Putting 4.2m PSVRs into context.

Always start with a LINK.

Have you been gassing up those big psvr numbers? Feeling like it's here to stay...? Sonys got a true killer piece of hardware ready to saturate the masses like wildfire!

Or does it?

"While 4.2 million is certainly a big number in and of itself, its actual import depends a lot on what you’re comparing it to. So to put Sony’s latest report in context, we’ve gathered a bevy of relevant comparison numbers for you to peruse in both chart and list form. Use this as a handy reference for your next debate about whether console virtual reality is a “dead end” or not."

• 130 days: Time since release for PSVR to sell 915,000 headsets (~7K/day) (Source)
• 417 days: Time since release for PSVR to sell 2 million headsets (~4.8K/day) (Source)
• 673 days: Time since release for PSVR to sell 3 million headsets (~4.5K/day) (Source)
• 872 days: Time since release for PSVR to sell 4.2 million headsets (~4.8K/day) (Source)

• 43 days: Time since release for the PS4 to sell 4.2 million units (Source)
• 154 days: Time since release for the Xbox One to ship 5 million units (Source)
• 317 days: Time since release for the Wii U to sell 3.91 million units (Source)

• 4.08 million: Rough Superdata estimate for PSVR headset sales through the end of 2018
• 0.99 million: Rough Superdata estimate for Oculus Rift headset sales through the end of 2018
• 1.3 million: Rough Superdata estimate for HTC Vive headset sales through the end of 2018
• 4 million: Rough Nvidia estimate for total “PC VR” headset sales through the end of 2018
• 4.4%: Rough ratio of PSVR owners to PS4 owners (4.2M / 94.2M) (Source)
• 2.16%: Rough ratio of Sega 32X owners to Sega Genesis owners (0.665M / 30.75M; 32X sales through end of 1994) (Sources (1) (2))
• 7.2%: Rough ratio of Sega CD owners to Sega Genesis owners (2.24M / 30.75M) (Source)
• 31.5%: Rough ratio of original Kinect owners to Xbox 360 owners (24M / 76M as of Feb. 2013) (Source)
• 411,488: Estimate of unique Oculus Rift headsets connected to Steam in February 2019.
• 335,980: Estimate of unique HTC Vive headsets connected to Steam in February 2019.
• 85,012: Estimate of unique Windows Mixed Reality headsets connected to Steam in February 2019.
• 770,000: Lifetime sales of the Virtual Boy (Source)
• 1 million: Original expectations for the first six months of PSVR sales (Source)

That's an awful lot to pour over, but it does give lots of comparative data as to how to look at its success and failings.... What do you pull from this? To me, it seems psvr is niche... Its nearly 8 times less popular than Kinect and a little more than half as successful than Sega CD, which is kinda funny.

Debate if you'd like... How would you like to spin the numbers?

The comparison to Sega 32x, CD, etc is totally dishonest and misses the point. You have lumped in each separate VR headset as if they are all different platforms, which they are not. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and even Windows MR to an extent are all part of the same platform. As an example, Resident Evil 7 VR, a great VR experience, is not exclusive to PSVR, but it can be played with various VR headsets on PC as well.

While VR numbers are relatively low compared to actual console and PC hardware, VR is newer and not a mainstream product - it costs a hefty amount of money, especially for the PC headsets. However, the experience it provides is not merely a gimmick like 3d TVs or a small boost in power like the Sega 32x, but another unified platform entirely which has a ton of potential. Gamers should be celebrating VR rather than parasitic streaming services.

@mazuiface: ‘Gamers should be celebrating VR rather than parasitic streaming services.’

Not a valid comparison as one forces a cumbersome helmet on your head and the other makes gaming easier. We stream music and movies quite reliably, gaming is the next logical step. Latency only improves and pretty soon it’ll be a non issue. You really think they’re going to invest millions of dollars into technology that won’t work?

Did you ever collect CDs and movies? It was very pricey. Streaming has made both more affordable and your choices unlimited. Trust me, you’ll have too much to play in the coming years and your wallet will thank you.

VR sounds the same as mobile does for me these days:

absolutely boring

Ok so you've never worn a VR headset. The only way it could seriously be cumbersome is if you have some sort of severe muscular dystrophy. I have worn an HTC Vive and a PSVR, and both were decently comfortable and genuinely interesting. There is a lot of potential, which has already been shown by games like Resident Evil 7 and Ace Combat. The bottom line is that this is actual new content for gamers.

With streaming services, yes, they are absolutely antithetical to the development of video games and access to them. You're essentially arguing that you would rather pay some parasite to have access to games that they didn't have any hand in developing or publishing rather than owning the content yourself. There is already enough of a stink about Steam's DRM (which is very light already), and then MS attempted to strong arm people with their initial Xbox One concept which met a huge backlash for good reasons - now these major corporations have just dressed it up as a "streaming service" and it's all of a sudden "the future." Absolute nonsense. Hold onto your head.

