Every month Value releases a Steam Hardware and Software Survey that details what is being used by the Steam community. The most recent one, which details February 2018, shows which of the virtual reality (VR) headsets is leading the way.
The Steam Hardware and Software Survey delivers data in two forms. One is a monthly breakdown of each catalog with percentage measurements, with the other being a graphic showing the change since September, 2016. Jumping right into it, the most favorable VR headset used by those who participated in the survey is that of the Oculus Rift which takes the lead at 0.14% of overall users. This is a change of +0.02% over the last month taking the lead from the HTC Vive by only 0.01%. Currently sitting at 0.13% the HTC Vive also saw a growth of +0.01% over the last month.
What is interesting however is that a recorded 0.01% of participation are using an Oculus Rift DK2, meaning the overall total for the Oculus Rift is in fact 0.15% to that 0.13% of the HTC Vive. In the grand scheme of things the overall usage for VR headsets since September, 2016 currently sits at the Oculus Rift holding a total of 49.26% of the user base. HTC Vive holds 45.38% and Windows Mixed Reality (MR) sits at 5.36%. Though it is hard to pinpoint the moment that the Oculus Rift overtook the HTC Vive you can see in the below graph the fluctuation between the ownership of each headset since September, 2016, likely around the summer of 2017 when Oculus Rift’s priced dropped significantly.
In other news, the Steam Hardware and Software Survey also reveals that the current favorable graphics processing unit (GPU) is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with a 14.05% stack in the participation user data. Likewise, the central processing unit (CPU) are mostly running four cores with 71.99% of the share and clock in at between 3.0 Ghz to 3.29 Ghz. Roughly 34.81% of the share for CPU speeds. Given the high system requirements needed to support VR it is no surprise that the majority of users have put the above hardware in their machines.
Oculus Rift might be the leader in the Steam Hardware and Software Survey but when you look at the grand scheme of things, there is still a long way for VR to go. From the data for February, 2018, the overall percent of users with a VR headset of any brand is only 0.28%. With 14.05% of users running a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, which is more than able to deliver outstanding VR performance, a large amount of those users don’t have a VR headset. With headset costs becoming more affordable and software continuing to create new experiences, this is surely to change in the coming years. If you are interested in seeing all the data for yourself, you can find it over on the Steam Hardware and Software Survey.
For more on VR and the growth of the industry, keep reading VRFocus.