Sony's games ace takes on Zuckerberg in VR race

Tokyo

SHUHEI Yoshida has reason to celebrate. The head of Sony Corp's games development is six weeks away from the introduction of its first virtual-reality (VR) headset and demand seems promising. The US$399 headset is sold out at retailers around the world, even though most customers haven't been able to try it out.

But on a rainy evening in Tokyo, the 52-year-old is openly fretting. He says it's almost impossible to predict how customers will react to the new technology because it's so different than anything that's come before it. The closest parallel he can think of is when he helped introduced the first PlayStation game console more than two decades ago.

"To be honest, we don't know what demand will be," said Mr Yoshida, sitting in a conference room at Sony headquarters beside a high-powered demo set for the new devices. "In terms of disruption, this is the most since PS1 an…