PC VR Growth Remains Stagnant, Only 1.5% Of Steam Userbase Owns VR Headsets

PC VR growth continues to remain stagnant, as only 1.5% of the Steam userbase owns VR headsets, based on Valve's latest Hardware Survey.

[ZycoFox]

I mean.. the hardware survey also shows stats like 1080p screens being mostly used, it's not indicative of what hardware enthusiasts use really, and when it comes to GPUs it's mostly low end bottom of the barrel stuff, granted these days higher pricing and stagnant performance in the mid range doesn't really help there.

[Gamingsince1981]

Yeah I always find it funny when anyone that talks about their pc somehow has THE highest tier gpu and CPU, yet on steam it shows pretty much no one does.

[Jingsing]

If you ask anyone in the VR scene to explain how 10 years of this current VR push has amassed to just over 1% they will tell you we are at the Atari 2600 stage of VR. The 90's was the Atari 2600 stage of VR and that was over 30 years ago. The fact is people are simply not that enamored with VR to make it their main way of playing games.

I've said VR needs to go away "again" and come back when the tech is available to make it as easy as putting on glasses and the graphics are as realistic as photogrammetry. Right now a lot of people have spent a lot of money on something that felt unfinished to them and there is only some many times you can sell beta like products to the general public.

I'd be surprised if Valve makes another headset, if it was your own money you wouldn't invest in a stagnant 10 year 1.5%.

[Gamingsince1981]

The only thing stopping vr from taking off properly is price, If the cost of entry was a fair bit lower ( and I don't mean cheap crappy vr like using your phone with a headset) it would dramatically increase how many users there were. The problem is the best VR on pc costs way too much because you need a decent pc plus an expensive headset and on console you need a ps5 plus the psvr2 which is also a steep entry point, if companies want it to become mainstream they need to lower the entry price by a large amount without lowering the vr quality. VR in games is about as imersive as you can get, it makes games so much better but most gamers will never know because they cant afford to test it out.

[Jingsing]

is $299 not cheap enough for full standalone? Many people have tried VR so the argument that many haven't doesn't hold much water anymore. Also the immersion factor isn't the big mainstay you think it is, just because you think it is doesn't mean the general population agree. Many people say yeah the immersion is cool and they are just not interested in it regardless of price. Also people pay 3-4 times the price on a TV vs a VR headset, which you would say is not as immersive, so cost has never been a factor.
One thing that is very telling about the VR scene is it seems to be full of Gen X Atari 2600 users which is not good sign by any stretch (not cost related), if you are not winning the kids over you are not winning at all.

[Gamingsince1981]

299 isn't proper vr, it's cheap crappy vr, so no

[Neonridr]

a Quest 3S isn't cheap nor crappy though. I own both a PSVR2 and a Q3 myself.

[MDTunkown]

VR won’t be main way of playing video games because in VR you can make only First Person games, it’s a huge limit, not everyone is fan of First Person games. Also moving around is huge obstacle in VR games and fixing it will take a very long time.

[Gamingsince1981]

You haven't played VR obviously.....

[Sonic1881]

Have you played VR?

[MrWood]

Are you trolling? The best VR games in my opinion are in 3rd person. They just don’t get the mainstream marketing and are a lot more frequent with mods like VorpX and UEVR. But first example I think of that doesn’t require a mod is Hellblade VR.

[Chocoburger]

Please watch video reviews on Astro Bot Rescue Mission. You'll end up pleasantly surprised, the game is a must play (and it was given away for free four years ago).

[ApocalypseShadow]

Obviously someone that doesn't know anything about VR. Astrobot, Max Mustard, Moss and so many more, VR, non first person games.

Obviously your comment represents the fact that there are many that don't know about VR or AR yet.

[XBManiac]

Wow! There are more users of VR on PC than Xbox users right now.

[mudakoshaka]

These Steam surveys are off. Got a request last week for one and it would not recognise my VR headset in the survey even if SteamVR was on and everything. Not the first time. I did not submit and restarted it twice! Then it registered PSVR2 in the survey. I was glad to submit the report then! I wonder how many VR headsets do not get registered and the users still submit the report.

[RiseNShine]

Remember Steam has about 132 million active users, so 1.5% means about 2 million VR users, which is a decent user base for a expensive tech that also requires a powerful CPU and graphics card for games to be reasonably playable.

[CrimsonWing69]

I can only speak for myself, but VR is next-level immersion to me. I just wish the point of entry wasn’t so expensive.

[z2g]

Majority of ppl, myself included just aren’t interested. I bought the psvr2 thinking if anybody could make it happen it would be PlayStation. My headset now sits untouched in the closet. Haven’t put in on in almost a year now. Between the whole setup when you just wanna throw a game on, to getting nauseated on games where the camera is moving different than your head movements, to just a lack of actually compelling games.

This is exactly why ms bailed on vr. Sonys numbers have never been encouraging for them to make the investment (ROI), the pc market they would also cater to only backs those numbers up. Sony hasn’t even released numbers on psvr2 officially and the last known count was around 600k units in a base of tens of millions of already compatible consumers.

VR gaming is decidedly a pretty niche market that feels like it’s been more in decline than winning.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

VR is expensive, and there isn't even any killer apps for it, I think the most popular games for any VR headset is probably VR Chat and Beat Saber. Those are actually the only games I can think of that I want to play, also, the PSVR 2 didn't take off either (it did worse than the original PSVR), VR really needs more games.

[Jingsing]

Yeah PSVR1 was the best VR experience in terms of software spread as AAA studios all had a shot at making games. There was also 10 million PSVR's sold compared to PSVR2 barely selling a million. PSVR2 is technically better but the software is lacking compared to the first time around. PCVR isn't even a market, it is just a bunch of mods and tinkerers and hardware manufacturers are not going to keep making headsets for it.

[anast]

This is expected.

[Thefeif]

VR is poorly implemented in 95 percent of games. And 95% of the games are lame. No surprises