VR Re-evaluated as 'Biggest Loser' for 2016 Holiday Sales - MMORPG.com News

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VR Re-evaluated as 'Biggest Loser' for 2016 Holiday Sales - MMORPG.com News

SuperData, an industry trends research firm, has revised its holiday forecast for the VR sector noting its struggling sales and calling it the "biggest loser" for the year. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, SuperData indicated that the notably lower-than-expected sales and the fragmentation of the title line up alongside the competing peripherals contributed to the sluggish sales.

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Scot

I among many others said it is too soon....again. Been here before, this tech will truly take off when the visor is as light as a pair of glasses, and people do not complain of headaches after a couple of hours use, but not before that's sorted.

bigtime102

I'm still really excited for VR. Doom3 BFG has a mod for it, turns the game into VR. Its on steam. Theres a youtube video of the a guy playing it and it was really cool how while he was shooting forward he was able to look around over his shoulder.

kitarad

First fix the dizziness, disorientation long after you stop using it and headaches then we can talk about its popularity. I would not as the technology stands today touch it. Improve it then we'll talk.

beej1986

Maybe it had more to do with the fact that there was absolutely no sales on the device for black Friday. I mean, even the Ps4 pro had discounts or games included. Whether new or not, people want a "deal" for black Friday/cyber Monday. Had they offered even $50 off they would have sold more units.

Docboot

There was no discount sales here in the UK because there was none to sell.
The only way of getting one before Christmas over here is to pay £500 - £600 from re-sellers.

Ozmodan

The early adopters have them and that is about it.  Too many stories of headaches and disorientation have convinced many of us to take a wait and see attitude.  It does not help that they are a bit on the expensive side and not a lot of the popular games support VR.

VR will be exciting when we get Star Trek simulation rooms.

Sovrath

As soon as a title I want to play comes to VR I'll upgrade and buy some goggles.

mgilbrtsn

This is funny.  I just read an article on CNN about how VR is one of the 15 tech's to buy for gamers.  Time will tell, but my money is still that it will be THE thing in the near future.

CrazKanuk

I think that there is one big problem here and that is price differentiation. While I was out shopping around on Black Friday I noticed numerous VR headsets, for mobile phones, which were in the sub-$50 range. Then we've got Playstation VR which is 10 times that! So it was already established that the education about VR wasn't optimal, so you couple that with the fact that there is a huge discrepancy in pricing and it's a disaster. 

Asm0deus

The stupid high prices are the reason for the poor sales.

Alverant

I think VR has a better future in non-games. Things like therapy and treatment for PTSD and education. Gamers demand too much and can never be satisfied.

Viper482

Scot said:

I among many others said it is too soon....again. Been here before, this tech will truly take off when the visor is as light as a pair of glasses, and people do not complain of headaches after a couple of hours use, but not before that's sorted.

You forgot to add affordability. Way too expensive for the average end-user currently. 

maskedweasel

That makes it the 5th time they've revised their numbers.  5 TIMES .. all declines, starting from late last year and several times this year.

For an industry that's supposed to be booming, its first year sure started with a whimper.  

The sad thing is that PSVR still outsold the rest of the sets.

SlyLoK

I think having a single universal standard would go a long way in helping this tech.

Ezhae

Scot said:

I among many others said it is too soon....again. Been here before, this tech will truly take off when the visor is as light as a pair of glasses, and people do not complain of headaches after a couple of hours use, but not before that's sorted.

Well, for the improvements to be made the product needs it's first batch on the market really. I wouldn't say it was too soon to have it out, but it probably was way too soon to push for it as the big thing now, and thus they went a little too crazy with their hopes for profits. At this stage it's not much more than a fancy toy for early adopters that will need a bit more time to fully develop itself.

mgilbrtsn

SlyLoK said:

I think having a single universal standard would go a long way in helping this tech.

Universal standard would help, price would help, increase in quality and quantity of games/applications.....etc.
There is a lot that needs to be done to get it out of it's current state, but it's 1st Gen, so all of those things should sort themselves out.  The Universal standard isn't as critical as some of the other things though, IMO.  We live with PS and XBOX;  Windows and Mac; and coke and pepsi.  However, it would definitely help things along.

BartDaCat

High price, unappealing line-up, no major AAA titles being touted, and every company and their brother seems to have some version out... the re-launching of this revamped technology was poorly executed. I briefly flirted with the idea of purchasing one until I looked at the content and the price. Not worth it.

