Last time I looked at the sales figures for HTC and Rift the monthly sales had plummeted and even after all this time total sales where very low far below expected levels. To quote one VR dev studio that is now shut down “A lot of people bought headsets just to try it out. How many of those people are active? We found that in terms of our data, a lot of users weren't."
I wouldn't expect sales to be rising after the headsets have been out for two and a half years.
It wouldn't surprise me if prospective buyers are hanging on for new tech like Pimax or even a Rift/Vive sequel at this point.
There's also the issue of having a PC powerful enough to run VR well. We all know that PC gaming is a relatively niche market and that high end PC users are an even smaller segment of that.
We'll have to see what happens with stuff like foveated rendering to hopefully bring down the PC hardware cost requirement, along with higher clarity.
Don't expect that to cost peanuts though.
Also, a lot of people love jumping on new tech and then not bothering with it once the novelty's worn off. That's hardly a new phenomenon and hardly exclusive to VR.
The recent steam survey shows a small reduction in VR headset this month and the total amount of users is not that healthy at 0.34% for Rift and 0.31% for HTC Vive of users. Around 600,000 VR headsets on Steam is not a feasible amount of active users to sustain large scale VR game development. If VR wants to survive it needs to improve. I am not saying VR is dead only that it’s not as healthy as it should be at this stage. We should be into the many millions of PC headsets by now not 600k active.
Steam surveys don't always give you an accurate picture of the hardware people are running. I'm sure that I'm far from being in a minority of people that have never participated in one.
VR will improve. It's only the first gen and you can't expect it to be perfect out of the gate.
You keep trying to make out it’s our loss but it’s not. We are not losing anything but you might long term if things do not improve. VR reminds me of the Atari Jaguar I loved that console but most of the content was rubbish with very few high quality games which killed the platform. At the moment VR is like the Jaguar and unless things improve it will most likely go the same way as the Jaguar. The fact is people are trying VR headsets and not coming back to them because either the headset and/or games are not good enough. You might be happy for a great many people are not.
If you treat the Rift and HTC as separate consoles/platforms each has around 300k active users. A new consoles/platform with 300k active users after 2 and a half years is considered a major failure. Its hardly healthy.
I say it's your loss because you could be having a great time, but you're too caught up in focusing on negatives. The people that are having a good time look past that because the positives vastly outweigh the negatives for them.
Like I said, I get where you're coming from and I'm not saying you're entirely wrong. Maybe your standards are too high. Perhaps my standards - and all the others that are enjoying themselves - are too low.
It's also just your opinion that games are rubbish. Sure, the super polished AAA stuff is few and far between, but again, that brings us back to what the individual deems as 'good enough' for them.
Perhaps we accept that we're essentially early adopters of the first real iteration of consumer VR technology and it's not perfect. How could it be perfect straight off the bat? Perhaps your expectations and demands are unrealistic. Much like "8k @140hz "
You can say "
The fact is people are trying VR headsets and not coming back to them because either the headset and/or games are not good enough. You might be happy for a great many people are not." and I could argue the exact opposite. The fact is that a great many people are happy and are going back to their headsets on a daily.
One of us - perhaps both of us are guilty of a degree of confirmation bias.
That is not what is happening. The opinions are not based on little experience or bugger all research. That just sounds like an excuse to write off the users that are not returning or not buying VR.
It very much seems to be what's happening with the person the comment was aimed at. The guy tried one first person game for 20 minutes and formed an absolute opinion because A) He got caught out by motion sickness B) His settings were poor, and C) The game is a fairly lazy VR port and needs modding for best results anyway.
You can't then go on to say stuff like "It's only suited to seated games" based on such limited experience, when you have people that have been doing the exact opposite for far longer, in many more titles.
That's single minded nonsense logic. The truth is that it can do both equally well. Whether
you can is a different matter.
I never said anything about those not buying VR because of it. Those people have done their research and decided it isn't for them, which is perfectly fine and I can understand and respect that decision.
God, I really hate this multiquote extravaganza stuff...
(but which of course is far less capable for gaming than the Rift).
