During the Sony E3 2017 press conference, the company surprised everyone by announcing Skyrim VR for its PlayStation VR headset. Fans are excited to play as the Dragonborn in first person, but those on non-PS VR headsets could be waiting a while to play it.
Following the E3 presentation, it was confirmed by Sony that Skyrim VR will actually be a timed exclusive to the PlayStation VR headset. While it's currently unclear how long this period of timed exclusivity will last, Sony is clearly betting big on its virtual reality gaming business in order to carve out a deal like that with Skyrim publisher Bethesda.
The decision to go platform exclusive, even for a short amount of time, is also quite unusual for the Skyrim creator when considering its other VR projects. Fallout 4 VR and DOOM VFR, which was announced during the Bethesda E3 2017 press conference yesterday, are both coming to the HTC Vive. While the DOOM virtual reality spin-off is also coming to PlayStation VR, Skyrim VR's timed exclusivity marks the first VR game from Bethesda that won't launch immediately on the Vive headset.
It's currently unclear how this will impact sales of the PlayStation VR. Without knowing how long this timed exclusivity will last, it's difficult to gauge how desperate fans will be to get it and whether it will be a brief enough period that most fans will choose to wait instead. However, Skyrim is one seriously hot property and PS VR has sold over one million units, so it stands to reason that Skyrim VR will help the headset get much closer to its second.
Many will also wonder what this means for Sony's PlayStation VR strategy going forward. The company isn't exactly betting the farm on VR but it has invested a lot into it. The company has even strongly hinted that a new PlayStation VR headset is in development. But will Sony continue to go after more exclusivity deals with third-parties in order to help sell its hardware? Or will it count on weird and wonderful multi-platform VR titles to sell its headset instead? Those questions can't be answered right now, but it doesn't look as though the company has any plans to back down on the virtual reality gaming front any time soon.