe these aren't the
games we signed up for when we got the
headset in the first place and I know
the responses I'm going to get to this
there responses are you know wrote at
this point it's always backlog I have a
great backlog it's always what about the
mods you know but what about the people
who didn't buy the PSVR 2 headset
because the library wasn't good enough.
You know, what if you didn't like horror
games? So, the Resident Evils are gone.
What if you don't like any kind of
simulation games, so that takes out Gran
Turismo? That takes out Microsoft Flight
Simulator. There are so many nails in
the VR coffin now that the coffin is
just nails basically at this point.
There's no wood left on the coffin. It's
a coffin of nails. Meta are gone. Sony,
so obviously are gone. Valve. They do
have one last roll of the dice there,
but I don't see that role being any way,
shape, or form making any kind of a
splash. Who else who are we looking to
to save us? We're looking at like
grassroot modders on PC. That's the only
place virtual reality is going to kind
of dwell and survive on life support.
maybe for the next god knows how long
until another wave of virtual reality
starts again presumably sometime in the
future where I'm gray and wrinkly more
so than I am now and got some grays in
the beard but you know by the time
viewer takes off again I probably will
be white looking white and gray there
are some interesting conversations to be
had with regards to meta in particular
you know I often wonder because a lot of
people believe that when they came in
and they got the Quest 2 in particular
[music] to kind of go somewhat
mainstream, you know, they sold like
20ish million units of that headset.
[music] Still not really mainstream, but
you know, the closest we've gotten. I
often wonder if that did way more harm
than it did good because it gave us this
kind of inflated inorganic growth boost
that we got from this heavily subsidized
headset that only Meta really with the
billions and billions that they pumped
into us could afford to do that really
before Messa we did kind of have an
organic slow it was slow it wasn't going
to hit the 20 million anytime as fast as
Messa did but maybe it would have
stabilized maybe would have given us a
better foundation maybe this whole
reliance on mobile viewer games wouldn't
have happened we would have got higher
quality games perhaps
I don't know we're playing we're playing
guessing games there at this point and
what can we say other than you know the
whole thing is very very sad you know
this is not where we wanted to be this
is not where we imagined ourselves being
you know 10 years ago now nearly it's
been nearly 10 years since the PS41 came
out and uh back then I remember thinking
you know whatever limitations we had
back then. The move controllers, jank,
early days VR stuff, there was an awful
lot of give it 10 years, imagine what
this technology is going to be like in
10 years.
And what happened 10 years later is that
so many of the games we have releasing
now [music] are worse than what we had
10 years ago in terms of production
value, in terms [music] of budgets, in
terms of ambition, in terms of taking
risks, you know, stuff that just can't
happen in today's market, in today's VR
markets, gaming markets in general, uh,
actually. Um, but because we're such a
vulnerable part of the gaming market, in
virtual reality, we're getting hit like
a compounded [music] like a multiplayer
effect. As bad as things are in virtual
reality, you still got tons or sorry, in
flat gaming, you still have tons and
tons of games to look forward to in flat
gaming. GTA 6 coming out this year is
going to sell more than any games ever
sold in like in the launch window ever.
We do not have anything like that in
virtual reality. We're shrinking. It's
dying. Let's just say it. It's dead. It
is dead. Virtual reality is dead. Say
it. Let it into your ears. Let it into
your head. Accept it within your heart.
You have to. Doesn't mean it's bad.
Doesn't mean you were wrong to enjoy it.
It just means it's dead. The growth has
stopped.
It's dead.
I don't know how to end this video. So,
I'm just going to say thanks for
watching. I'll see you in the next one.
Stay moist. Goodbye. I don't know what
the next one's going to be. What am I
going to talk about? how another game
wasn't announced for PS viewer