Steam Hardware Survey - July 2025 results included (see latest post in this thread)

I think the sales just started to take off this Christmas with the Quest and Valve Index, as well as all the other headsets. With the announcement of Alyx, all headsets started to sell out. I think those numbers will start trending up soon. Also, factor in all the backorders. Index, Quest, and Rift S are all sold out into February. That may extend into March and beyond unless they ramp up production. Once Alyx releases, and as long as it is a hit, VR numbers will take off. I would be looking at the numbers after the release of Alyx and beyond. 

RuneSR2 said:

I do have a strong feeling the numbers don't contain Quest PCVR, but still these number are depressing. Anyone knows how Quest PCVR is identified in SteamVR? According to this post Quest Link is recognized as Rift-S, but with Quest selling like hotcakes the +0.01% doesn't make sense - unless SteamVR doesn't work using Quest Link.

I believe the Quest Link does show up as a Rift S in SteamVR (I’m pretty sure it did last time I used it with SteamVR). I’m not sure there will be a noticeable uptick in PCVR due to Quest, though—even with the Quest selling out, I’m not sure how many of those people are connecting it to a PC and using SteamVR. Plus, as mentioned above, there is currently a pretty big backorder for headsets, so a lot of the holiday sales won’t show up in SteamVR for a while yet. 

Some user on Reddit wrote - and I tend to like this explanation:

"Likely many more overall Steam users. (influx of chinese users) Look at the OS and language stats."

Of course if the number of Steam users grew a lot in countries where few can afford VR, then this could explain that the number of active VR users may seem reduced even if it's not. Unfortunately Valve doesn't provide the real number of VR users. 

I didn't think they could use Steam in China, can they?

Assuming Christmas did create a spike in VR headset sales, it was not taken into account by Steam statistics for the obvious reason that Steam didn't have time to do so. Let's wait for January results, those are always the ones to look at.

Interesting that this is one of the units on the list:

This is another site that tracks current VR usage in Steam https://www.vrlfg.net/VRUsage
We can see that spikes are in november-december. Going up every year, which is good thing.. 

saami81 said:

....
We can see that spikes are in november-december. Going up every year, which is good thing.. 

I am looking forward to seeing how Quest will be rolled into all this - especially considering how the Quest Link works. The HL:A impact is going to reshape the map, but also the issue with the FB social media needs will also have their impact. 

January results just arrived - everything is looking better than ever - the Alyx effect  <3



To put everything into perspective:

September 2019 = 1.04%
October 2019 = 1.03%
November = 1.02%
December 2019 = 0.87%
January 2020 = 1.31%  :o <3

So far these are the best ever VR results based on Steam! 

Quest Link is added to Rift-S, so the Rift-S popularity may be inflated in these numbers.

For market shares we see:



Rift-S + Quest is getting close to CV1, but CV1 is still king ;) Index is close to all WMR HMDs. Vive non-pro still is no. 2 in the race... 

Based on a rough estimation for Quest, I'd say about 2/3 of the hmds are oled and 1/3 are lcd. 

And Oculus has about 55% of the Steam HMD share, making Oculus - by far - the dominant hmd producer on Steam. Thus it's probably safe to say, the majority of Alyx players will be using an Oculus hmd - and that will probably be the CV1 ;)

Hang-on. I don't believe the rise can solely be attributed to HL:Alyx. Sure that will have increased some numbers but we've just passed the holiday season which nets expected boosts in sales across-the-board. Also, there are several key titles that have no-doubt helped shape the landscape such as Asgard's Wrath, Stormland and S&S (biggest gains across the Rift platform).  With an increase in  decent releases like these then we'll see more interest in the sector.  VR software does needs to shake the "it's a tech-demo" mentality some people potential consumers harbour.