VR Sales Top $1.8 Billion in 2016

cageymaru

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According to VR sales data compiled by Unity Games, VR sales toppled the $1.8 billion plateau in 2016 after impressively amassing a total of 6.3 million devices sold. On the PC, $718 million was spent. Mobile accumulated $687 million in sales followed by console with $411 million in sales.

Samsung Gear VR was the entry level device which moved 4.51 million units. Playstation VR with it's late start still managed 750,000 units sold. HTC Vive came in with 420,000 devices sold. The Google Daydream VR barely outsold the Oculus Rift with 260,000 units and 240,000 units respectfully. There is a lot more data for mobile to be gleaned from the full Unity Games report.


For the general mobile video game industry the report found that $40.6 billion in worldwide revenue was generated in 2016, with Asia representing the largest mobile games market in the world, producing $24.8 billion in revenue, while North America and Europe generated $6.9 billion and $5.7 billion respectively.
 
That's interesting, there are move HTC Vive owners than Google Daydream View owners. (I own both, Have only used Daydream View once, Pixel XL gets way hot)
 
Man, once they get the price down to around $400ish for the PC and specs improve, I will be a customer for damn sure
 
Bought a Rift DK2 way back when. The immersion is absolutely freaky. One demo in a haunted house nearly gave me a heart attack. I don't know how the hell people are playing Resident Evil in VR. Maybe I'm just too old now.

One reason I didn't get the consumer version is the screen door and optical distortion. When those improve and the price drops a little, I'm all in.
 
Bought a Rift DK2 way back when. The immersion is absolutely freaky. One demo in a haunted house nearly gave me a heart attack. I don't know how the hell people are playing Resident Evil in VR. Maybe I'm just too old now.

One reason I didn't get the consumer version is the screen door and optical distortion. When those improve and the price drops a little, I'm all in.

The lenses in the final version of the Vive are designed to reduce the screen door effect and make the lenses thinner with less coke-bottle distortion, even while using a similar screen as previous versions.

It's nearly impossible to see the screen door effect on the Vive, because each pixel is just blurry enough to hide the gaps in between, without blurring the pixels themselves too much. Having tried the Rift DK1 quite a bit, it is an absolute night and day difference that can't be explained by increased PPI alone.

For another comparison, I have also used the GearVR with a Note 4, which had much worse screen-door than the Vive, despite having a higher PPI than the Vive.


I haven't tried the final version of the Rift to see how strong the screen door effect is, but I do know that Oculus also redesigned their lenses right before the final version came out.
 
The lenses in the final version of the Vive are designed to reduce the screen door effect and make the lenses thinner with less coke-bottle distortion, even while using a similar screen as previous versions.

It's nearly impossible to see the screen door effect on the Vive, because each pixel is just blurry enough to hide the gaps in between, without blurring the pixels themselves too much. Having tried the Rift DK1 quite a bit, it is an absolute night and day difference that can't be explained by increased PPI alone.

For another comparison, I have also used the GearVR with a Note 4, which had much worse screen-door than the Vive, despite having a higher PPI than the Vive.


I haven't tried the final version of the Rift to see how strong the screen door effect is, but I do know that Oculus also redesigned their lenses right before the final version came out.

The screen door effect on the final Rift unit isn't bad. The biggest issues I found with it, and what ended up giving me motion sickness, are that the field of view seems lacking and it's severely lacking in adjustment options. My glasses didn't fit in the Rift and without them I can't see anything clearly at a distance, and the way 3D and VR simulate that really messes with with distance vision, so both of those things really messed with me.
 
"but VR is just a fad like 3DTV"..

That might not be such a positive comparison. There are millions of 3D TVs out there, 40 million shipped in 2012 alone.

There isn't really a killer app for VR and the market is smaller and fragmented. Who knows, but I can't say I'm bullish on VR at the moment.
 
haha, yea i laugh when people say that as well.

They belong in the "you can't see beyond 60hz / 60fps crowd". LOL

Not necessarily.

Over the years VR has been attempted over and over and over again. Hell, I remember using a VR headset at a bar in the very early 90's running off a Commodore Amiga - It never went anywhere!

The only company to have an attention span worse than Valve is Google, and both are tied up in this technology. It's still far too expensive and a great many people aren't going to enjoy gaming with a bulky headset strapped to their face waving their hands around knocking out bystanders. Not only that, but a great many people are sensitive to headaches, burning eyes and vertigo as a result of VR - That's going to be something difficult to combat.

