According to the latest figures from Valve’s Hardware & Software survey, Rift has reached its highest historical market share on Steam thanks to modest gains amid an ongoing sale. Despite the new high point, the HTC Vive still holds the majority share.

Steam is the defacto content platform for the HTC Vive, though it technically supports the Rift too; plenty of Rifters use both the official Oculus Home platform and Steam to play content which may not be available on the opposing platform.

Each month, Valve runs a survey among Steam users to determine some baseline statistics about what kind of hardware and software is used by the user population, and to see how things are changing over time; that includes which VR headsets are connected to users’ computers.

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The latest results show a modest gain of 1.1% in the Rift’s share of VR headset users on Steam, bringing the headset’s overall share to a new high point of 35.7% of all headsets in use on the platform.

The gain was made up mostly by a 0.8% reduction in Vive share and the remaining 0.3% from a reduction in the Rift DK2 development kit. The latter, launched in 2014, still holds 4.3% total share of VR headsets in use on Steam. With Steam as its primary content platform, the Vive of course holds onto the majority of the total share at 60% of all VR headsets on the platform.

Exactly how many Rift users use Steam among the total population of Rift users is unknown, making it largely futile to extrapolate the data in an effort to determine headset market share across all platforms. However, many analyst estimates put the Vive ahead of the Rift in total sales.

The 1.1% gain, the largest on Steam for the Rift in the last four months, is likely driven in large part by the ‘Summer of Rift’ sale which has reduced the price of the Rift & Touch controllers together from $600 to $400. When the sale ends in mid August, the non-sale price for a new all-in-one Rift & Touch bundle will be $500.

Oculus also recently launched several major VR titles exclusive to their content platform—including The Mage’s Tale and Lone Echo—though it isn’t clear if such launches would have a positive impact on Rift’s share of VR headsets on Steam (by driving headset sales), or a negative impact (by reducing the need for customers to look for content outside of the official Oculus platform).

SEE ALSO
Oculus Wants to "Go big" On Opening Their Platform to Third-party Headsets, When the Time is Right

Meanwhile, the HTC Vive (which includes VR controllers by default) retains its original MSRP of $800. The company recently explained why they haven’t yet felt the need to lower the price of the system.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Luke

    Dear Vive/Steam I’m too poor for you, simply as that. And I belive you are too much costy. I feel betrayed from your price politic, I’m complitely outside from your selling target bacause too poor.
    I will wait Oculus will sell a new bundle in sale with 3 sensor (so finally complete) and jump into VR. I hope for christmas.

    • Raphael

      Oculus won’t drop below 399 for a long time.

      • Luke

        but they need to add a third sensor to the bundle because the 360° VR is only experimental with 2 sensors, they say that 360° VR is ok only with 3 sensors and then they sell it with only 2… you can read about it here (read in the description of the camera sensor): https://www.oculus.com/accessories/

        they say: “Please note: two-sensor 360° tracking is an
        experimental feature—not all experiences may work as expected.
        Three-sensor 360° is fully supported.”

        so they are selling the bundle with a missing sensor today and this is bad. I hope they will give a discount code for the third sensor to the people who bought the actual bundle.

        • Heaney
        • Rogue Transfer

          You may wish to wait for Microsoft’s headets for Xmas – they won’t need sensors to give roomscale(no messy extra cables across the ceiling or USB bandwidth issues). Though we still need to see how the tracked controllers fare. But they will be bundled with the Acer MR Headset for 399 then.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            No they won’t need extra sensors, but tests already said it certainly isn’t as good as oculus/vive. And still there really isn’t anything known about the tracked controllers for the acer.

          • CazCore

            they’re better than Leap, but they share that same problem with Leap that your hands have to be roughly within a front facing cone/camera-frustum pointing out from your headset (inside out tracking for both head and hands)

      • Octopus*

        Forgot to correct this in another article :D

        The sansar one.

