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Question

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

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Latest results:

These results are compared, at least for the Rift, to August when Rift peaked at 0.35 %. Since August 2018 Rift has decreased about 6 % (from 0.35 to 0.33). Vive also decreased.

Compared to other HMDs we see from April to September (note that this image hasn't been updated to October yet):

When updated to October I'd expect:

Rift = 45 %
Vive = 42 %
WMR = 8 %
Vive Pro = 3 %
Rift DK2 = 1 %

Source: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

BTW - some history:

April 2018:

Oculus Rift 0.20%

HTC Vive 0.18%

Windows Mixed Reality 0.01%

Oculus Rift DK2 0.01%

Oculus Rift DK1 0.00%

Unknown 0.00%

July 2018:

Oculus Rift 0.32%

HTC Vive 0.31%

Windows Mixed Reality 0.05%
HTC Vive Pro 0.01%

Oculus Rift DK2 0.01%

Oculus Rift DK1 0.00%

I guess it's more or less a stand still since July for Rift and the original Vive... I don't think the Odyssey+ has had any impact on the WMR results above, the Odyssey+ is much too new - if it'll have any impact, it won't be before the Steam Hardware Survey November 2018 results.

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RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

April 2021 results just arrived:

Quest 2 is going forward a lot, but seems to be at the expense of Rift-S, Vive, WMR and Rift CV1. Overall slightly fewer hmds were counted in percent of Steam users compared to March.

Interesting that WMR took quite a big dive with the G2 being a potentially strong candidate for highest-end VR.

Market shares:

Oculus has about 60 % of the share. Combined, HTC and Valve have about 30 %. It does indicate a strong desire for Quest 2 users to get into real VR.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

May 2021 results arrived a few days ago:

Not much changed the last month, but at least it's going the right way. Note that these numbers can be misleading as Steam registered some of their highest numbers of users in 2021:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-02-07-yes-valve-has-broken-its-own-concurrent-steam-users-record-yet-again

Thus 2% of Steam users having a hmd connected may disguise a much higher number of individual users compared to let's say if 2% had a hmd connected in 2018. But the number was only 0.4% in April 2018. So with 2.31% of Steam users having a hmd connected that number probably has never been higher.

Rift-S reduced the most during the last month, and Quest 2 increased the most. Strangely Vive Cosmos increased - and Index had a minor increase. About 60% of the Steam hmds are from Oculus:

Interesting how Vive Pro 2 will do next month - if the sales are high enough to register 😉

I do hope that PCVR devs notice that never before have so many users had access to PCVR.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

A

Anonymous

Surprised Index is so high up the list, considering it's overall price tag.

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

Not bad results for the Q2.

I think its pull has always been the ability to do both PCVR and stand-alone, I'd be very surprised if buyers have ever restricted themselves to one type of VR or the other. Obviously the people who wouldn't do PCVR with a Q2 would be those who don't have a capable PC, which is of course the big reason for getting one for these headsets for those people.

And for those of us with capable PCs and a Quest, we've been using both types of VR from the start... and personally, I probably wouldn't describe PCVR as real VR and stand-alone as not. Both types have their pros and cons and I'm using both these days in more or less the same amounts... I'd be hard pushed to decide which was more fun.

Going forwards, Infinite Office and Air Link will probably maintain the attraction, and a few new games wouldn't do any harm.

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RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Today's Math Session - with some perspectives 😎

Questions to be answered:

How much have monthly active PCVR Steam users increased the last 3 years?
What is the real current number of monthly active PCVR Steam users?

We know that 2.31 % of Steam users had a hmd connected in May 2021. And we know that in 2018 that number was about 0.40 %. Does that mean that the number of PCVR Steam users grew about 6 times the last 3 years?

Not necessarily - we have these official numbers, but Valve is rather tight-lipped about monthly users:

Being somewhat conservative, let's just assume that there in 2021 still are 120 mill monthly active Steam users. (Even though new results have indicated there are now more than 120 mill.*)

0.40% of 90 mill users in 2018 would be equal to 360,000 active PCVR Steam users.

2.31% of of 120 mill users in 2020 (2021) would be equal to 2,800,000 active PCVR Steam users.

That's equal to 8 times more PCVR Steam users in just 3 years! Quite amazing, and probably not far from the truth. Even Nvidia mentioned the increased VR adoption in their 3080 Ti sales pitch a few days ago.

Furthermore, 29% of 2.8 mill VR users indicate that at least 800,000 PCVR users on Steam use the Quest 2 hmd. - And 450,000 use the Valve Index. - And 165,000 still use the old King, the Rift CV1.

