superdata – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 3, 2017

SuperData and Unity Research Finds Total Revenue During 2016 for VR was $1.8 Billion

2016 was certainly a roller coaster year for virtual reality (VR). The last 12 months have seen the release of several major head-mounted displays (HMDs), a raft of content across multiple disciplines – video games, 360 video, animation – and new and exciting innovations. But has all of that turned into profitable success? This week SuperData Research, in collaboration with Unity Technologies have released a report “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: The 2016 Mobile and VR Games Year in Review“, looking at how the markets have performed.

In the companies findings they report that the total revenue for VR’s first year was $1.8 billion USD, attributing $718 million to PC, $687 million to mobile and $411 million to console. While actual headsets sold came in at 6.3 million, with Samsung Gear VR making up the majority with 4.51 million units, next was PlayStation VR with 750,000, HTC Vive at 420,000, Google Daydream VR at 260,000 and Oculus Rift comes in at 240,000. The report does note the total figure doesn’t include Google Cardboard, which has often been given out for free for promotional purposes.

SuperData Research VR 2016

For the general mobile video game industry the report found that $40.6 billion in worldwide revenue was generated in 2016, with Asia representing the largest mobile games market in the world, producing $24.8 billion in revenue, while North America and Europe generated $6.9 billion and $5.7 billion respectively.

“The sustained growth of the global mobile games market is helping to legitimize games in the traditional media landscape,” says Stephanie Llamas, VP of Research and Strategy of SuperData Research. “The size of the market is also attracting the leading players in the gaming market, as can be seen with Activision’s Blizzard deal to buy King and Tencent acquiring Supercell.”

“Players are installing more apps than ever and are more engaged with mobile games than TV and online videos,” shared John Cheng, General Manager of Unity Analytics. “They play six days a week and watch content only five. It’s been phenomenal to watch engagement on the different mobile and VR platforms grow, and that trend will continue to increase in the foreseeable future.”

The mobile and VR studies were based on the following: 49 million unique transacMons and 15 million unique gamers between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2016, a survey of 1,000 U.S. mobile gamers from July 2016, data collected from partners in the VR Data Network and data from Unity, pulled from billions of installs across over 2.4bn unique devices. As yet none of the VR headset manufacturers – apart from Samsung – have released official sales figures so currently this report is the best you’ll get currently.

For all the latest VR news from around the world, keep reading VRFocus.

December 11, 2016

Analyst: Despite Slow 2016, VR Still Forecast To Reach $14B In Software Sales By 2020

Market researcher SuperData scaled back its virtual reality forecast for 2016, particularly after a disappointing launch of the PlayStation VR headsets. But it still believes that consumer VR software could grow from $407 million in revenue in 2016 to $14 billion by 2020.

Speaking today at the VRX conference in San Francisco, SuperData analyst Stephanie Llamas said that the company scaled back its forecast for PSVR because of scarcity of supply at the initial launch and the lack of marketing Sony put into the headset’s October debut. SuperData scaled back its forecast from 2.6 million PSVR units to 745,000 in 2016, after a disappointing Black Friday.

“[Game makers] won’t make a profit for now,” Llamas said. “To break even is already incredibly difficult. This is to prepare you for a couple of years and make sacrifices at the start. But there are so many great returns later on. You have to learn what is the value proposition. How much are you willing to put into it? There’s so much excitement around VR. But we need to be careful. We need to tread lightly. A lot of money is being invested. It’s still a ways off from mass consumption. But this is the time when you can become the key holders of the consumer. You have to experiment and do research and become the best VR stakeholder.”

During 2016, she estimated that Daydream VR would sell 261,000 in 2016. Oculus will hit 355,000; HTC Vive will be 420,000, and the Samsung Gear VR on mobile will be 2.3 million. She didn’t include numbers for Google Cardboard since so many of those units are simply given away for free and used for demo purposes only. Given that, the total number of estimated VR users in 2016 is about 16 million.

