One would expect the Summer holidays to be rather beneficial to virtual reality adoption. People have time to kill and VR has gained some relatively big traction in the past few months. Even so, the current sales figures are all going off the deep end. This doesn’t look all that great for the industry as a whole.
Another Lull for VR Sales
Every time a report depicting VR headset sales figures surfaces, one has to be extremely worried. There hasn’t been any real positive trend in this regard as of late. Despite positive growth in February and March of 2018. things have gone rather downhill from there. Especially June and the first half of July are not looking too promising.
This negative trend affects all major VR headset manufacturers. Sony saw its PlayStation VR Skyrim Bundle tank in popularity since mid-March. HTC VIve sales have plummeted despite a strong month of May and first half June. The Samsung Gear VR is not exactly faring much better, although it does outperform the other two units by quite a margin.
Even Oculus is not seeing much success. Ever since the Oculus Go was introduced in May, its sales ranking on Amazon has gone downhill by leaps and bounds. It has even fallen out of the top-1oo product list despite clinching a 7-spot in May. A very quick fall from grace despite its much lower price and consumers not being tethered to a computer or other device as a result.
It is very difficult to make virtual reality headsets appealing to the masses these days. Thankfully, it seems location-based VR is a booming industry. There is also a growing number of VR arcades popping up all over the world, which will expose more people to virtual reality as a result. For at-home VR, the coming months will be crucial, as things are not looking too great.
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