December 2024 saw the second highest percentage of Steam gamers using a VR headset ever, when adjusted for Chinese users.
Valve lists the percentage of "Steam users with VR Headsets" in December 2024 as 2.13%. Without adjustment, that's not remarkable. But when adjusting the figures for each month since Valve started reporting this figure to be relative to the number of non-Chinese users, as China essentially has its own tangential VR market, it's the second highest ever.
Even without this adjustment, the data reveals that more Steam gamers use a VR headset than use macOS or own an RTX 4090 GPU. Further, almost as many use a VR headset than use Linux, which includes Steam Deck, and around half as many use one than own a 4K primary monitor. So PC VR remains a relative niche, yes, but no more so than a Steam Deck or the highest-end NVIDIA graphics card.
The figures come after the Meta Horizon app, required to set up Quest headsets, was the #1 free iPhone app on Christmas Day, and as Quest 3S appears to be outselling traditional games consoles on Amazon US, suggesting that VR sales surged over the holiday period.
Broken out by relative headset share, Quest 3S and Valve Index saw the most usage growth. As we noted in our reporting on November's data, though, some Quest 3S usage is actually listed as 'Quest 3', meaning that all we can accurately say is that Quest 3 and Quest 3S together made up 22.1% of SteamVR usage in December.
As we progress into 2025, a new wave of compact high-end PC VR headsets with 4K micro-OLED displays are set to arrive, including Shiftall MeganeX superlight and Pimax Dream Air. With steep pricing, these headsets are unlikely to lead to a shift in the market, but could increase retention among enthusiasts. Meanwhile, the controllers for the new headset Valve has been working on for years leaked back in November, suggesting 2025 could be the year the owner of Steam finally breathes new life into its high-end VR ecosystem.
