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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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A

Anonymous

Bloody forums. Second attempt at posting this:

Looks like Valve have fixed their **bleep** up with their numbers:

So that's 60.18% of the VR headsets on Steam being Oculus headsets. Pretty impressive.

https://uploadvr.com/steam-hardware-survey-july-2021/

A

Anonymous

If you take away the drops in Quest, Rift S, and Rift CV1 from that Quest 2 number it is fairly minimal gain for the month. That would be of course assuming the aforementioned users moved over to Quest 2 which we do not know. Will be curious to see how Vive Pro 2 fits in later on. I expect it will be fairly small.

O

OmegaM4N

Honored Contributor

Original Vive still finding its way into people hands is quite a feat at this point. lol

CV1/Vive-knuckles)/Dell Vr Visor/Go/Quest II/ PSVR/PSVR 2.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

About 20 days late, RoadToVR is now ready with their take on the June results:

https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-headsets-june-2021-sharp-drop/

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

I would imagine with more and more folks getting vaccinated now there are a lot of people just getting out more now which means less time for PC-VR gaming. It is the summer after all, and with restrictions being lifted.

O

OmegaM4N

Honored Contributor

Plus some have just managed to grab a PS5 today and are about to connect their PSVR up to it and never come out of NMS ever again until they have visted every planet once. 😃

CV1/Vive-knuckles)/Dell Vr Visor/Go/Quest II/ PSVR/PSVR 2.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

July 2021 results:

Quest 2 still moving up, CV1 getting a small push (and before you start smiling at the 0.19% push, note that it's close to the 0.26 % push we're seeing for the Vive Pro 2 😉) Index and Rift-S went down a bit. But do note that these numbers are relative to the total number of Steam users: if the number of Steam users grew a lot in July, while no one bought new Indices or Rift-S hmds, then these hmd numbers would decrease even if the real number of hmds didn't change. Thus we're more seeing trends.

- and maybe easier chewed up like this with thanks to RoadToVR, indicating there're close to 3 mill connected hmds:

Source: https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-headsets-on-steam-data-july-2021/

Thus things have really never looked better for PCVR. According to RoadToVR, compared to summer 2019 now there're close to 3 times more PCVR hmds.

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:
now there're close to 3 times more PCVR hmds.

Quest 2 is an effective PCVR HMD. And considering the direction Valve may be taking by going Stand Alone with their next HMD, which will clearly support SteamVR (PCVR), there really is no benefit in trying to draw lines between a Stand-Alone unit vs a Wired unit in order to label one thing "PCVR" over another.

The terms are more accurately described as:

Tethered VR
Tetherless VR

PCVR exists in both categories.

nalex66

Honored Contributor

I had the Steam hardware survey pop up just the other day. It analyzed my system and said “no VR headset detected.” I fired up the Oculus software with my CV1 active, and redid the analysis, but got the same result. I launched SteamVR and made sure that it was seeing my Rift, but still the survey didn’t detect it. I don’t know what was up with that, but I cancelled out rather than submit those results.

Maybe it’s based on use of SteamVR within the past month—most of my VR games are on the Oculus store rather than Steam, so I probably haven’t played via SteamVR in a while.

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3. Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

It does make you wonder how many undetected hmds there're out there. If Steam mostly gets it right, then a small percentage of errors among results from millions of users may not matter much, but what if Steam mostly gets it wrong... I guess the results are what they are - and the only thing we got. Also I know that many remove their hmds when not in use - such passive hmd owners aren't included too, and might be a significant number.

My Index is always connected - thus even when connected my CV1 does not get counted, but I don't think many use two hmds...

Sony did make an announcement when they've sold 5 million hmds - I wonder if Oculus will do the same, they must be close with the Q2 now...

https://www.roadtovr.com/playstation-vr-sales-5-million-milestone-psvr-units-sold/

Btw, if RoadToVR are right about the 3 mill PCVR users, then currently 1 million Q2s are used for SteamVR. And maybe much more if many Q2s don't get correctly detected... No matter how we put the numbers, it seems that PCVR has never been stronger. If trends continue, we many see 10 mill SteamVR users in 2 years... (From summer 2019 to summer 2021, according the RoadToVR, SteamVR users went from 1 to 3 mill)

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"

nalex66

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 wrote:

It does make you wonder how many undetected hmds there're out there. If Steam mostly gets it right, then a small percentage of errors among results from millions of users may not matter much, but what if Steam mostly gets it wrong... I guess the results are what they are - and the only thing we got. Also I know that many remove their hmds when not in use - such passive hmd owners aren't included too, and might be a significant number.

