Every month Valve releases the Steam Hardware & Software Survey, detailing what the Steam community is using in terms of computer hardware they’re running and the software being used. For the June 2016 survey Steam now lists the virtual reality (VR) headsets being used on the platform and the figures show some interesting trends by VR gamers.
The graph Valve has provided runs from April to June showcasing how many people are using an Oculus Rift Development Kit 1/DK2/CV1 and the HTC Vive. There’s no surprise to find the Oculus DK1 doesn’t even register, but in the three months there’s a remarkable shift from the Oculus DK2 and Rift dominating to the HTC Vive being the most used system.
In April the HTC Vive equated to just 16.2 percent of users on Steam, not bad seeing as the consumer version only launched on 5th April. While at the same time the Oculus Rift DK2 had 79.1 percent market share with the Oculus Rift CV1 on 4.7 percent. Now compare that to the most current figures, Oculus DK2 is now on 6.25 percent, the Oculus Rift CV1 has increased to 27.75 percent, while HTC Vive dominates on 66 percent.
That’s a sizeable difference considering the $200 USD price difference between the two devices, and the fact that Oculus became more widely known about prior to launch. There’s also the issue regarding all HTC Vive users will be using Steam, while not all Oculus Rift owners may use the service due to Oculus Home. Although there’s a lot more videogames on Steam (135 at present) compared to Oculus Home’s 89, so most Rift are likely to use Steam.
Another piece of the puzzle will be to do with shipments. It’s been well reported that Oculus VR has suffered continual delivery problems due to lack of stock since launch. And HTC Vive didn’t fair well to begin with either, but that has recently been righted with HTC offering worldwide delivery within 2-3 working days. Oculus on the other hand is still listing August 2016 as its next estimated shipping date online.
Neither company has released official sales figures yet so this Steam Survey is the best indication yet on how both companies hardware sales are doing. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the latest VR devices, reporting back with any further announcements.
