The Valve Index VR headset more than doubled units sold after the announcement of Half-Life: Alyx, according to a new report shared yesterday by SuperData XR.
To be more precise, the Valve Index sold 149K units in 2019 (it launched in June) and 103K of those purchases occurred in the fourth quarter of last year, when the Virtual Reality headset quickly went out of stock on Steam.
That's understandable - while Half-Life: Alyx will be playable with HTC Vive headsets, Oculus Rift headsets and Windows Mixed Reality headsets, some of its features (such as finger tracking) may be exclusive to the Valve Index, and the game itself is also bundled with it.
The Valve Index was, therefore, the best-selling PC VR headset during Q4 2019. However, it was handily beaten by the standalone headset Oculus Quest (705K units during the whole year, 317K of which during the last quarter) and by the PlayStation VR for PlayStation 4, which reportedly sold 338K units in Q4 2019.
Looking forward, SuperData XR expects massive growth for the Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality (AR/MR) market, reaching an estimated $6.7 billion by 2023, which would account for roughly 45% of the entire 'XR' market (with the remaining 55% belonging to the Virtual Reality market).
We'll see if the Valve Index momentum will continue even after the release of Half-Life: Alyx, which is currently on track to hit its March release according to the game's developers.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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