What you need to know
- After just 4 months on the market, the Oculus Quest 2 has become the most-used VR headset on Steam.
- Growth accelerated significantly after the new year when headsets from Holiday sales begun to come online.
- Nearly 2.5% of all Steam users now use a VR headset regularly according to the survey, which is the highest number ever.
Steam has released the results of its February 2021 hardware survey and the results are pretty impressive by any standard. Among all the VR headsets on the market, the Oculus Quest 2 has taken the reigns as the number one most-used headset in just the four months it’s been on the market. While the best Oculus Quest 2 games will give you an amazing experience, the ease of playing SteamVR on the Oculus Quest 2 means that anyone with a decent gaming PC can experience more detailed VR worlds without the wires of older VR headsets.
Valve updated the SteamVR list of headsets to include Oculus Quest 2 separately in January. In December, the original Oculus Quest made up 16% of all VR headsets used in the survey. That number has now dropped to 6%, while the Oculus Quest 2 is now being used by nearly 23% of all users in the survey with a VR headset. Those numbers show a clear upgrade path taken by most Quest owners, and a massive shift in the demographics of SteamVR’s usage. In total, Facebook’s headsets now account for about 58% of all VR headsets being used on SteamVR; the highest that number has ever been.
Speaking of highest numbers ever, February 2021’s Steam survey shows that 2.21% of participants regularly use a VR headset. That’s the highest VR headset usage ever and is up 0.08% from January’s survey. Given the sheer volume of gamers on Steam, that 2.21% number is more impressive than it might initially sound but it still shows that adoption rates for VR headsets have a long time to go if PC VR is ever going to be considered truly mainstream. It’s more likely that most Quest 2 gamers are playing Quest-native games, as evidenced by the massive uptick in Quest 2 game sales.
If you’re not familiar with the monthly Steam Hardware Survey, Valve regularly sends out voluntary survey requests to a random pool of Steam players every month. That means these numbers aren’t going to line up with the exact number of players in any given hardware group but can be used to estimate actual numbers. There’s no doubt that Oculus’ aggressive pricing has a lot to do with the success of the Quest 2 — which undercuts most other VR headsets by several dollars — as well as the fact that you don’t need a PC or console to play the Quest 2 since it’s a console in and of itself.
Wireless VR
Oculus Quest 2
From $299 at Amazon
From $299 at Best Buy
From $299 at Walmart
Endless ways to play
The Oculus Quest 2 is totally wireless and can be played with or without a PC.
