Three and a half years ago Virtual Reality headsets were all the rage. They were going to revolutionize the entire gaming industry. They would make your boring old flat displays obsolete. Nobody would want to play with an old display once they have experienced the marvels of a VR headset. Gaming would be changed forever.
Reality turned out to be less exciting, though. While True Believers kept for years claiming how absolutely fantastic the experience is, and how you just have to try it to "get" it, the sales numbers didn't back up all the hype. After all the preorders had been shipped during the first few months after release, sales stagnated almost to a complete halt. A few hundreds of thousands of units had been preordered by eager early adopters, and a couple hundred thousands more were sold soon after... but that was about it. After the eager early adopters had got their headsets, sales almost halted, with sales figures dropping to pitiful lows. Especially so on the PC side (the PSVR sold slightly better, probably in large part because of it working with existing hardware and a lower price).
The VR revolution never ended up happening. The "boring" old high-resolution displays are selling better than ever, and only a ridiculously small percentage of gamers even owns a VR headset.
Even today, according to Steam's own statistics, only 0.38% of Steam users own an HTC Vive, and 0.42% an Oculus Rift. (In contrast, about 1.5% of Steam users have a 4k display. This is a relatively small percentage, but significantly larger than with the VR headsets.)
I have many, many times speculated on the major reasons for this. There are many. However, I would say that perhaps the most crucial reason is price: The VR headsets are simply way too expensive for such a niche application. They are even more niche than a game console, and even new game consoles were half the price of the VR headsets (at least when they were first released).
Valve in particular seems completely incapable of learning this lesson. When they released the HTC Vive, it was priced at about 900€ here. (If that sounds high, you have to take into account that all prices here must always include tax, unlike the American MSRP, which never does. You always have to add about 24% to the price in order to get the actual retail price.)
900€ (which would be about US$1000 at the moment of writing this) is a rather exorbitant price for such a niche piece of hardware. Most people's gaming PC isn't even that expensive. Even a decent-quality 1440p or 4k display is much less than that. No wonder it didn't sell well.
Then, years later, Valve/HTC published the Vive Pro... at a whopping price tag of about 1450€ here. Its sales numbers are absolutely abysmal. (Steam's own statistics give an adoption rate among Steam users of 0.01%. And that's probably rounded up, as all these statistics have two decimal places of accuracy.)
Now they are at it again. They have announced a next-gen VR headset, the "Valve Index". Better resolution, better refresh rate, and so on... And a price tag of 1079€ for the whole package.
They clearly have not learned anything.
(Sure, the package contains the headset itself, two specialized controllers, and two base stations. You can purchase the headset alone for 539€, but this assumes you already own a couple of HTC Vive controllers and base stations. If you don't, then your only option is to purchase the whole package, or else it will be pretty much unusable.)
If the entire package would be 500€, then maybe, maybe, I could perhaps consider a purchase. But at 1079€? No way. I'm not ready to invest that much money on a completely niche product. I'd rather even buy an RTX card with that same money, for instance. At least it would be less of a niche hardware.
Reality turned out to be less exciting, though. While True Believers kept for years claiming how absolutely fantastic the experience is, and how you just have to try it to "get" it, the sales numbers didn't back up all the hype. After all the preorders had been shipped during the first few months after release, sales stagnated almost to a complete halt. A few hundreds of thousands of units had been preordered by eager early adopters, and a couple hundred thousands more were sold soon after... but that was about it. After the eager early adopters had got their headsets, sales almost halted, with sales figures dropping to pitiful lows. Especially so on the PC side (the PSVR sold slightly better, probably in large part because of it working with existing hardware and a lower price).
The VR revolution never ended up happening. The "boring" old high-resolution displays are selling better than ever, and only a ridiculously small percentage of gamers even owns a VR headset.
Even today, according to Steam's own statistics, only 0.38% of Steam users own an HTC Vive, and 0.42% an Oculus Rift. (In contrast, about 1.5% of Steam users have a 4k display. This is a relatively small percentage, but significantly larger than with the VR headsets.)
I have many, many times speculated on the major reasons for this. There are many. However, I would say that perhaps the most crucial reason is price: The VR headsets are simply way too expensive for such a niche application. They are even more niche than a game console, and even new game consoles were half the price of the VR headsets (at least when they were first released).
Valve in particular seems completely incapable of learning this lesson. When they released the HTC Vive, it was priced at about 900€ here. (If that sounds high, you have to take into account that all prices here must always include tax, unlike the American MSRP, which never does. You always have to add about 24% to the price in order to get the actual retail price.)
900€ (which would be about US$1000 at the moment of writing this) is a rather exorbitant price for such a niche piece of hardware. Most people's gaming PC isn't even that expensive. Even a decent-quality 1440p or 4k display is much less than that. No wonder it didn't sell well.
Then, years later, Valve/HTC published the Vive Pro... at a whopping price tag of about 1450€ here. Its sales numbers are absolutely abysmal. (Steam's own statistics give an adoption rate among Steam users of 0.01%. And that's probably rounded up, as all these statistics have two decimal places of accuracy.)
Now they are at it again. They have announced a next-gen VR headset, the "Valve Index". Better resolution, better refresh rate, and so on... And a price tag of 1079€ for the whole package.
They clearly have not learned anything.
(Sure, the package contains the headset itself, two specialized controllers, and two base stations. You can purchase the headset alone for 539€, but this assumes you already own a couple of HTC Vive controllers and base stations. If you don't, then your only option is to purchase the whole package, or else it will be pretty much unusable.)
If the entire package would be 500€, then maybe, maybe, I could perhaps consider a purchase. But at 1079€? No way. I'm not ready to invest that much money on a completely niche product. I'd rather even buy an RTX card with that same money, for instance. At least it would be less of a niche hardware.
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