VR gaming was the biggest question mark of 2016, and now that all of the major devices have launched we have finally gotten to sit back and see what kind of an impact they made. Well, according to SuperData VR was the biggest loser of 2016 when it comes to sales.
SuperData is an analytics firm that provides gaming industry insights, and they have said that VR simply did not live up to the massive hype. They say this is especially apparent now that the Black Friday shopping season is over, where VR apparently didn’t have much demand.
They also greatly downgraded the sales forecast for the PlayStation VR this year, with the initial 2.6 million estimate being dropped to just 750K. The sales estimates for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift remain unchanged, with the Vive’s estimates remaining at 450K and the Rift’s estimates remaining at 355K.
Stephanie Llamas, director of research and insight at SuperData says the reason for PlayStation VR’s steep sales decline is due to Sony not offering “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.”
You can read the full analysis on how everything’s shaping up for VR at this point by clicking right here, but it’s safe to say that VR gaming didn’t steal the show this year as many hoped it would.
