Before Sony bought the studio, Stormland, the last version of Insomniac, briefly disappeared from the Oculus storefront.
What you need to know
- Sony and PlayStation acquired Insomniac Games in August 2019.
- Stormland came out a few months later in November 2019, making it the last non-PlayStation version.
- Oculus released the title, but now Insomniac, which is owned by Sony, owns the property.
Earlier today, VR YouTuber Nathaniël de Jong (aka Nathie) first noticed and Tweet Stormlands is no longer available in the Oculus store. As one of our favorite Quest 2 games, Stormlands was developed by Insomniac Games, which made Oculus games before joining Playstation Studios. Another Oculus Store game by the developer, The Unspoken, was also deleted.
Therefore, Stormland appears to have been withdrawn from the Oculus store. You can no longer purchase it, but you can confirm that it can be installed. Maybe the contract with Insomniac Games has expired, or they did it because the server became a ghost town.thanks @MartinRisbyVR To look up! pic.twitter.com/RP3lHLrBLJ
— Nesi (@NathieVR) January 6, 2022
Considering that Sony is about to re-enter VR, the timing of this removal initially attracted people’s attention. The company announced its next-generation VR headset PSVR 2 in a CES presentation earlier this week. Given that Sony owns all the IP rights of Insomniac, it is not impossible for Sony and PlayStation to withdraw Insomniac’s games from competitors’ stores in order to transplant and republish their own stores.
However, Meta suppressed these rumors. When we contacted the company for comment, it responded: “Stormland has returned to the store after completing the data protection assessment. You can read more about it in our September blog.” The company then linked to the September issue A blog post detailing the new process developers must complete in order to keep their games on the Oculus storefront.
Meta’s comment did not specify whether Stormland was removed because Insomniac did not complete the data protection evaluation by the deadline, or whether the game was removed during the evaluation period.
It’s safe to say that Insomniac may never publish any new Oculus store experience. Sony’s acquisition also seems to have killed Insomniac’s Xbox exclusive franchise, Sunset Overdrive. Since the acquisition, both Sony and Insomniac have basically remained silent on any sequel plans, although Insomniac creative director Marcus Smith said in an interview with GQ that “nothing can really stop” the studio from developing another Sunset Overdice. But at least the original version is still available on Game Pass and the Microsoft Store.
Even if Sony owns Stormland through Insomniac, Oculus Studios is actually the publisher of the game, so the license agreement may prevent Sony from deleting it without Oculus’ approval. Otherwise, these two VR competitors may have no reason to cooperate with each other.
Oculus Quest 2 achieved huge sales in the first year with its simple wireless features and high-quality exclusive features. At the same time, PSVR 2 will rely on a wired connection with PS5 to provide more well-known exclusive games such as “Call of Horizon Mountain” and better graphics.
We speculate that the success of Quest may hurt PSVR 2 because Meta has acquired more VR studios and cheaper VR entry points. We don’t yet know how Sony’s new console compares with Quest Pro and Quest 3.
In view of all this, Sony may hope to port old games such as Stormland to PSVR 2 to support its release library. Especially if Stormland’s theoretical port takes advantage of the unique features of PSVR 2 and sees some visual upgrades. But if Oculus has exclusive rights, it may not happen.
The best VR headset
Meta task 2
Amazon $299
Get it while you can still play Stormland on it
Oculus Quest 2 combines simplicity and a wealth of exclusive resources, making it a must-buy choice for anyone interested in VR.
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