According to the developer Against Gravity, there are currently no plans to bring the popular free-to-play social game Rec Room to PlayStation VR2 as it is not financially feasible.
For years, the Rec Room has served as a virtual hangout and socializing area for users of VR headsets, desktop computers, and mobile devices. The game was first launched in flat screen formats for mobile devices, PlayStation 4, PCs, and VR headsets on Quest, PCVR, and Playstation VR platforms years ago. Sadly, Rec Room won’t be coming to PSVR2 as the economic feasibility is posing a significant hurdle.
Earlier this week, Cameron Brown, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Rec Room hosted an AMA on Reddit where he welcomed questions from gamers when a user inquired about the possibility of bringing the game to PlayStation VR2. Another user mentioned the lack of backward compatibility with PS VR2, preventing them from playing since upgrading from PS VR1.
In response, Brown said that the team was unable to justify the cost of porting the game to the PS VR2, seemingly indicating that not enough people owned a PS VR2 for it to be worth it. He said, “No current plans to bring [Rec Room] into PSVR 2. We’ve looked into it, it’s a non-trivial port, and we haven’t found a way to make it make economic sense. In an ideal world, we would love to bring [Rec Room] to PSVR2, but we can’t justify the cost based on the numbers. Sucks I know, but that’s the truth.”
Later, in a message to UploadVR, a Rec Room representative reaffirmed this, saying: “Cam is correct. We’re not working on a PS VR2 port right now. Would we in the future? Sure, if it makes sense for the business. We’ve worked with Sony for years and have had a lot of successful collaborations there. We’re always looking to broaden the number of platforms Rec Room is available on and plan to keep expanding the number this year.”
Rec Room, which boasted over 3 million active users per month on VR devices in 2022, has been available on various platforms. Despite the success and popularity of the game, the current decision is to skip PSVR2.
In February 2023, the PlayStation VR2 was made available, however, Sony has not yet formally disclosed the number of units it has sold. Gran Turismo 7’s VR update and Horizon: Call of the Mountain were both released by Sony on the same day as the PlayStation VR2 premiered. Since then, though, Firewall Ultra—released in August—is the only additional game that Sony launched for the headgear.
Overall, if it makes sense for the company, they are still open to the idea of porting the game to the PSVR2. To put it another way, they are only keeping an eye on the stats to determine whether to transfer the title to other platforms and the decision hinges on striking the right balance between feasibility and economic sense.
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