THE CRUNCH
Sony has sold 43 virtual reality patents to Meta, in an apparent scaling back of its VR ambitions. The transfer appears in US Patent and Trademark Office records, spotted by ZDNet, and stems from an agreement signed in December of last year. Under that deal, the number will eventually rise to more than 400 global patents, 180 of them based in the US and the remaining 239 filed in Japan, China, Korea, Europe and other regions.
The patents relate to a platform that struggled to find an audience. PlayStation VR2 launched on 22 February 2023 at $549.99 / £529.99, bundling the headset, Sense controllers and stereo headphones. Critics rated it a significant technical jump from the original PSVR, but the price, the lack of backwards compatibility with older VR titles and thin industry-wide VR development made it a tough sell.
Sony's own commitment was limited: Horizon Call of the Mountain and Firewall Ultra were the only two original games it published for the headset. In 2024 the company cut the standard headset's price by more than 30% and added PC support, which required a separate adapter and was widely read as a sign the platform was a low priority. At the time of writing, the headset and the Horizon bundle are still in stock on PlayStation Direct.
Sony had already framed VR as a small part of its business. In October 2024, Eric Lempel, senior vice president and head of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, called VR a nascent business: "It's never going to be the only way people play games, but I'm happy that we're in it."