@mazuiface: I’ll tell you what’s less cumbersome - no head attachment. But I digress.

I’m not sure where you’re second point was headed (parasites, non developers streamjng games?), but who cares where you get your games? The Netflix model bothers you because you aren’t supporting movie studios directly? Huh?

Look, gaming is about to become a lot more affordable, more choices, more available, and a lot less cluttered. Try to have a more open mind because in the not so distant future, you won’t have a choice.

So, whats the point of this? Do we like options or whatever? Or not when Sony does them? I'm confused, why do we need to damage control this?

It's a hard sell. A lot of the games on it are either new ips or spin offs from a series which doesn't help it sell faster. Plus it's limited in the genres it can immerse.

Who is damage controlling anything? We are looking at numbers.... And context.

@Sevenizz:

Despite the fundamental difference between renting a game vs renting a movie that you watch once or twice, video streaming paints a picture of how terrible this can become for games - because, despite actually funding original shows, they have now made it so that having access to every show is less affordable. How many of them are now popping up with exclusive content? Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Hulu, HBO, Showtime, and more. If you really wanted access to all of the content, you would have to subscribe to each one of these (hence the "Subscription wars" analog to "System wars" begins). And if you're wondering if I think that the same thing applies for console exclusives, to an extent, yes I do and that is part of the reason why I game on PC - but at least as it stands right now, you can buy them and own them.

EDIT: I forgot to add the most important aspect of streaming services vs development of games: the way shareholders demand instant profits. If you want to accept streaming services for gaming, be prepared to accept a dramatic decline in the quality of video games in exchange for whatever pads the list of games with the lowest effort possible. If there is anything to go by right now, games like Sea of Thieves were intended to be the pioneer of "games as a service" and take a look at it.

I have compared all of this to the expansion of new technologies, namely VR, which *adds* content to video gaming across PC and consoles and expands the possibilities for new games. I think the rest stands for everyone else to see here. If the only gripe you can come up with is that you have to put something on your head, then you might as well argue that your controller is too heavy or that pressing buttons is too much work.

Seems to be doing just fine.

This is going to make some folks really upset.

For what it is, I say those are good numbers, not outstanding but far from being a failure.

You seem very upset

the chart in the OP clealry shows the wiiU destroying and wrecking VR. was the wiiU a failure?

7k a day for an accessory is pretty darn impressive.

Comparing it with...console sales? Why? And please don't compare it with an accessory that came with every console sold either...

I think VR is still in its infancy really. Its new and expensive tech and selling millions for a $400 peripheral/add on to a consumer that has to buy it to experience it shows that people will adopt to it.

VR is still limited but I hope it continues to grow even if it never makes it mainstream. Playing Skyrim VR is like no other experience I have had, and I've been gaming since the NES. Until it gets cheaper, It will only be adopted by people with the disposable income to spend that kind of money on an experience that they may or may not like.

Impressive lol, you cows called the Kinect a failure and yet in the first 3 months on the market MS was selling 133K units per day, so the PSVR is a mega failure.

Not only that but MS sold more than twice as many Kinects in 3 months at full price than Sony has sold the discounted and permanent price drop PSVR's in 29 months lol.

PSVRHBO :)

@i_p_daily: I was gonna hype PSVR cause its doing incredible, but looking at that data, I wanted to point out Kinect's rocket fired launch into sales heaven.

Although I wasn't here, I imagine people shit on Kinect, despite at time and maybe still the fastest selling consumer electronic product of all time, or something along the lines of selling shit ton.

Wow, you got to love the tears of Xbox and Nintendo fannies whenever PSVR is mentioned. If PSVR was on Xbox or Nintendo you'd be praising it as average plus and sometimes great, what it really is. Xbox doesn't even give a crap enough about you to give you any VR. lmao.

I also don't care about sales, hopefully positive. It comes down to if I enjoy the product which I do with PSVR.

I assume you can't compare the Kinect with PSVR because Kinect sucked for the most part and PSVR doesn't. Isn't that like hyping up the PS Camera, pathetic Lems.

Lets put a headset on that noggin shall we? Astro Bot, Beat Saber, Wipeout, and Lone Echo / Echo VR. Once you're finished with those games, you're going to tell me how much fun you had and how it was nothing like mobile gaming, and that you're very very sorry. Because that's how it always goes with these games.

How is it limited? List the genres that VR doesn't work well for. There are only a small handful that don't have much to gain, but can at least still work and gain somewhat - just not a lot.

PSVR is one of many headsets. The PS4 can't really deliver a high quality VR experience. It's too weak, the games end up look dramatically worse than what we're used to.