        • Raphael

          Grrrr! Thanks for spotting that. What’s happening now is i type “octopus” but my ipad started changing the word to that other thing.

    • GigaSora

      I dont know that theyd make a 3 sensor bundle, although it is an interesting idea. It would be admitting that they were wrong about their initial setup. Much like the xbox and kinect.

      • Luke

        as I posted below this is what Oculus say on the website (officially):

        “Please note: two-sensor 360° tracking is an experimental feature—not all experiences may work as expected.
        Three-sensor 360° is fully supported.”

        source: https://www.oculus.com/accessories/ (under oculus sensor).

        for example those 2 IGN reviews on youtube say that people need to buy a third sensor

        1) The Unspoken Review, go to minute 1:43 to listen the comment (I posted the link at that minute)
        https://youtu.be/yzpaEbkdAxM?t=103

        2) Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality review minute 1:18
        https://youtu.be/zqJ_CGbQ7jo?t=78

        • Jean-Sebastien Perron

          I have 2 opposing sensors and they cover a volume of 11×11 feet without any tracking problems. This is the reality now. Room scale works perfectly with 2 sensors on the oculus.

          • M Rob

            It really really doesn’t

          • NooYawker

            Not even oculus agrees with you. “Roomscale content require 3 sensors.” That’s a quote from Oculus website.

          • ShiftyInc

            They indeed said this, but myself and apparently a bunch of other people can do this with just two sensors without any issues. i guess it depends on your setup and how much room you have.

          • Luke

            just a few questions please then I’ll choose what to do:

            1) here in italy is a hot summer, do you belive I could wear oculus rift during summer or it would be too hot?

            2) If there will be a new model I will probably have no money to buy
            the next model so in your opinion do you belive that next generation VR
            games will continue to support the actual (old) oculus rift? did oculus
            said anything about it oficially?

            3) do you belive Oculus CV1 is only for consumers with “early
            adopter” mentality (people who jump next the newest tech but are a
            niche) or do you belive Oculus CV1 had been designet also for mass
            market consumers? because if the answer is “it’s for the early adopters”
            I will not buy it (I will wait the next model if it will target the
            mass market). All I know is that Oculus CV1 basically doesn’t exist in
            Italy, no retail shops or even amazon sells the new bundle for example
            and this is the main reason of my scepticism!

            thx!

        • GigaSora

          Not taking a side. Just saying what they’re probably thinking. 3 sensor can be supported. Doesn’t mean they agree with it. Just giving you to option.

        • Mane Vr

          not everyone wants three sensors but it would be nice for those who want it to have a bundle. it not admitting anything.. I say this as someone who DON’T like roomscale and play everything seated

    • Heaney

      Here you go: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0742X33DD

      Get it while the sale lasts. It’ll go up $100 in price in 2 weeks.

      • Rogue Transfer

        Then come down again for Xmas.

  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    I dont’ buy on steam because it is really unstable and difficult to operate. It crashes constantly and I need to reboot my computer every time I use steam.

    • Justos

      You aren’t alone. I bet a good % of rift users are not reflected in the survey. Im certainly not.

      But since its all we got, people will roll with it as fact.

      You guys really think the sale increased the userbase by 1%? You’re nuts. My bet is at least 30-40% more Oculus owners at a minimum.

      • benz145

        “Exactly how many Rift users use Steam among the total population of Rift users is unknown, making it largely futile to extrapolate the data in an effort to determine headset market share across all platforms.”

      • Jorge Cercadillo

        I didn’t fire up SteamVR until I read this survey !!!!!

        Even if not al Oculus Users are there, I guess that in Autuum it will be 50% share for the Rift

    • NooYawker

      What a load of crap. Steam is very stable and simple to operate. There’s a reason Steam is used by nearly every gamer.

      • Fluke

        If you’re talking monitor gaming, I’d agree. However, if you’re talking VR gaming, then the whole VR side of it can be a bit…unstable at times. The VR interface could do with a fresh design as well imo.