My Index is always connected - thus even when connected my CV1 does not get counted, but I don't think many use two hmds...

Sony did make an announcement when they've sold 5 million hmds - I wonder if Oculus will do the same, they must be close with the Q2 now...

https://www.roadtovr.com/playstation-vr-sales-5-million-milestone-psvr-units-sold/

Btw, if RoadToVR are right about the 3 mill PCVR users, then currently 1 million Q2s are used for SteamVR. And maybe much more if many Q2s don't get correctly detected... No matter how we put the numbers, it seems that PCVR has never been stronger. If trends continue, we many see 10 mill SteamVR users in 2 years... (From summer 2019 to summer 2021, according the RoadToVR, SteamVR users went from 1 to 3 mill)

The recent recall announcement about the Quest 2 face foam gave us a clue--it said that 4 million headsets were involved in the US, plus 172,600 in Canada. Guy Godin (Virtual Desktop dev) estimated that there were probably 8 million Quest 2's worldwide, along with 2 million Quest 1's, based on the fact that he sees about 50% of his sales in the US and 50% in the rest of the world.

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3. Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Not exactly the best month, but I guess it's still summer - results from August 2021:

Very small growth for Rift-S, WMR, the original Quest, Vive Pro and Pimax 5K Plus, while everything else went the wrong way.

Interesting to see a decline in Quest 2, and also Index. Also these numbers are what they are - if Steam got many more users without hmds in August, then the overall percentage of hmd users will fall - even if the real number of hmds may have grown. So we really don't now anything.

Maybe these charts are better:

- but not much new under the sun here.

Read RoadToVR's take on August 2021 here:

https://www.roadtovr.com/quest-2-loss-steamvr-hardware-software-survey-august-2021/

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:

Interesting to see a decline in Quest 2, and also Index.

Makes sense since there have not been any AAA quality PCVR games released on Steam in a very long time. The best PCVR games on SteamVR are still the same 'ol stuff: FalloutVR, SkyrimVR, HL:A.

While there are always new titles available, nothing truly compelling has been released.

Perhaps with the new VR Mod for MechWarrior 5 available, we'll see an increase in SteamVR for Sept/Oct. Other than that, I imagine that SteamVR will remain stagnant until the next big VR title hits the store.

I still enjoy PCVR with my Quest, but it has been exclusively Oculus PCVR for several months in a row. I haven't done much with SteamVR since trying Demeo several months back.

A

Anonymous

Steam VR must have something going for it with all those Quest 2 and Rift S users hooking up to it to play PC-VR games. I assume perhaps a lack of high quality PC-VR content in the Oculus store might be a factor ?

I must admit I am surprised at the number of Quest 2 users using their headsets for PC-VR. I think the FB funded price point is the driving force there. I even see several in the flight sim community using them as well.

Sheese I still have four PC-VR games I recently purchased from Steam I have got to make time to play. Yes RuneSR2 looking at you LOL.

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

It is strange with so many Quest 2 hmds, yet they don't seem to be buying any games, at least not in the Rift Store. Even when cross-buy and free for many, the Myst Rift version only has about 10 ratings. Much the same for Rift version of Blair Witch, but that one isn't cross-buy. Maybe Alyx gets all the love, many new PCVR games on Steam get few ratings, at least I don't see hordes of Quest 2 users bying tons of VR games on Steam, in fact I really fail to see much impact of Quest 2 users supporting PCVR, both on Steam and in the Oculus Store... Maybe they only care for the free stuff 😉

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

RuneSR2 wrote:
It is strange with so many Quest 2 hmds, yet they don't seem to be buying any games, at least not in the Rift Store. Even when cross-buy and free for many, the Myst Rift version only has about 10 ratings. Much the same for Rift version of Blair Witch, but that one isn't cross-buy. Maybe Alyx gets all the love, many new PCVR games on Steam get few ratings, at least I don't see hordes of Quest 2 users bying tons of VR games on Steam, in fact I really fail to see much impact of Quest 2 users supporting PCVR, both on Steam and in the Oculus Store... Maybe they only care for the free stuff 😉

From what I am seeing a lot of them are flight and racing sim enthusiasts, so they likely would not represent either store as many of those buy directly from the game developers. Several have bought into VR to use with their flight and racing titles due to the lower cost of entry with the FB endorsed Quest 2.

