It’s a new month, which means the latest Steam Hardware Survey results are in. Despite big news for the VR industry in March, there’s not too much to talk about this month.
Firstly, the closely-monitored gap between the market share of Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive family of headsets shrunk a little. Last month saw a 7.07% gap between the two, which has fallen to 6.55% this month. Vive and Vive Pro combined fell ever so slightly from 41.18% to 41%. Vive was up from 39.36% to 39.55% but Pro fell from 1.82% to 1.45%. Rift, meanwhile, fell from 48.21% to 47.55%.
Again, the loss in ground is likely owed to the gradually-expanding Windows VR install base. In fact, Windows VR crossed an important threshold this month, moving from 9.96% to 10.57%. The remaining 9.88% was claimed by our undying friend, the Oculus Rift DK2.
As for actual headset usage, the survey says both Rift and Vive grew by 0.03%. As always, we’ll note that these figures are not a definitive means of tracking the actual VR market share. The Hardware Survey is optional and requires users to have their headsets actually plugged in to count. Neither Oculus nor HTC has shared official sales figures for their respective headsets.
This is likely one of if not the last time we’ll see the Steam Hardware Survey in its current form. Back at GDC in March, Oculus announced the Rift S, which is due to launch this spring. It could be arriving anywhere from in a few weeks to a few months. Last week Valve also announced its Index VR headset, which a leak told us will ship in June.
Those two headsets, combined with the advent of the Vive Cosmos, will dramatically change the PC VR landscape in the coming months. The question is how will they shape up in the Steam survey?