PCVR never has been stronger than it is today.

*These results show concurrent Steam users:

Nvidia just reported that 27 mill concurrent users have been registered in April 2021 - the highest number ever. That's about 10 - 20 % more than numbers indicate for 2020.

The 120 mill total monthly active users may be considered the average for 2020, and was probably a growing number throughout 2020 possible due to Covid-19 among other reasons. If we extend the trends of 10-20% more concurrent users to reflect the number of active monthly Steam users, we could be seeing about 135 - 140 mill active monthly Steam users right now. 140 mill monthly active users would be equal to 3.2 mill PCVR Steam users (and 9 times more PCVR Steam users than 3 years ago).

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Recent results are somewhat dramatic - last month 2.31% of Steam users had hmds connected - now it's reduced to 1.86%:

A 0.45% reduction out of 2.31% users is similar to a reduction of 20 %, which is quite massive. Also note the massive decrease in Quest 2 users, and the massive increase in "Other" users. A guess would be that many Quest 2 hmds got placed in the Other category. No way Vive Pro 2 could make up the 13% increase in the Other category, lol. If we add the 13% increase in the Other category to the Quest 2 category, Quest 2 would be 30.5%.

Interestingly, Vive Cosmos saw some growth, maybe Vive Pro 2 got counted in that category... Index had the usual small growth, but the hmd alone and base stations alone continue to be out of stock (at least in the EU), thus still indicating that Valve fails to meet demands.

Current market trends:

Again, I don't believe the marked Quest 2 decrease is real. Let's see how it goes in a month. The 0.45 decrease could of course also be due to the summer starting.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 wrote:
Recent results are somewhat dramatic - last month 2.31% of Steam users had hmds connected - now it's reduced to 1.86%:

Makes sense since SteamVR only has a tiny number of titles worth enjoying. Once you are done with Alyx, then it is either SkyrimVR or FalloutVR, after which things get quite lackluster.

Oculus PCVR and Oculus Stand-Alone have some amazing options, especially with all the exclusives. Plus, Facebook does a ton of advertising for their VR Platform; whereas Steam has next to zero advertising. Ads work!

Until Steam gets more high caliber experiences, I suspect users will connect to SteamVR less and less. Especially as Oculus continues to get constant new titles released to both their PCVR and StandAlone platforms every single month.

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

mmm that change in Quest 2 use doesn't look very organic. A straight line change like that may point to a problem in regestering connections. The yellow 'other' appears to be an exact fill of the Quest 2 drop, I'm guessing those may be mis-identified Quest 2 connections.

The headset received a big update around that time didn't it? The slope may be reflecting the rollout of that update.

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RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

That was my thought too, but checking out Reddit there aren't many users complaining that SteamVR no longer works. But maybe an update interfered with the way Steam registers the Quest 2 hmd...

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

Yep I think the update has just changed the headset identifier maybe, SteamVR still works OK. The yellow others are updated Quest 2s.

I think you're probably right about seasonal changes for overall Vr use. Well, possibly entering mid summer... and relaxing of Covid rules has people returning to outdoor activities a bit.

There's still the poor showing of VR announcements at E3 though, without a few big titles to maintain momentum, people will slowly drift away. That's partly why I'm not against Facebook testing anything and everything to encourage developer activity including adverts.

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A

Anonymous

As a simmer I have more than enough to keep me occupied with just my flight and racing sims alone. I get so much gratification just from those that I can play endlessly. I do however enjoy some made for VR games, and currently have Into the Darkness VR and Sniper Elite VR on my Steam wish list for when they do become available.

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

I'm a simmer too but not everyone is, I'm concerned about VR take-up as a whole, it's been how many years now? and we're still not getting AAA titles at anything like the rate that's needed to sustain it.

Without the software, headset manufacturers won't continue making headsets forever... or continue to develope new and better ones in the future, at least not at the rate that we want.

People want ever better headsets, and if theyr'e like me, at reasonable prices but the two things, software and hardware aren't seperable and they won't be sustained by simmers alone.

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A

Anonymous

I guess it depends on what kind of volumes are needed for it to be profitable enough for a company to continue to develop VR headsets. For instance there are some what I call boutique manufacturers that have been successful for the last several years developing and selling flight sim peripherals to the PC gaming market. Same with racing gear setups.

Thrustmaster for instance has been around for many years and still seem to be doing quite well in their flight and racing gear for PC enthusiasts. Then there are the boutique guys like Virpil, VKB, WinWing that have been doing it a while for flight simmers.

