While the Oculus Rift may be the headset that has gotten the most attention in the virtual reality space for gaming, there’s no question that the device will be getting a lot of competition this year as the initial wave of VR devices really takes off. One such device is the PlayStation VR headset that will also be making its debut soon, and now a research group called SuperData has published a report revealing their prediction for how much the device will sell in its first year on the market.
SuperData predicts that Sony’s PlayStation VR will sell $1.9 million units in 2016, which would put it last for sales by model in the VR space just behind Samsung Gear VR’s 2.5 million units. They predict that Google Cardboard will sell the most with 27.1 million units, whereas the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are predicted to sell a little over 3 million each.
The report claims that the VR movement will initially be the most popular in Europe with sales of around $1.9 billion, though North America isn’t far behind with sales estimated to be around the $1.5 billion mark. Asia is in third with $1.1 billion and the rest of the world is summed up to equal an amount that is around $0.6 billion.
“Looking at the consumer market in more detail, we observe that especially younger consumer groups show a strong interest in virtual reality,” says SuperData. “However, this consumer group does do not have the spending power necessary to support high-end devices. It is the more mature demographics that have the disposable income, with 18-54-year-olds saying they’re willing to spend around $280 for hardware. Likewise, emerging markets like China are volume-reliant since average user revenue is low. Platform holders will initially heavily subsidize their hardware to build up significant market share.”
You can check out the full report from SuperData by clicking right here.