        • NooYawker

          The interface is utilitarian for sure but it’s easy to use and that’s all I really want from it. I haven’t had any issues with VR and steam either. Sometimes a VR game will crash but not steam, but sometimes monitor games crash as well and neither have to do with steam.

          • Edawg

            I rarely have problems with Steam or SteamVR either.

        • doug

          I’ve never had a stability problem with SteamVR. I’ve heard people who build their own machines can have stability problems with VR, though.

      • stema vr runs like crap. It’s clunky and buggy. I never touched steam for a long time after I got a Rift. I doubt many peope who buy a Rift will immeditaely go to steam either.

        • NooYawker

          If I had a rift I’d use oculus home as well. There’s isn’t much on steam that isn’t in oculus. Maybe oculus software conflicts with steam.

        • Mane Vr

          I uninstall steamvr and any game I own on steam for vr I launch using +vrapi Oculus cause steamvr work like crap with oculus

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Never had any problems with steam. What platform/hardware are you using it.

    • I love steam for flat games, but if I have a choice i’m buying VR from Oculus Home. Now some steam games work great, like Serious Sam VR, it has actual Rift support, but other games seem to be built for Vive and the conversion layer seems off, like hands don’t match up and the touch pad emulation is off. I still prefer buying from the Oculus store, at least I know it was tested on a rift before making it into the store.

    • Icebeat

      I used steam for around 10 years now, and it crashed maybe 2 time in all this time.

  • Doctor Bambi

    This to me shows just how irrelevant the Steam Survey really is.

    At the moment, Rift is the fastest selling headset on Amazon, yes, even beating out GearVR, and PSVR. Google traffic for Rift is up 117%. Oculus sold out of their original product packages so quickly they had to ship out the new bundles within the first week of the summer sale. New Oculus owner posts have been popping up on the subreddit at an incredible rate. It’s pretty safe to assume Oculus have moved a very large number of headsets.

    • LT Rusty

      I ordered mine on Prime Day, and I’m still waiting for the damn thing to show up, as of August 2.

  • NooYawker

    Valve really doesn’t care what hardware you use. They just want you to purchase games on steam.

  • flamaest

    I got my rift cuz of the sale, but still working to get a new PC…. I suspect many are in the same boat; so we are not being counted yet.

  • RationalThought

    60/40 isn’t bad considering a healthy amount probably never use steam and just use the Oculus Store.

  • Ombra Alberto

    Use steam only for 2% of my time Vr.
    Irrelevant, inconsistent poll.

  • YmpulsiV

    I bought the Oculus from the day it was available. I’ve had no problems with it. I upscaled to 3 sensors (from the original 2), with a 4th now on the way.
    I built my own VR rig and have had NO PROBLEMS with it nor the RIFT for which it was built. I like the Oculus side of things. Its neat and tidy and the content is good, though at one point I thought I may have missed out on something by not buying the HTC VIVE.
    Now… having said all of the above, I’ve ventured over to Steam to see if there was anything I was missing… and what all the hype was about re the VIVE. Happily (…and this is my opinion), I will remain with Oculus and patiently await their products… because what I found on Steam, the Oculus already had (the good stuff anyway). In addition, I found most of the other titles on Steam were short, and didn’t look as polished as those on Oculus home. Sure there were/are more titles than Oculus has, but a majority of them looked (demo-ey) like they were still in the demo stage.
    Now, Rift or Vive, I think either platform is okay for where we are with VR today, especially seeing we are still in the early stages of this new technology.
    My position is that I’ll simply continue being selective about what Oculys apps/titles I pick up until such time as VR matures. Contrary to what some might think, make no mistake about it, VR has a lot to offer… and its my opinion that VR IS HERE TO STAY.

  • GroovyMonster

    “Modest Gains”

    Never change, roadtovr.

    “Despite the new high point, the HTC Vive still holds the majority share.”

    Keep fighting the fight, roadtovr.

    • benz145

      I’m not sure how to interpret this comment. Can you elaborate?