SuperData, the Nielsen company dedicated to providing market intelligence on the games industry, recently launched the SuperData XR Dimensions Market Intelligence Platform. As you might have already guessed, it's focused on Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) platforms.
According to the first SuperData XR Dimensions report, VR hardware revenue is expected to reach $2.1 billion by the end of 2019, a 31% improvement year-over-year compared to 2018's $1.6 billion. The market boost is reportedly due to the widespread consumer adoption of the Oculus Quest standalone VR device, released in May and available for $399.
The portability of the Oculus Quest made it easily enjoyable from the get-go and subsequent software updates, such as the ability to play Oculus Rift games by linking the Quest with a PC or the freshly released hand tracking feature, have only improved the headset's reputation among VR enthusiasts.
Following the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales craze, it's not surprising to find the Quest still in high demand. Amazon, for example, is all out of Quest units from its own stock, which means resellers have jacked up the price to be over twice as much as the standard $399.
But the Valve Index is doing very well, too. After the unveiling of Half-Life: Alyx, sales of the high-end VR headset challenged Valve's stock, causing delays in shipping. The Valve Index was briefly sold out in the United States and Canada; now, the store page on Steam tells prospective customers that the recent high demand will translate in new orders shipping as far as February.
Given that Alyx is slated for release in March, you may want to put your Valve Index order in if you're planning to play it on launch day. Meanwhile, in some European countries, the VR headset is presently out of stock and completely unavailable for purchase.
It seems like the VR market is far from dead and, as we had guessed, the announcement of a potential killer application like Half-Life: Alyx coming soon further ignited the interest in Virtual Reality.
As for AR, it is safe to consider it mainstream at this point. According to SuperData's report, over 2 billion users have used Augmented Reality in mobile apps during Q3 2019 alone. AR filters for Snapchat and Instagram remain as popular as ever, just like Pokémon Go which yielded $176 million in revenue this August, making that month the second biggest since the game launched in July 2016.
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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