While we don’t officially know how many Gear VR headsets have been sold over the past few months, developers are starting to pass significant milestones with downloads.
Take Evox Images, for example, which told UploadVR that this week its car viewing app, RelayCars, surpassed 500,000 downloads and is well on its way to surpassing 600,000. The piece is a free app in which users can explore realistic models of cars in minute detail, watch videos of them in action, head to virtual showrooms and even take virtual test drives. It’s designed to offer the first true car shopping VR experience, giving customers as much information as possible through VR. It’s not a game as such, but it delivers on the promise of feeling like you’re inside a vehicle.
There’s more to come for RelayCars, too. Evox is soon to add search capabilities for makes and models of trucks to the app, allowing you to easily find what you’re looking for. Later down the line the developer plans to introduce this system across the entire range of vehicles found within the app, with the number of models on display soon to pass 1,000. Hopefully support for other headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive is also in the cards.
Earlier in the year Oculus revealed that a total of one million people had used Gear VR last April. While that doesn’t mean that many headsets have actually been sold, constant promotions in which the device has been given away with compatible smartphones might mean it’s drawing near. Another free Gear VR app, Bait! also passed the 500,000 mark recently while CCP Games claims to have the top selling app for the device in its popular gallery shooter, EVE Gunjack. We don’t know how many copies of that game have been sold, however.
Still, stats like these are proving that Gear VR is quickly becoming a viable platform for developers to consider and make money on, at least within the confines of the mobile space. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we see larger devices follow suit, since that market is having more trouble supporting itself on sales alone.