Yeah I know Facebook is looking at a much larger scope and good for them and for VR, but maybe some of these other companies will continue to cater to the lesser markets for VR. I hope they do anyway.

In addition to Oculus I have a HP, Valve, and Vive headset. I don't think these guys are needing to achieve the kind of numbers Facebook is looking to, else they probably already might have dropped out of it.

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

Boutique manufacturers will always be around and small scale headset manufacturers were around before Oculus in fact.

They don't contibute to the industry in the same way though and don't promote developer involvement beyond any company they can partner with.

I think everyone, even people happy with boutique should be routing for larger consumer take-up because they benefit from it too in the form of good software.

If Alyx is an example of that sofwtare, it wouldn't have existed if headsets hadn't shifted from boutique to consumer. I doubt that Index, Vive or Pimax headsets would exist without Oculus headsets beginning and contributing to consumer VR.

Thrustmaster is an example of controller manufacturer and as such doesn't rely on games being developed for it at all. All it needs is driver support which they do for themselves and the kit will work in any existing game. Imagine if a company like Thrustmaster had to create the sims that enable its controllers to work... would they continue to exist?

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RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Maybe we can also see the effect of Alyx wearing off - thus many may now have completed the game (and current great workshop mods). Alyx may also have set the bar way too high - making all other new VR games feel mediocre at best.

There have been several persons saying the VR seems empty after Alyx, and I'm not necessarily disagreeing - but I don't think I have to "lower my standards" after Alyx. I consider Alyx an extremely rare AAA VR production which is far from my usual norm. And I do love the quality I'm getting from normal VR games and apps.

That said, of course Lone Echo 2 is something to keep up my great VR mood - and I'm not yet worrying about what comes after Lone Echo 2, lol.

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

I was trying to find stats on what the average hours spent playing Alyx, I think average play-through time is something like 15 hours??? don't know how many time people play it throught though.

I never got further than the first hour. As a HL fan it wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but I probebly set my sights too high... I spent well over a 100 hours in HL2 in total, and played through it many times... it was more free roaoming imo but I will commit to playing through Alyx fully some time soon. Fallout VR is huge for me, several hundred hours in that. I'm saving Skyrim VR as it holds the promise of a lot of hours of play, so I don't want to use it up until there's a real VR drought.

Simming in VR maybe accounts for an hour or two a week for me now... would be much more if FS2020 performed better (which it may do with the next update) or if we'd had a new quality racing sim in the last couple years.

F1 isn't going to come to VR until take-up improves. That's a title that would pull-in a shed-load of non-VR people I think. Maybe not the kind of interest that FS triggered but still would be big news.

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RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

But the game hasn't really started yet after only one hour - you do need to play at least 2-3 hours. Fun thing, at first Valve wanted to make the tutorial last for about 2 hours, not sure what they were thinking, lol. The first hour is just the "tutorial" - I think you should play until you get to the first boss fight, no gonna spoil anything, you'll know it when it happens 😉

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD "Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

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DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

That misses the point I was making.

It doesn't matter whether the hardware market is split or not, all hardware is dependent on software. Simming software wouldn't be developed unless there are sufficient users to justify development.

I don't know why there's so much us/them thing going on, I'm a simmer but I know without mainstream VR hardware, there will be presious little going on with future sim software.

Without mainstream cars, roads wouldnt be built for sports cars to travel on.

So whatever your preferred headset, are we at least agreed that VR software of all varieties needs users of all varieties? but most of all needs mainstream. The largest single user group on Steam are Quests, is anyone claiming the majority of DCS, or FS2020 users aren't? because that's not my experience from the other sim forums I visit.

They seem to have similar proportions.

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A

Anonymous

All I am claiming is the flight and racing sim market is a viable market for some headset manufacturers. It still has potential for large growth in VR within that industry. And some are catering to it.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

Anonymous wrote:
All I am claiming is the flight and racing sim market is a viable market for some headset manufacturers.

There is zero evidence of this though. Where are the market numbers to justify this statement?

Any time statements like this are made, we are able to find facts and numbers to show the exact opposite. Eve Valkyrie is a prime example of a software company stating that they are no longer building for VR because the market is too small. The whole reason that Ads are being introduced in to Oculus is to help developers earn money, because the market is too small.

A market isn't "viable" unless "profits are viable," and for a niche within a niche within a niche (SIMS within VR Gaming within Gaming) is not viable in this specific market according to all industry metrics and estimates.

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