Photo Credit: Dean Takahashi

Llamas said there are a variety of barriers to initial adoption. One is the high cost of the systems for the PC and console. Another is the fact that a consumer has to proactively seek out VR in order to get a demo of it. You can’t see a VR demo so easily on TV or some other form of advertising, because the 360-degree viewing is a hands-on only experience.

“The consumer has to decide they want to experience VR,” Llamas said. “Until they put on a headset, they don’t understand what it is.”

Other barriers include the lack of knowledgeable assistants, a slow ramp for quality content, and unclear information on how much consumers are willing to pay for consumer experiences. VR arcades will be essential to getting more people familiar with VR experiences in the meantime, Llamas said.

Photo Credit: Dean Takahashi

“We’re finding out slowly what consumers will pay, but it may be a long way off before freemium,” or advertising models catch on, Llamas said.

Of the VR software sales in 2016, Llamas said about 72 percent of the $407 million would be from games. By 2020, that percentage will fall to about 41 percent as enterprise, media, and other categories rise. With hardware revenue added, the forecast hits about $28 billion by 2020.

So the strategies for VR companies remain to be mindful of the opportunity as well as the delays in getting revenue.

In another talk at VRX, Intel’s Frank Soqui said that the world’s biggest chip maker remains excited about VR as the next stage of modern computing. He said that the company hopes to get its wireless, all-in-one VR headset, dubbed Project Alloy, into the market by 2018, helping to stoke demand for a lower-cost, more functional version of VR. Over time, he said, such advances will help create a more empathic connection between people as they use their computing devices.

In a funding panel, Joe Kraus, partner at GV (formerly called Google Ventures), acknowledged that the data for 2016 is “minimally exciting” in terms of stoking excitement for VR. He believes in VR in the long run, but he agrees there’s a “valley of despair” that is a necessary phase that is happening now. But the difference he sees with this platform is that the platform owners (like Facebook and Google) are investing heavily in the VR startup ecosystem still, and so are Chinese companies. That could help many of the companies that might die in the valley of despair survive longer until better sales data comes along, he said.

“The platforms are putting a lot of money to work, and there’s a lot of money coming from China,” Kraus said.

This post originally appeared on VentureBeat by Dean Takahashi.

Tagged with: analyst, consumer, forecast, software sales, superdata

November 30, 2016

Latest Market Analysis: PS VR Sales Predictions Fall Under 1 Million For 2016

Citing a lack of dedicated evangelism from Sony, interactive media research firm SuperData is updating its earlier predictions concerning the company’s PlayStation VR hardware. Initially, SuperData predicted Sony would sell well over 2 million PS VR headsets by the end of 2016. Today, however, the firm is walking that herculean number back significantly. Now, SuperData expects Sony to sell only 745,434 headsets by the end of this year.

The company believes that Sony has chosen to double down on its other major holiday product, the PlayStation 4 Pro. According to an email sent to UploadVR, Stephanie Llamas, Director of Research and Insights for SuperData believes that:

“Sony has taken a more prudent approach and held off on spending frivolously on marketing the PSVR to better position the Pro. Sony is making just enough units available to prove the case for VR, without seeking to fully saturate the market and, instead, build the offering more gradually to ensure a stronger life-cycle. They have also pointed out that VR looks even better on a Pro than a standard or slim PS 4, so the message to most gamers is: Get the Pro now, then the PSVR later. As a result, we won’t see them break 1M shipments until well into the new year.”

“Had Sony pushed the PSVR the way they’ve been pushing their other new hardware, the demand would have certainly fulfilled a supply of over 2M. However, given its quiet release it’s clear they’re being cautious before fully investing in the tech. Without the ‘killer app’ and the slow, steady release of AAA content, they will release less than 1M devices until they have content they feel confident will bring in the praise they want. They can afford to take it slow since they have no competition for now, so their supply and sales will rise steadily into 2017 as opposed to riding the seasonal wave.”

