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"Consumer interest in VR is declining according to sales data trends"!?

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
https://media.thinknum.com/articles/sales-data-shows-that-consumer-interest-in-vr-is-waning/

Maybe the suggested trends are true, but I have several problems with that article. 

1. The first graph doesn't show PS4 VR sales strictly - it shows Skyrim Bundle Sales Rank. I don't like Skyrim - I'd never go for that bundle too. 

2. Next is HTC Vive - which seems to go up in May and slightly down in June - but it starts at about 90 in March and finishes at about 97 in June. Not much variation - and we all know that the summer vacation means low VR sales. So I don't see any specific trend here at all - actually VIVE seems to be doing fine or at least seems stable. 

3. Then comes Samsung Gear VR. Note that this chart must be only showing data from 2016 - it ends in "Nov" and the text only mentions the year 2016. So this chart does not belong with the other results, it seems like a far-fetched attempt be the author to support some trend that the author believes exists. 

4. Finally there's Oculus Go -  which are the results that worry me the most. Still new things often ride on an initial wave of curiosity, and will then slowly sink to a more stable level, maybe that's what we're seeing here. 

Also note the chart that has been omitted by the author - the Rift chart! Is the author hiding something that doesn't support the proposed trend?

So I just checked the latest Steam VR hardware survey results - today they are - July 11 2018:

iev0j5pzwegl.jpg

And:

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And here they are April 30 2018 (I mailed the results to some friends back then, so therefore I have these results):

VR Headsets 
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%

Thus Rift has gone from 0.20% to 0.32% - that's a massive 60% increase in just 2 months! 
HTC Vive went up from 0.18 to 0.31 - a massive 72% increase in just 2 months!
Windows MR also increased 5 times from 0.01 to 0.05 - that's not bad either, right?

I do believe that Oculus Go and Gear VR may be poisoning the well - but I really don't see any decline in real VR adoption - if current Steam trends are continuing, Rift and Vive may reach 1% in 9 to 12 months, which would make these headsets about as popular as the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti  😉 

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"

132 REPLIES 132

bigmike20vt
Visionary

Atmos73 said:

My son is 18 he has a PC if his own but doesn’t have the income like I gave to spend because he’s in full time education. Now he spends most of his time playing 2D games and when I ask about his lack of enthusiasm for VR he puts it down to cost. If he had £500 he wound out that towards a new GPU and continue playing 2D. He doesn’t allow himself to get excited about VR because it’s out of his reach as I expect it is for the 14% who own GTX 1060s.

For VR to succeed forget about dedicated games that’s a short term fix imo.

VR needs to find a way (foveated rendering) to bridge the gap. As higher resolutions come to VR power requirements are heading in the wrong direction for PCVR to become mainstream and VR will be reliant on the 1% who own 1180s. 

Lone echo looks nice but it’s still looks like a five year old game ie, no better than Alien Isolation 2014 which is vastly superior. 

Until the gap between 2D and VR shrinks mass adoption of PCVR will never be a thing. 




give it time, it will get there 🙂
of course 2D gaming will improve as well.... 2D will probably always look better in still screenshots because it is a moving target and is "easier" to get right  but just like home gaming started with the speccy (it did for me anyway) in 1982 and looked objectively pretty poor, it didnt stop it catching on.

We ar at the start of an entire new gaming *** technology, Rome was not built in a day

***VR can be far more than just gaming, but for me it is what holds 90% of my interest hence my bias.
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Atmos73 said:

My son is 18 he has a PC if his own but doesn’t have the income like I gave to spend because he’s in full time education. Now he spends most of his time playing 2D games and when I ask about his lack of enthusiasm for VR he puts it down to cost. If he had £500 he wound out that towards a new GPU and continue playing 2D. He doesn’t allow himself to get excited about VR because it’s out of his reach as I expect it is for the 14% who own GTX 1060s.

For VR to succeed forget about dedicated games that’s a short term fix imo.

VR needs to find a way (foveated rendering) to bridge the gap. As higher resolutions come to VR power requirements are heading in the wrong direction for PCVR to become mainstream and VR will be reliant on the 1% who own 1180s. 

Lone echo looks nice but it’s still looks like a five year old game ie, no better than Alien Isolation 2014 which is vastly superior. 

Until the gap between 2D and VR shrinks mass adoption of PCVR will never be a thing. 




 One of my concerns is that it's incredibly hard to show people, who don't know much about VR, what it feels like to experience VR. A great example is Moss - the trailer looks really bad and boring - some of my friends (who do not own a VR headset) don't understand how a game with such boring graphics can get several 100% ratings. 
But everything changes when you put on the headset. It's like a magic portal and it's close to impossible to use a 2D video to show off VR. 

I guess it's like showing a 2D video about an Omnimax Theater featuring IMAX Dome technology - on an old 14" black-white telly - and then expecting that now we all know exactly how it feels to watch a movie in an Omnimax Theater featuring IMAX Dome technology. 

It's really a great problem not being able to communicate VR experiences using 2D presentations - and yes, Lone Echo may look like a game from 2014 in a 2D trailer - but wait until you put on the headset and the magic starts.

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"

bigmike20vt
Visionary
that looks like it is right in my wheelhouse!!!!!
good spot.
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable

Atmos73 said:

I don’t need convincing I’m sold on VR and wouldn’t go back to 2D I’m just trying to analyse why the other 99% of Steam users haven’t bought a VR HMD after 2 year of launch and why some might find 2D more attractive.

