Superdata Research is one of the foremost marketing and research companies focused on the videogame and virtual reality (VR) industries, having released numerous reports on the growth on this nascent industry. It’s last report came in May, estimating the VR industry to reach $37.7 billion USD by 2020. Today, the company has released its next report, ‘Games and Interactive Media Report 2017‘, reducing that figure somewhat whilst also revealing the gaming habit of American VR users.
As you can see in the graph below, Superdata predicts worldwide VR revenue to hit $28.3 billion, split between $12.1 billion for hardware and $16.2 billion for software. While that’s a sizable increase in the next three years -and useful to know for long term planning – companies working in the industry may be more interested in the claim that total earnings are expected to rise by 106 percent in 2017 in comparison to 2016.
For studios and manufacturers to properly succeed in creating a sustainable VR market they need to know who they’re catering to. While stats will vary from country to country, Superdata has looked at the American VR user, splitting them into four categories. There’s the Immersed Console Player, classed as male millennials aged 18-24, who are the only demographic to use PlayStation VR (52%) over any other headset.
Then there’s the Starstruck Explorer, classed as female millennials aged 18-24, who are most compelled by content where they can explore landmarks and locations (37%). Males 35 years old and over are the High Earning Virtual Tourist, most likely to use a mobile headset over any other demographic (70%). Lastly females 35 years old and over have been classed as Engaged Mobile Crusaders, most likely to try a device for the first time inside their own home (48%), often trying their children’s headsets.
Make what you will of these figures and assumptions, but as they continually show, VR entertainment is only going to grow which is no bad thing.
VRFocus will continue following the latest research on VR, reporting back with the latest updates.