What you need to know
- Each month, Valve publishes detailed statistics about Steam users and what hardware they use.
- Last month's survey shows that 32.56% of Steam VR users are playing on the Oculus Quest 2, a 1.49% increase from last month.
- Facebook's premiere wireless headset sits roughly 15% above the next most popular headset.
Yesterday, Valve published their latest monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey. Among the in-depth user statistics in the report, it revealed that the Oculus Quest 2 was the most popular VR headset on the platform, with nearly one third of all VR players on Steam turning to Facebook's flagship VR headset. While this might come as a surprise, considering Valve's own headset, the Index, is designed for Steam VR, the Oculus Quest 2 has been a runaway commercial and critical success.
This sets the Oculus Quest 2 at around 1 million users on Steam alone and nearly 500,000 Steam VR users above the next most popular headset on Steam VR, the Oculus Rift S and Valve's VR headset, the Valve Index. Some reports from as far back as April estimate that the Quest 2 sold at least 5 million units, which means that as many as one fifth of all Quest 2 users have linked their headset to their PC to play VR.
While 5 million units sold might seem like small potatoes next to home console sales numbers, like the PlayStation 4's 115 million units sold, the Quest 2's found incredible success compared to other VR headsets. In fact, it outsold the lifetime sales of other popular VR headsets in its first six months on the market.
Unfortunately, if you're looking to join the millions of people who already have a Quest 2, you might be out of luck for the time being. Last week, Facebook announced that they were halting Quest 2 sales due to reports of skin irritation from the foam on the head strap. Right now, Facebook says that they're working on a new model with a silicone wrap to prevent the same issue in the future.