That being said, VR is phenomenal. I've used the psvr multiple times and I loved it. I look forward to future iterations but in its current state I can't see it being a legit hit.

A cow who doesn't care about sales is like seeing a unicorn, they just don't exist lol.

And you also seem very upset, its ok if you like it, but that doesn't stop it from being a total failure :)

Okay Finance wizard. Isn't like 4 000 000 X $350 = $1,400,000,000. Who knows how much of that is net profit?

And you should know about failures the Xbox brand being your console of choice this gen.

Yeah lets forget about all the price cuts and permanent price drop, and your biggest failure is that you don't know how much money Sony is making per unit lol.

I love racing games so the XB1 is the console of choice this gen :)

EDIT: So much for you not caring about sales LOL.

So PSVR is still the most successful VR headset of all time right?

That’s all I need to know.

It’s a huge success and Sony is going to make a PSVR2. Rumours suggesting twice as good, more comfortable and mostly wireless.

It’s only going to get better.

@i_p_daily: I was guessing the average price if you want to make it $249, when its probably more like $279, you still almost get a billion $996,000,000. Like I said I don't know the net profit, but it doesn't seem like a total failure like you put it.

Well I hope my side wins. But more important to me is that I have a good and fun experience.

In defence, PSVR actually has great games for it while the best you get out of kinect was Star Wars Solo Song. Hey, at least its catchy ;)

Think about this, you're basing your argument on a guess lol.

No PGR did not turn into a Forza game, They are different franchises made by 2 different devs 1 of which no longer exists.

Say how is GT Sport, I mean they should give you all those free cars by 2022 lol.

@mazuiface: You’re thinking too hard about this and most of it is wasted paranoia. A fear of something new. Odd given how gamers usually embrace new technology.

But you’ll come around. You’ll have no choice. You can’t stop technology.

The PSVR is the cheapest of them all, and still costs way more than the best version of the wii u at launch, in vr there are hardly any big titles or names in that platform, the wii u on the other side had the support of the biggest franchises Nintendo and some third parties had to offer. Also, the wii u was the successor of one of the best selling consoles of all time and failed to reach even 20% of what its predecessor sold.

@i_p_daily: maybe I played a Forza game on my 360 and I didn’t like it, I forget. You hate psvr on a guess.

There's going to be a lot of interpretations from those numbers, but looking at everything, one thing is clear:

PSVR is in the same class as the Sega 32X, Sega CD, and the Xbox Kinect as a slow moving device. It's also taken more than double the amount of time for PSVR to beat out the Wii U's 3.91 million mark. So my question is what do these devices all have in common that's to blame? Is it low consumer interest? Is it lack of content? Is it price? Or do they all have their own individual quirks that just turned most people away?

No matter how this is sliced up, the conclusion is that PSVR isn't doing as well as it should. Especially when it's statics are comparable to 4 other devices which all shared the same trajectory and went on to fail.

so the wiiU was a bigger failure because it had better games and should of outsold psvr a by a ton more? really? being a better system makes it a bigger failure? wierd.

also, psvr is 200$ the wiiU was never discounted and was 300$ its whole life.

So if wiiU had shiitier games and support it would sell just as shitty as PSVR? is what your saying?

so psvr has shitty support and thats why its a miracle that it sold as much as it did is your argument?

wow

One day I will try VR.... but it probably won't be PSVR

It kinda sucks tho

@i_p_daily said:

But not before the XBOX fanboy eh?

You're exaggerating and puting words in my mouth, but yes basically that's the idea.

With all the support it had the Wii U got bad numbers, if it wasn't for said support it would have sold way less than that; on the other side, developers and consumers took a cautious approach to say the least to VR, and just recently we have seen bigger developers and franchises jump in the wagon, it's far from being successful, but by this point in the lifetime of the Wii U, practically everyone except for Nintendo had already abandoned the Wii U.

The biggest stat I see here is that almost 5000 people per day are buying VR. That’s actually good for where it’s at. For a new tech product like this that’s a slow but steady stream of people taking the plunge per day. I had a Rift for a little while then sold it cuz I don’t feel VR is quite ready yet. Resolution needs to increase and the cables must go. But this is a good sign that VR is here to stay this time. It’s gonna be all about the next generation of VR and the job of this first gen was to keep it alive for tech to advance while building consumer interest. We can tease VR because it is not big time yet but the seed has been planted and I think VR is here to stay.

Hey, I'm not saying other people can't have fun with mobile gaming.

I'm not interested in playing mini games, I had my fill of those when motion gaming was the trend of the day.

@pelvist: Well if I post it after cows show up it would be pointless eh?

PSVR has great games?

I know what I like when it comes to video games and VR is not one of those things, its no guess.

According to @i_p_daily PSVR is not niche.

So your whole post is moot and therefore PSVR is a total and complete success whichever way you look at it.

It's pointless either way son, but you be you.