Meta Quest 3 makes its first appearance in Valve's PC VR stats
Meta Quest 3 has appeared in the SteamVR stats, and for good reasons, it's not doing very well there yet.
Valve's monthly hardware and software survey tracks the VR headsets that are connected to a PC with Steam installed and whose users participated in the survey. This means that the statistics do not include devices used strictly in standalone mode or other platforms such as Playstation VR 2, and they only allow conclusions to be drawn about Steam's PC VR usage.
Quest headsets can be used via Quest Link (wired or wireless) or Virtual Desktop (wireless) on a PC. And in addition to Steam, there are other less commonly used PC VR platforms such as Viveport or Meta's Rift platform.
The image below shows the percentage of devices tracked by Steam in October 2023. The Quest 3 is at 0.15 percent, meaning that far less than one percent of all PC-connected headsets were a Quest 3. The three-year-old Quest 2 comes in at just under 40 percent, while more than one in five headsets is a Valve Index.
SteamVR results from October 2023
We'll have to wait longer to get more meaningful figures
However, there are two caveats that skew the results of Quest 3.
First, devices used via Virtual Desktop on the PC are incorrectly registered as Quest 2 headsets, as developer Guy Godin confirmed to UploadVR. As a result, the statistics only capture devices that use Quest Link for the PC VR connection, and the ratio between Quest Link and Virtual Desktop users is not known. Second, most users are usually surveyed at the beginning of the month and at a time when Quest 3 was not yet available. The headset was released on October 10, 2023.
More meaningful numbers will be available in the coming months and especially early next year. From these results, it will be possible to draw an approximate picture of the sales success compared to other devices like the Quest 2. The older headset quickly captured a large share of the market upon release, but also came at a much lower price point than the Quest 3 and other VR headsets.
PC VR usage continues to decline
The SteamVR stats also reflect the percentage of SteamVR users out of the total Steam user base. This number dropped from 1.60 to 1.23 percent in October. This drop is partly due to an influx of Chinese Steam users. In general, however, SteamVR usage has been dropping for some time, and according to the statistics below, it's at the same level as it was in 2019.
SteamVR became less and less relevant with the advent of standalone virtual reality, and Playstation VR 2 did not have a positive trickle-down effect on the platform; on the contrary, many fans of high-end VR may have switched to Sony's VR headset.
In terms of VR, Pplatform holder Valve has been mostly inactive since the release of Half-Life: Alyx in 2020. The company recently gave SteamVR a much-needed interface overhaul. However, it is currently completely unclear if and when Valve will introduce new hardware and VR games to make the platform more attractive to users and developers.
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