Honestly, and people may not agree and I don't care at all, but I can't see the technology becoming much more than a niche market. Like every attempt in the past sales will look great until the novelty wears off and people just can't be bothered anymore.

Is it possible to wear glasses with any of the currently available headsets yet?

I guess we'll wait and see...
 
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660K owners on PC.

VR owners on steam accounts for 0.23% with no movement last month.
 
660K owners on PC.

VR owners on steam accounts for 0.23% with no movement last month.

Did the Steam user base grow last month? If the user base grew you have to take that into consideration and chances are there actually was growth even though the percentage didn't change.
 
Did the Steam user base grow last month? If the user base grew you have to take that into consideration and chances are there actually was growth even though the percentage didn't change.

Even if it grew, VR actually went down tho via the dev kit.

VR Headsets
HTC Vive
0.23%

0.00%
trans.gif

Oculus Rift
0.12%
0.00%
trans.gif

Oculus Rift DK2
0.02%
-0.01%
trans.gif

Oculus Rift DK1
0.00%
0.00%
 
Even if it grew, VR actually went down tho via the dev kit.

VR Headsets
HTC Vive
0.23%

0.00%
trans.gif

Oculus Rift
0.12%
0.00%
trans.gif

Oculus Rift DK2
0.02%
-0.01%
trans.gif

Oculus Rift DK1
0.00%
0.00%

Very interesting...
 
Not necessarily.

Over the years VR has been attempted over and over and over again. Hell, I remember using a VR headset at a bar in the very early 90's running off a Commodore Amiga - It never went anywhere!

The only company to have an attention span worse than Valve is Google, and both are tied up in this technology. It's still far too expensive and a great many people aren't going to enjoy gaming with a bulky headset strapped to their face waving their hands around knocking out bystanders. Not only that, but a great many people are sensitive to headaches, burning eyes and vertigo as a result of VR - That's going to be something difficult to combat.

Honestly, and people may not agree and I don't care at all, but I can't see the technology becoming much more than a niche market. Like every attempt in the past sales will look great until the novelty wears off and people just can't be bothered anymore.

Is it possible to wear glasses with any of the currently available headsets yet?

I guess we'll wait and see...


I think it's funny that you say all these bad things about VR, and then end it with a question that shows that you haven't actually tried any of the newest headsets.

Headaches, burning eyes, and vertigo are not permanent unavoidable side effects of VR, they are just signs of VR done the wrong way (The VirtualBoy made everyone's eyes burn, after all). As the technology improves the number of people suffering from these side effects will improve (it's already a pretty low percentage right now)

If your idea of VR is based only on experiences from the 90s and 2000s (or google cardboard), then you are just not getting an accurate portrait of it. You should go find a place that is giving VR demos, and give the current technology a try.
 
I think it's funny that you say all these bad things about VR, and then end it with a question that shows that you haven't actually tried any of the newest headsets.

Headaches, burning eyes, and vertigo are not permanent unavoidable side effects of VR, they are just signs of VR done the wrong way (The VirtualBoy made everyone's eyes burn, after all). As the technology improves the number of people suffering from these side effects will improve (it's already a pretty low percentage right now)

If your idea of VR is based only on experiences from the 90s and 2000s (or google cardboard), then you are just not getting an accurate portrait of it. You should go find a place that is giving VR demos, and give the current technology a try.

What makes you believe that any part of my comment implies that I haven't used a VR headset? I can assure you that you're reading a little to much into things here.

I have experiences from the early 90's and late 2000's, but I'm not basing everything purely around those experiences in any way whatsoever - That's a situation I'll leave to Windows users when they think of Linux in the modern age.
 
What makes you believe that any part of my comment implies that I haven't used a VR headset? I can assure you that you're reading a little to much into things here.

I have experiences from the early 90's and late 2000's, but I'm not basing everything purely around those experiences in any way whatsoever - That's a situation I'll leave to Windows users when they think of Linux in the modern age.

Is it possible to wear glasses with any of the currently available headsets yet?

This is where you implied you hadn't tried any of the current headsets, if you had, you would already know the answer.

The technology has advanced significantly just in the last 3-4 years. All the previous attempts were focused on just getting it to work at all, due to the limitations of computers at the time. It wasn't until very recently that people finally started putting serious research into fixing all the problems had made people sick in the earlier attempts.

Stop trying to think of current-gen VR in the same terms as the VR from 5+ years ago, there is just no comparison. Forget about every gimmicky VR arcade machine or tech demo you have ever seen in the past, and go try one for yourself.
 
