Bad news for anyone planning to invest in PSVR 2 who already has a large library of first-generation VR games: Sony has confirmed that there will be no automatic backwards compatibility.
“PSVR games are not compatible with PSVR 2 because PSVR 2 is designed to deliver a truly next-generation virtual reality experience,” said PlayStation Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino at The official PlayStation podcast (Opens in a new tab).
PSVR 2 has more advanced features, such as [an] An all-new console with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, inside-out tracking, eye tracking, combined 3D audio and 4K HDR, of course.” “This means that developing games for PSVR 2 requires a very different approach than the original PSVR.”
You can hear the bit in question at the 29:10 mark in the audio embedded below.
This means that the only way that original PSVR games can be played on PSVR 2 is if the developers redesign their games on the platform or specifically patch them. Some, like No Man’s Sky have already been confirmed for PSVR 2, but others will surely pass an expensive task — especially if they don’t sell well on first-generation hardware.
It’s a real shame for those who will be trying out PlayStation VR for the first time with the second generation headset. The original PSVR had some really great games including SuperHot, Blood & Truth, Resident Evil 7, Farpoint, Beat Saber, Hitman 3, Tetris Effect, Moss and of course the first Astro Bot game before the cute bot came out as a bundle. title on PS5.
Some of these may be moved, but others look like a long shot (Farpoint, which made use of the “Aim” gun-shaped accessory for the PlayStation Move console, seems particularly unlikely).
While you can still use the original PSVR with the PlayStation 5 — Sony released a special adapter that owners can order for free — keeping both isn’t exactly what it calls a viable solution. PSVR takes up a lot of space, with headset, splitter box, camera and motion controllers (optional). We don’t know how the PSVR 2 can be connected to the PlayStation 5 yet, so it may technically be possible to keep both connected, but with the hardware back on the chunky side, most people won’t want that.
All of this means there’s added pressure on Sony to ensure a solid launch batch when PSVR 2 arrives next year. Without brand new or old gold system vendors to reference, new hardware can seem like a tough sell—especially if they prove to be as expensive as we fear.