Even if the HTC Vive might have gathered a lot of Steam in the VR world in 2016, the Oculus Rift is quickly catching up. The latest hardware survey report from Steam suggests that the Rift is gaining traction and has increased its share of the VR market to 43.8 percent at the time of writing. That leaves the HTC Vive with 52.3 percent, a near eight percent drop from this time just one month ago.
If you're wondering why that doesn't add up to 100 percent, that's because the Oculus Rift DK2 is still usable in some Steam titles and has a small, but noticeable user base (thanks PCG).
So why is the Oculus Rift seeing so many new users? It doesn't have any new hardware out right now, but what it is going through is its biggest sale period in the hardware's history. It has motion controllers now too, which play a big part of its gaining parity with the Vive, but pricing itself as little as $400 with Touch controllers is a big part of it. When it first launched it was $600 for the headset alone, so to have a $400 all-in bundle makes the Rift very competitive with the Vive and even with the PSVR for those with both console and decent-PC systems.
This sale won't last forever though. If you want to buy an HTC Vive, doing so now would be a bright idea, as once the summer sale is over, the price will go back up by $200, so will cost roughly the same as the Vive moving forward.
Have any of you guys picked up a Rift in recent months?
