Windows Mixed Reality growth spurt peter out in latest SteamVR numbers

Steam’s Hardware Survey numbers are out for September 2018, which give us a rare look into the market share of the various VR headsets, due to Steam’s cross-platform support and their attractive library of VR games and other applications.

For the fifth month in a row, we are seeing some growth in Windows Mixed Reality market share. Unlike last month, however, where growth was very robust, this month WMR headsets only gained 0.04% share.

The growth appears largely to be at the expense of the HTC Vive, which went from 42.48% to 42.36% from August to September 2018.

Oculus Rift’s headsets grew share from 47.11 to 48.38% of the market.

So far Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform has lacked exciting announcements which may spur the market, but with a new generation of headsets on the way from Samsung and Acer hopefully, this holiday season will be robust than last year.

It should be noted that Steam’s numbers are an indirect measure, and if headset users instead use their native portals and games these numbers would fluctuate accordingly.

Last month’s numbers can be seen here.