Don't Expect to Pre-Order PlayStation VR in India Just Yet: Sony

Last week Sony stunned us with unveiling the pricing and availability for its virtual reality headset, PlayStation VR (PS VR). It will be available the world over from October this year. While other regions like Japan, UK, and US have had their pre-orders live for awhile, we wondered if India would be privy to the same any time soon. However this seems unlikely.

"Currently we do not have plans of conducting pre-orders till confirmed date of VR India launch is available," a spokesperson for Sony India explained to Gadgets 360 over email.

It will be interesting to see when the much-awaited VR headset will be available for India and which bundles will be present. At the moment, retailers are concerned about supply shortages for the PlayStation Camera (which is mandatory for the PS VR) and the PS Move motion controller. Needless to say they don't have their hopes up.

"Before Sony can bring in PS VR, they need to sort out supply of the PlayStation Camera and Move controller," an independent store owner says. "The situation got so bad for a spell that their own Mumbai distributor had to import stock of PS Move from the Middle East to meet demand."

This could see the PS VR Launch Bundle being the only version available in India. The supply of peripherals isn't the only concern. The PS4 itself has been subject to irregular availability.

"There's never enough PS4s to go around," a buyer for a large format electronics chain reveals. "At least independent stores can parallel import to meet demand, we cannot." He went on to explain that the price difference between grey PS4s and official import product is approximately Rs. 5,000, with the former available for as low as Rs. 27,000 and the latter around Rs. 32,000.

"We've seen steady pick up for both [grey and official PS4s]. Customers don't seem to care since the console is reliable,"a local game store owner claims.

And we won't be surprised if the same rings true for PS VR. While Sony India might not have a plan at the moment, that won't stop die-hard fans from getting their hands on the device at launch.