Sony confirms PSVR 2 will not be backwards compatible with PSVR 1

While first impressions of the PSVR2 praise a wide variety of features, as well as the overall quality of experience, one feature that won’t be incorporated into Sony’s new exclusive PS5 headset is backwards compatibility. The company’s latest generation VR titles will remain there.

Most of them recent episode of the official PlayStation podcast, Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President of Platform Experience at PlayStation, talked about the great features and development saga of designing and building the new VR headset for the PS5. Asked directly if next-gen VR titles would be playable on the new headset, Nishino said that “PSVR games are not compatible with PSVR2 because PSVR2 is designed to deliver a true next-gen VR experience.”

Nishino pointed to PSVR2’s advanced feature set as the apparent reason for this, specifically the haptic feedback ready controllers, with adaptive triggers, as well as upside down tracking and eye tracking, among others. “Developing games for PSVR2,” said Nishino, “requires a totally different approach than the original PSVR.”

To be honest, I’d be hard pressed to name even half a dozen memorable titles on the original PSVR. But there’s no denying that it’s kind of a bummer, especially when these games are likely to be known to only appear for a limited time on such specific hardware. Although it seems that the most important titles, such as Resident Evil 7will get full PSVR2 support, games like Robinson: The Journey Where Golem may get lost in time if they don’t appear on other VR platforms.

If you followed with the backward compatibility saga on PlayStation platforms, something Xbox has delivered very well, it might not surprise you. Hopefully those forgotten PSVR classics, whatever they are, find a way off the island of Sony’s unsuitable experiences.