Also MSFS 2020 has accounted I am sure for a significant bump in VR users after they released their VR support for the sim. This can be seen in the sim peripherals hardware sales , where there can be a delay in getting them and they are also selling used equipment well at good prices on Ebay. I have a few myself from my collection I need to put on Ebay. MS getting back into the flight sim industry and also with VR has really boosted that industry. Oculus has benefited pretty good from it as well with their Quest 2 offering. And that is not to mention the racing sim industry which historically has been larger than the flight sim industry. Lot of Quest 2 users there also.

D

DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

RuneSR2 you're getting a bit entrenched in the anti-Quest sentiments aren't you? it's becomig a theme.

Anyway, no, I don't think increased Quest use on Steam can be interpreted as anything other than increased PCVR use of Quest owners, the monetary value of games bought buy different headset owners is a bit of a stretch.

13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

There was actually no "anti-Quest sentiments" in my post - I just find it strange that we don't see a great increase in PCVR game and app sales in especially the Oculus Store with so many Quest 2 users being able to use PCVR - as the Steam hardware numbers indicate. Check out recent games and apps in the Oculus Rift Store, it feels quite dead in there - many new apps and games get no or extremely few ratings. An example is the Quest version of Myst, which has about 700 ratings in the Oculus Store. The Rift version only has 13 ratings, and the Rift version is free if you own the Quest version. Why doesn't the Rift version get more ratings when it's free for so many users? This is just one example making me wonder why we don't see more ratings for PCVR games. Similarly Asgard's Wrath and Stormland haven't increased much in ratings the last 3 months - but Lone Echo did get a boost with the $10 price. Of course some Revive users may be included there too.

Nothing would be better than seeing a massive number of Quest 2 users support PCVR developers - but I'm not seeing that trend clearly right now. Which PCVR games do you see getting a massive increase in ratings due to Quest 2 users? Maybe I've overlooked some, but I monitor quite a few.

Also it seems a general problem that users of PCVR hmds don't buy much (new) content these days - maybe our backlogs are too big. But right now it seems that the majority of SteamVR users have a Quest 2 - and therefore my curiosity why we don't see an explosion in ratings especially for the very best Oculus PCVR titles.

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:
There was actually no "anti-Quest sentiments" in my post - I just find it strange that we don't see a great increase in PCVR game and app sales in especially the Oculus Store with so many Quest 2 users being able to use PCVR - as the Steam hardware numbers indicate. Check out recent games and apps in the Oculus Rift Store, it feels quite dead in there - many new apps and games get no or extremely few ratings. .

The problem is that it is common knowledge that "number of reviews/ratings" are not an indication of the number of sales. This is a well established fact across all consumer product/services/platforms. This topic has been debated a lot over the years, yet you still seem quite keen on ignoring all evidence and instead hyper-focusing on low review/rating counts in order to come to the conclusion that Oculus consumers aren't buying anything or aren't "supporting VR."

The conversation never moves forward since there does seem to be a theme in your posts where you will only focus on things that help you conclude that Quest users aren't "having an impact."

Instead of going down the same path, perhaps now is a good time to broaden our views a bit? For example, consider that Quest users are using Virtual Desktop to play their 2D Steam games in VR? This is more common than people may realize. I played a ton of 2D games in both Virtual Desktop and the Steam Theater.

VR isn't just about buying VR-specific games. We can do many things in VR other than play video games, and we can enjoy non-VR experiences in VR. Such as watching movies and YouTube.

So when trying to come to conclusions about Quest users, it may help to remember that not all Quest users are just playing video games. Hyper-focusing on Steam and Video Games is never going to give an accurate picture of what Quest users are doing in VR.

nalex66

Honored Contributor

For cross-buy titles like Myst, maybe people are less likely to go back and rate it again if they’ve already given a rating on Quest. I personally downloaded the PC version, but having recently completed the game on Quest, I’m not in a rush to play it again, even if it has higher poly models and better textures.