There is one 2D I’m interested in though - GTFO.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/493520/GTFO/



You'll see mainstream gamers (the people that buy your GTAs, Assassin's Creeds, Far Crys, Fallouts, Elder Scrolls and CoDs for example) buying new GPUs or upgrading/building new machines to run new versions of those popular mainstream gamer franchises during these next few years. That, combined with headsets having eye tracking and dynamic foveated rendering in the not-too-distant future will mean that the current Recommended Spec VR Ready machines will become the new Minimum Spec VR Ready machines (assuming they want to run a 4K headset).

We're almost at the (imo) price sweet spot for mainstream gamer VR adoption this generation, I put that at $300. This is why I believe that Oculus will continue to manufacture and sell the CV1s for a year after the CV2 has been released.

LZoltowski
Champion

snowdog said:
We're almost at the (imo) price sweet spot for mainstream gamer VR adoption this generation, I put that at $300. This is why I believe that Oculus will continue to manufacture and sell the CV1s for a year after the CV2 has been released.

Yeah, I would not be surprised with CV1 being an entry-level VR headset with a further price reduction. I mean Apple sells the iPhone SE which is budget friendly among their more high-endend offerings.

From what I can see the product offering will be as follows

Oculus GO $150-$199
Oculus CV1 $250-$299
Satna Cruz $299? $350?
Oculus CV2 $500-$600 (for the first year)

Mind you it's so hard to tell where SC sits ... it's a mobile+ headset, with mobile internals, could be better?

Oculus GO $150-$199
Satna Cruz $299? 
Oculus CV1 $250-$299
Oculus CV2 $400-$500 (for the first year)
Core i7-7700k @ 4.9 Ghz | 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance @ 3000Mhz | 2x 1TB Samsung Evo | 2x 4GB WD Black
ASUS MAXIMUS IX HERO | MSI AERO GTX 1080 OC @ 2000Mhz | Corsair Carbide Series 400C White (RGB FTW!) 

Be kind to one another 🙂

falken76
Expert Consultant

kevinw729 said:


snowdog said:

......
The VR industry is doing fine, nobody with any sense was expecting VR to go anywhere near mainstream this early and sell truckloads. Oculus themselves made a statement ages ago saying it could take 5-10 years for this to happen.



A valid point - and for the "majority" of the level headed posters in the VR community that did not buying-in to the Koolaid - VR is doing fine "for them"! They got their PC high-end VR, they have great games, and they have great simulation - and for these Prosumers they can look forward to a consumer sector (as with 3D gaming) that speaks to them and will not be mainstream in a long time, but will support their needs.

But that was not what was sold to most (and more importantly those that invested to now allow the Prosumers to be happy!); and that is where the resentment stems from from some media and investments. We have to admit that a number of investors and evangelists were sold on the Kickstarter and FB acquisition story of "VR will be big by 2016" - and that this will be a major industry in consumer. As one that was attacked for questioning this back in 2015-16-17 - I think it was a view that more than just a few "with no sense" expected!

I am typing this from DEVELOP Brighton - a major UK game developer conference, and as an examples a number of the indie development teams that once supported VR development post DK2 have either ended their love affair with VR (2016 there was numerous VR on show - this year four examples!); Or we see the pivoting - why you find a Out-of-Home entertainment specialist invited to a consumer game conference!  B)



Didn't Mark Zuckerberg make it clear that this was an endeavor he expected to take more than a decade?  I remember him specifically saying that.  I could have sworn he said it, maybe I am wrong, but I could have sworn he said that.

All those prices look good tbh.


I'd just like to see Nvidia (& AMD) catch up a little on their generational updates for CV2 adopters and the corresponding price drops in current cards for CV1 adopters (other manufacturers headsets are available).


The GPU updates are lagging a bit & they're vital ingredient for the PCVR adopters who haven't yet...erm… adopted.

falken76
Expert Consultant
PC VR has to be amazing because it has to be a killer app that sells the computer since nobody owns a desktop anymore.  Most people only have mobile phones and tablets these days.  All of us in here are enthusiasts, normal people don't own the main components required to even operate this stuff.  So to a normal consumer you might as well not even put a price tag on it, just put a picture next to it of a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it because that's what the customer sees for cost no matter what you put there anyway.

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

falken76 said:
....
Didn't Mark Zuckerberg make it clear that this was an endeavor he expected to take more than a decade?  I remember him specifically saying that.  I could have sworn he said it, maybe I am wrong, but I could have sworn he said that.



No your right mate - he did - the point was that he did that after the restructuring of the management underlying his "new direction" - where previously the then noncombatant had stated that progress was so good it would happen now! Thats why it was so good to see NateM confirm that over hyping had happened on both sides and needed to be redressed.
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

LZoltowski said:
......
Mind you it's so hard to tell where SC sits ... it's a mobile+ headset, with mobile internals, could be better?

Oculus GO $150-$199................................................2018
Satna Cruz $299? ......................................................2019
Oculus CV1 $250-$299...............................................2016
Oculus CV2 $400-$500 (for the first year)...................2020 (estimate)



I think you got it more accurate with the sector structure - if you don't mind I added dates.

I also feel your SC price is dead wrong - I know you are not a OVR employee but we all expect a $799 price point - due to its all in one nature, (and competing with ML and HL2). Regarding CV2 I would also expect a $699 initially.
https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959