SuperData’s sales predictions have not been confirmed by any of the major VR headset manufacturers. Here’s how the firm arrives at its predictions:

“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. Analysts are expressly forbidden to buy, sell, hedge or otherwise deal in the securities of any of the following public companies whose primary revenues come from the creation, selling, or distribution of video games.”

The sales predictions previously reported for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive remained the same in the new report. Google’s Daydream View, however, fell from over 450,000 units to around 260,000 units in terms of predicted sales. Llamas explains this shift by writing that…”Google needs phones and adopters that won’t exist until next year.”

Tagged with: analysts, PSVR, sales, superdata

November 30, 2016

SuperData Reduces its Forecast for PlayStation VR Sales

In October, prior to the launch of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR headset, market intelligence company SuperData Research forecast the device would sell 2.6 million units worldwide by the end of the year. Now the company has slashed those numbers by a significant amount.

Talking to GamesIndustry.biz, the company has said virtual reality (VR) sales have seen: “notably fewer units sold than expected due to a relatively fragmented title line-up and modest marketing effort.”

SuperData’s new forecast for 2016 now puts PlayStation VR units sales at under 750K, with Google’s Daydream View headset selling 261k (previously earmarked at 450k). While estimates for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Gear VR have all stayed the same at 450k, 355k and 2.3 million, respectively.

PlayStation VR Group shot

Director of research and insights at SuperData, Stephanie Llamas, said: “PSVR had the best opportunity to benefit from the holidays but their supply inconsistencies and lack of marketing have put them behind their potential. They did not offer any first-party deals this weekend, restock bundles or market the device, pushing instead for the PS4 Pro. They have also pointed out that VR looks even better on a Pro than a standard or slim PS4, so the message to most gamers is: Get the Pro now, then the PSVR later. As a result, we won’t see them break 1M shipments until well into the new year.”

She continued, saying: “Had Sony pushed the PSVR the way they’ve been pushing their other new hardware, the demand would have certainly fulfilled a supply of over 2 million. However, given its quiet release it’s clear they’re being cautious before fully investing in the tech. Without the ‘killer app’ and the slow, steady release of AAA content, they will release less than 1 million devices until they have content they feel confident will bring in the praise they want. They can afford to take it slow since they have no competition for now, so their supply and sales will rise steadily into 2017 as opposed to riding the seasonal wave.”

It’s worth remembering that these are still only forecasts and not concrete numbers. None of the main head-mounted display (HMD) manufacturers have yet released official sales figures for their devices.

As and when sales figures are released, VRFocus will bring you the latest details.

October 15, 2016

SuperData Forecasts 2.6 Million PlayStation VR’s Sold in 2016

It’s only been a few days since Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) launched the first console-based head-mounted display (HMD) PlayStation VR, with everything going well. Now SuperData Research, one of the main companies providing market intelligence on playable media and digital games has reaffirmed its previous forecasts that PlayStation VR will sell 2,602,370 units by the end of 2016.

Way back in March the company predicted the headset would sell 2.6 million and this was before pre-orders had even launched.

PlayStationVR_Header11

Now its come back with a far more precise figure based on several of the following factors:

The PlayStation VR’s biggest benefit is the approximate 44 million install base of PlayStation 4, and its easy plug-n-play setup.
The Xbox Kinect, which really only had mini-games for it sold 8 million units in 60 days.
Sony is well versed at product launches, with it scheduling around 500,000 demos to help sell pre-orders of the device.
There’s some big name titles at launch or coming in the launch window, such as Batman Arkham VR, Resident Evil 7 biohazard, and Final Fantasy XIV.
Limiting factors are that Sony has previously had issues with manufacturing a new device early in its lifecycle, and with PlayStation 4 Pro coming out next month maybe waiting to purchase that console first before an add-on.

It’s early days for PlayStation VR so this figure is only an estimation. But as SIE does release sales figures for promotional purposes we’ll likely hear a more concrete figure towards the end of the year.

For all the latest news on PlayStation VR, keep reading VRFocus.