Valve’s monthly Steam hardware and software survey is out, and it appears Oculus Rift is still gaining momentum over HTC Vive on the Steam platform as the number one VR headset among Steam users.
Each month, Valve runs the survey among Steam users to determine some baseline statistics about what kind of hardware and software is used by the user population, and to see how things are changing over time; that includes which VR headsets are connected to users’ computers. Participation in the survey is optional.
Rift first took the lead over Vive last month as the most used VR headset on the Steam platform, taking the market majority of VR headsets on Steam with a near 2% lead over its competitor. And the percentage points are still moving in Rift’s favor, making for an overall 4.86% lead over Vive.
Steam acts as the de facto content store for HTC Vive users, but it also supports Rift too, meaning anyone with either headset can simply download any of the VR games there. Rifters however have access to their own exclusive content store, meaning some users can choose not to buy or connect via Steam, instead only downloading content from the Oculus Store.
One big reason for the shift: price. Oculus Rift currently sells for $400, which includes the headset, Touch controllers, and 2 sensors. HTC last month lowered the price of Vive to $500, which includes the headset, Vive motion controllers, and 2 SteamVR sensors. HTC is soon releasing its $800 HTC Vive Pro (headset-only price), which ought to make for an interesting survey next month as the Vive Pro launches April 5th.
There’s still a contingent of Oculus DK2 owners still playing through Steam. The DK2, which launched in 2014, still holds 1.7% of the total share of VR headsets in use on Steam, a slight decrease from February’s reported 1.95%.
Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets, despite being offered by several established manufacturers ranging from $250 to $450, has slightly decreased by 0.04% reported usage since February’s survey.
The latest figures report a modest 0.06% increase in overall VR headset use when compared to the entire Steam population.