Report: Valve Index sales more than doubled amid Half-Life Alyx reveal
Whoa! I have hands!
Sales for Valve's Index virtual reality headset more than doubled between the third and fourth quarter of last year, according to a new report from tracking firm SuperData. That increase-from 46,000 units to 103,000 units sold-would likely have been even greater if the $999 system hadn't sold out due to inventory issues, the firm wrote.
As we've seen in years past, virtual reality hardware sales tend to spike in the holiday quarter, thanks to gift-buying and general holiday splurging. But SuperData cites "anticipation for Half-Life: Alyx" as a main driver for the Index's holiday sales increase (even though the game will run on any PC-based VR headset). And the Index's particularly large holiday sales spike seems to have put it ahead of lower-priced (and older) PC-based VR competition from the likes of the Oculus Rift S, HTC Vive, and numerous Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
Wireless, console VR rules over the nicheDespite the holiday spike, sales for all the PC-based headsets continue to pale in comparison to the self-contained, wireless Oculus Quest, which moved 317,000 units during the holiday quarter, according to SuperData. That number might have been even higher, SuperData writes, if Oculus was able to avoid inventory-limited sellouts for parts of the quarter.
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