From MIT Technology Review’s Signe Brewster: It’s been four years since a Kickstarter promised the first modern virtual-reality headset, and in 2016 we finally saw the technology’s commercial debut with high-end headsets from Oculus, Sony, and HTC hitting the market. More than two million desktop VR headsets are expected to have sold worldwide by year’s close.
The numbers do not exactly tell the story of a hot new consumer technology debut. By the end of 2016, 800,000 PlayStation VR units were expected to have sold, according to the research firm Canalys, along with about 500,000 HTC Vive and 400,000 Oculus Rift headsets. By comparison, Apple sold 3.3 million iPhones during the six months they were available in 2007 (the phone’s debut year), according to Gartner. Sales rose to 11.4 million in 2008.
There’s no doubt that VR is something completely transformative, a new genre that makes its potential clear to anyone who pulls on a headset. “Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face—just by putting on goggles in your home,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote after his company acquired Oculus in 2014. In fact, Facebook sees VR as an entirely new communication platform—something that will someday “become a part of daily life for billions of people,” the way Facebook is today.
I’ve spent all year exploring and testing the headsets, and it’s clear to me that Sony, Oculus, and HTC all delivered more than capable first-generation products. So why aren’t the sales numbers higher?
The most obvious answer is accessibility. The $800 Oculus Rift with Touch controllers requires a desktop computer approaching $1,000 (or more) to run, as does the $700 HTC Vive. Only dedicated PC gamers are likely to own a compatible system already.
That leaves PlayStation VR, which plugs directly into the 50 million PlayStation 4s already in homes around the world.