Azaron_Nightblade

Viper482 said:

Scot said:

I among many others said it is too soon....again. Been here before, this tech will truly take off when the visor is as light as a pair of glasses, and people do not complain of headaches after a couple of hours use, but not before that's sorted.

You forgot to add affordability. Way too expensive for the average end-user currently. 

^Pretty much.

ianicus

maskedweasel said:

That makes it the 5th time they've revised their numbers.  5 TIMES .. all declines, starting from late last year and several times this year.

For an industry that's supposed to be booming, its first year sure started with a whimper.  

The sad thing is that PSVR still outsold the rest of the sets.

I dont see how its sad, its completely expected, it is the mainstream vr device. The rift and vive are enthusiast equipment.

spawn12345

Those are actually really great numbers for hardware like this
Gameindustry is just twisting the numbers to get clicks
And no one knows the actually numbers except for sony, oculus and htc

Its not mainstream hardware yet and wont be until gen 3 that is about 6 years away

maskedweasel

ianicus said:

maskedweasel said:

That makes it the 5th time they've revised their numbers.  5 TIMES .. all declines, starting from late last year and several times this year.

For an industry that's supposed to be booming, its first year sure started with a whimper.  

The sad thing is that PSVR still outsold the rest of the sets.

I dont see how its sad, its completely expected, it is the mainstream vr device. The rift and vive are enthusiast equipment.

 I think saying they're "enthusiast" devices isn't nearly what the companies themselves indicated they were expecting from the headsets.  

HTC is pivoting away from phones altogether,  and Facebook has stated how many sales units the require to be profitable and neither of them are banking on niche product projections.

PSVR outsold the other devices,  but if these projections mean anything, it's that they also will fall way short of the original industry projections in total.

Keep in mind, in April, PSVR, Vive and Rift were supposed to sell over 6 MILLION units.   Fast forward to today, with the same company and several projections later, not a single one will hit a million units?  And the Vive and Rift won't even make the 500K mark.  

The rift has a lot to go before they hit that "100 Million Units Sold" mark to make a profit. 

SEANMCAD

I am not discounting the article and I am sure many would expect me to so I am saying that ahead of time. because:

I am confused a little bit by the numbers. PSVR came out in mid October 2016. Where they expecting 2.6 million sales in 3 months for 2016?

In 2015 many said that 2016 would be the year of VR in part because they assumed Oculus would release actually when they said they would instead of well into the last half of the year.

WITH THAT SAID, it doesnt counter the data because what people were not expecting in 2015 was the Vive so in total that could make up for the slow start by Oculus.

your welcome

maskedweasel

SEANMCAD said:

I am not discounting the article and I am sure many would expect me to so I am saying that ahead of time. because:

I am confused a little bit by the numbers. PSVR came out in mid October 2016. Where they expecting 2.6 million sales in 3 months for 2016?

In 2015 many said that 2016 would be the year of VR in part because they assumed Oculus would release actually when they said they would instead of well into the last half of the year.

WITH THAT SAID, it doesnt counter the data because what people were not expecting in 2015 was the Vive so in total that could make up for the slow start by Oculus.

your welcome

It wouldn't make sense to refute it since you posted and defended their last article 

http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/458219/vr-sales-analysis/p1

But I disagree, as can be expected, but not in the way you think.

I'm just saying, we knew more of the Vives release by end of 2015, it's the PSVR that blindsided everyone.  

Now, that shouldn't have affected the PC VR market too much,  but,  competition will get fiercer next year.  

SEANMCAD

maskedweasel said:

ianicus said:

maskedweasel said:

That makes it the 5th time they've revised their numbers.  5 TIMES .. all declines, starting from late last year and several times this year.

For an industry that's supposed to be booming, its first year sure started with a whimper.  

The sad thing is that PSVR still outsold the rest of the sets.

I dont see how its sad, its completely expected, it is the mainstream vr device. The rift and vive are enthusiast equipment.

.....

Keep in mind, in April, PSVR, Vive and Rift were supposed to sell over 6 MILLION units.......

in only 2016?
or as 'we need to sell 6 million to break even' (which does not mean we need to break even , or break even this year but rather that is the mathmatical number one would require to break even IF one wanted to)

donger56

If I wanted to pay money to get a headache I could just get married again. These headsets are too heavy, too expensive, and not many games really support it. I'll wait for the 3.0 version of VR.