I agree that backlog may also be an issue on PC. I know I’ve got so many unplayed games that I don’t really look at buying more unless it’s something highly anticipated, like Lone Echo 2. I do still regularly buy Quest titles, although that’s slowing down, as I’m starting to develop a backlog there too.

Anyway, unless there are stats that say which headset is associated with which PC game purchases, there aren’t grounds to assume any difference in buying patterns between Quest PCVR users and those with other PC headsets. We can at least say that Quest users do spend money on games, given the robust sales on that platform.

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3. Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

D

DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

Totally agreed. Quest owners shouldn't be thought of as cheep even their headsets are less expensive, and I suspect my purchasing habits are probably typical of of other Quest owners. In my case I have a Rift-S too but my next headset will replace both and my software buying habits won't change at all.

More expensive headsets are great if you can afford them and the GPUs that make the most of them but those setups are becoming increasingly less relevant as far as contributions to VR is concerned (PCVR or otherwise). A 3090 for example should never be a gaming requirement imho, it's not particularly good as a productivity tool either given the payback deficit. 3080s still aren't available and by the time they are, 4000 series cards will be announced.

There's a push by some people for Oculus/Facebook to produce a high-end headset and it's great if they do, I'll buy one if it does stand-alone as well as PC, but they will similarly be for the lucky few who can hold of a decent GPU, rather than for the purpose of furthering VR. And if I do buy one I won't spent any time putting any other headset down by constantly saying how much batter my headset is... or speculating over user contributions towards VR in the forum of software purchasing.

Sorry, I sound like I'm ranting... will go way and get back to working on my car, it's needing some love.

13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

It's not about hmd price. I still love using my old CV1 - I might not even be able to sell it for $100 today, lol. A Quest 2 is probably much more expensive than the value of my CV1 today.

When I see many more PCVR hmds arriving on Steam, especially being mostly Oculus hmds, I would just love to see many Oculus exclusive PCVR games getting similar increased ratings too. These games really deserve it. These are some changes I've monitored the last 3 months (May 29 to September 5) among the biggest Oculus PCVR exclusives:

Number of ratings - development

Robo Recall from 11337 to 11345 (+8 more ratings)
Asgard's Wrath from 3353 to 3428 (+75 more ratings)
Vader Immortal from 5553 to 5573 (+ 20 more ratings)
Stormland from 1872 to 1891 (+19 more ratings)
Lone Echo from 4830 til 5041 (+ 210 more ratings) - but that's only due to the price being lowered from $40 to $10.

So Lone Echo did move 210 ratings, and I believe it's due to the extremely low price. But Robo Recall - which still is totally awesome, didn't really move at all. Etc. The above are some of the best and most advanced PCVR games ever made. These numbers look like a stand-still to me, or close - and less popular or new titles may not move at all (Phantom: Covert Ops). I'd love to see these ratings move at lot more, but I just fail to see a great interest in PCVR at the moment (or do new hmd users not know these games even exist? 🤔).

To me it seems that Quest users buy tons of Quest games, but hard to see a clear increase in PCVR sales. And Rift owners have just stopped buying anything in the Oculus Store... Even many new SteamVR games get no ratings - Detective VR has only 10 ratings on Steam, A Wake Inn has 31 ratings... Not sure this is much different form 2018, when we had like 10% of the PCVR hmds today... Maybe we are flooded by too much content today compared to the number of PCVR users...

Interesting how many ratings Lone Echo 2 will get this first month... I will keep my fingers crossed!

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"

nalex66

Honored Contributor

That reminds me, I have yet to complete Robo Recall, Asgards' Wrath, and Stormland. I've played a few hours of each, and probably haven't rated any of them on the Rift store.

Interesting to note that the games with fewest new ratings are mostly the cross-buy ones. That could indicate that people aren't interested in re-playing them on PC if they've already played the Quest versions, or perhaps they're just less invested in a second playthrough and don't bother to give them ratings on PC. Stormland is the one exception, but that game may be limited by its high bar for entry (very demanding on the GPU). Of course, I'm just speculating here, as it's not a large enough data set to draw any real conclusions.

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3. Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

RuneSR2Author

Honored Contributor

Fully agree - this is just some brainstorming. But it does seem - whatever the reason - that many more Steam connected hmds don't directly correlate to greatly increased software PCVR sales (unless they all buy Alyx, and that game right now increases by about 1,000 rating per month, so that's still quite good).

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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