Quest 3 is back on top of Steam's VR survey, and Pico 4 hits an 18-month high
Meta Quest 3 is back at the top of Steam’s VR headset chart, and two headsets much further down the chart are at their highest points in its whole 18-month window. In Valve’s September 2026 hardware survey, read at 12:26 UTC on October 2, Quest 3 holds 26.90% against Quest 2 on 25.80%, while Pico 4 sits at 4.76% and Sony PS VR2 at 2.31%.
Meta Quest 3S is on 11.07%, down from the 13.23% it reached in May 2026. Image: Meta
Quest 2 had led for two months, July and August, finishing August 0.96 points clear. A 1.17-point fall in September has undone that, which in a survey this noisy is a nudge rather than a verdict.
Those two months were Quest 2’s first lead since August 2025. Quest 3 went ahead of it in September 2025 and stayed there for 10 straight months, peaking at 28.63% in May 2026 before slipping behind in July. September’s 26.90% is still well short of that peak.
The September numbers, row by row
| Headset | September 2026 | August 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta Quest 3 | 26.90% | 26.01% | +0.89 |
| Oculus Quest 2 | 25.80% | 26.97% | -1.17 |
| Meta Quest 3S | 11.07% | 11.50% | -0.43 |
| Valve Index HMD | 10.83% | 11.07% | -0.24 |
| Pico 4 | 4.76% | 4.48% | +0.28 |
| Oculus Rift S | 3.40% | 3.39% | +0.01 |
| Sony PS VR2 | 2.31% | 2.24% | +0.07 |
| HTC Vive | 2.26% | 2.39% | -0.13 |
| Windows Mixed Reality | 1.85% | 2.08% | -0.23 |
Everything here is a share of the Steam users who have a VR headset, which is the only thing the chart measures. These are not unit sales, not an installed base, and not a share of all Steam users, and Valve publishes no absolute count alongside them, so a percentage cannot be turned into a number of people.
The survey is also optional. "Participation in the survey is optional, and anonymous", Valve says on the page, so which owners answer in a given month moves the figures on its own, and single-point swings are routine.
Pico 4 and PS VR2 set records, Valve Index does not
Pico 4’s 4.76% and PS VR2’s 2.31% are each the highest either headset has reached across the chart’s full span from April 2025 to September 2026. PS VR2 has climbed in each of the past five months, a steady run for a headset that went out of stock on Sony’s own US store in September.
The other end of the chart is where the older hardware is draining away. Valve Index sits at 10.83%, matching the lowest figure anywhere in the window and well down from the 16.91% it held in July 2025. Windows Mixed Reality, at 1.85%, is also at its window low, and Quest 2’s 25.80% is seven points off the 32.85% it reached in July 2025.
Quest 3S is on 11.07%, down from a 13.23% peak in May 2026. Meta’s three headsets between them hold 63.77% of the chart, which is roughly where that total has sat all year.
Steam Frame is not in this chart
Valve’s own headset has no line of its own in the VR chart, although its first reviews landed on September 18. The chart carries two separate rows both labelled "Other", with nothing on the page explaining what divides them, so neither figure can be read as a stand-in for it.
The rest of the survey is a reminder of the ground the chart sits on. Windows runs 95.03% of the machines that answered, Linux 3.05% after an 0.85-point fall, and SteamOS Holo 0.53%.
Two headsets setting records in the same month, in a chart that moves a point either way on who happens to answer, is a result that needs October to confirm it.