This is where you implied you hadn't tried any of the current headsets, if you had, you would already know the answer.

The technology has advanced significantly just in the last 3-4 years. All the previous attempts were focused on just getting it to work at all, due to the limitations of computers at the time. It wasn't until very recently that people finally started putting serious research into fixing all the problems had made people sick in the earlier attempts.

Stop trying to think of current-gen VR in the same terms as the VR from 5+ years ago, there is just no comparison. Forget about every gimmicky VR arcade machine or tech demo you have ever seen in the past, and go try one for yourself.

Ah, ok.

Well you're entitled to your opinion then, I'm not here to justify myself to you.
 
Is it possible to wear glasses with any of the currently available headsets yet?

Depends on your glasses and the headset. Some fit them better than others. If you have small glasses they'll fit in any of the major headsets, bigger ones are more of a crapshoot. I haven't had a chance to try Daydream, the Vive, or PSVR but neither of my pairs of glasses fit in the Rift and they barely fit in the Gear though it's not exactly comfortable for any length of time.
 
Depends on your glasses and the headset. Some fit them better than others. If you have small glasses they'll fit in any of the major headsets, bigger ones are more of a crapshoot. I haven't had a chance to try Daydream, the Vive, or PSVR but neither of my pairs of glasses fit in the Rift and they barely fit in the Gear though it's not exactly comfortable for any length of time.

Cheers for your informative reply Derangel. :)
 
Ah, ok.

Well you're entitled to your opinion then, I'm not here to justify myself to you.

What part of what I said would be considered "opinion"?
I was pointing out the fact that you are dissing something you haven't haven't actually tried yet, while basing your opinion on earlier failed attempts.
 
What part of what I said would be considered "opinion"?
I was pointing out the fact that you are dissing something you haven't haven't actually tried yet, while basing your opinion on earlier failed attempts.

I'm pretty sure I tried it. However judging me like that is, in fact, forming an opinion and you believe I'm a liar.

Good for you!
 
You've tried what though? There are 780 VR gaming titles on Steam. I'm not denying that you've tried it, but trying isn't really that great of an answer here.

Should I care what you believe is the correct answer? Because I don't.
 
Should I care what you believe is the correct answer? Because I don't.

No, but you don't give a rats ass about VR currently. And that's fine, just not why you'd care to comment about a technology that you've trashed so thoroughly after "trying" it.
 
No, but you don't give a rats ass about VR currently. And that's fine, just not why you'd care to comment about a technology that you've trashed so thoroughly after "trying" it.

Ah, ok. So, because I've tried it, and that appears so unbelievable because the technology still doesn't support prescription glasses very well at all - Something that in no way implies that I'm in any way talking specifically about previous generation technology (although I did use Oculus a few years back and again recently), I should automatically think it's the future because Kyle does?!

I'm sorry, I can think for myself. In my opinion the technology won't evolve past a niche market unless the price drops considerably - And even then there's going to be drawbacks that are going to be impossible to rectify considering current technology.

As stated, I guess we'll wait and see.
 
Ah, ok. So, because I've tried it, and that appears so unbelievable because the technology still doesn't support prescription glasses very well at all - Something that in no way implies that I'm in any way talking specifically about previous generation technology (although I did use Oculus a few years back and again recently), I should automatically think it's the future because Kyle does?!

Ok, fair enough. I get the physical issues with current VR tech. If it doesn't work for you, why not just say that instead of going on with "VR is about people being silly waving their hands in the air."

I'm sorry, I can think for myself. In my opinion the technology won't evolve past a niche market unless the price drops considerably - And even then there's going to be drawbacks that are going to be impossible to rectify considering current technology.

As stated, I guess we'll wait and see.

I don't think a single fan of PCVR here has argued against the price dropping. The headset isn't even much compared to what a setup for this costs now PCs. It's kind of obvious to those that have bought into PCVR at this point. The future of PCs indeed will have a lot to do with cost. PCs are getting damned expensive for the cool stuff. That cost needs to come down. That's one reason why we're all cheering for AMD and their new products.
 
Ok, fair enough. I get the physical issues with current VR tech. If it doesn't work for you, why not just say that instead of going on with "VR is about people being silly waving their hands in the air."

Why get so offended at my comments? They're games and goggles FFS! It's not like I'm bagging out your partner.

Relax, I don't have to agree with your opinion.
 
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