2016 will certainly be remembered as the year of VR, as the most important devices of this innovative technology (such as HTC Vive, PlayStation VR and Oculus) have come out over the last 12 months. Being products, in some cases particularly expensive products, one of the most important matters to understand about this technology involves finding out how many units are actually in the hands of consumers. The research specialist Superdata tried to give an answer to this, while also predicting the sales volume to the end of the year. This is what will be the installed bases by the end of 2016 according to SuperData:
PlayStation VR - 2,602,307
Samsung Gear VR - 2,316,632
Google Daydream - 450,083
HTC Vive - 420,108
Oculus Rift - 355,088
Superdata explained how they worked on this analysis: "SuperData's approach to the market for consumer-centered virtual reality includes retail checks, executive interviews with decision-makers from all of relevant firms in the marketplace, pricing data, our survey-based consumer tracking panel, and digital content purchases collected from our data providers".
"We combine both proprietary and public data sources to arrive at an objective reading of the market, including financial information obtained through our client network."
What's surprising in this forecast it's not so much the significant installed base of PlayStation VR (which we assume is definitely the most popular device among the players, since it uses a platform with a very strong player base and it has an affordable price), but the fact that Oculus Rift has such low sales, and certainly this represents another big blow for the company. Which do you own?