• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

BCN: PlayStation VR2 (PSVR2) helped Sony control 89.2% of all VR sales tracked from launch to the first week of March. In the Japanese VR market.

https://www.sohu.com/a/651856057_25...8402800010DA5oXoZ_324&_trans_=000011_hwzy_llq
in the fourth week of February 2023, nearly 90% of the world's VR·AR headset market has been occupied by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and the sales of PSVR1/2 have accounted for 89.2% of the market. The release of the PSVR2 became a major reason for its popularity.

Sony Interactive Entertainment’s PSVR2 head display has shown a good momentum as early as the pre-order period. In the fourth week of January 26 after the start of the pre-order, the market share has reached 74.9%, allowing other companies to work hard in the VR head display market for several years HTC and other big manufacturers are envious. In addition to its strong hardware performance and excellent design, of course, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s game resources and human connection are also one of the important factors for PSVR2’s best-selling.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/fcbd6631f198d55372893fa569017ba292e26529
PSVR2, dedicated to PlayStation 5 (PS5), got off to a good start from the start of reservations. As of January 4th, including January 26th when reservations started, SIE already recorded a 74.9% market share. It surpassed three companies, Elecom , Meta Platforms, and Pico Technology , and took the top spot for the first time in 135 weeks since the week of June 22, 2020. After that, the market share remained around 40%, but the market share surged again in the 4th week of February, which includes the release date of February 22nd. It reached 89.2%, just before 90%. PSVR2, which is essential for the PS5 main unit, is mainly used for games for the time being. In order to maintain and expand sales, it is essential to spread the PS5 console and expand the lineup of PSVR exclusive content. However, if cooperation with other VR compatible services progresses, further demand can be expected.
c1ffa310da504a97820de12ad93b5eed.png


The Japanese VR market has released it's data regarding the PSVR2, one of the smaller but more unique VR markets that may be possibly looking at new growth, at least so far.

As you can see by the colored lines on the chart, before PSVR2 took off (they are counting pre-launch preorder sales) on January 26th, which is when Japanese preorders started, the VR market was led by a domestic company called Elecom, which surpassed Zuckers Quest VR at the start of the first week in January. Elecom seemed to have had at the peak controlling close to 55% of the japanese VR market, with Quest in decline with less than 30% of the market, before PlayStation VR2 helped Sony VR sales take off.

Then we see in January 26th during the 4th week of the month, the bottled up hype and excitement for PSVR2, blowing up the pre-orders and seeing Sony VR sales (PSVR1 and PSVR2 combined, but mostly PSVR2 of course) skyrocket to 74.9% domestically, followed by the other 3 major players all having deep dives at the same time. Then around the PSVR2's Feb 22 launch, we saw Sony peak in the 4th week gaining almost 90% marketshare with 89.2%.

While there are no numbers anywhere giving us any idea of how much this translates to unit sales, it at least indicates a strong start from launch (really Jan 26th) until the first week of March where there's a slight downslant, but with Sony still controlling 70% marketshare. Now, it's a matter of if Sony has enough to keep PVR2 momentum going in March and beyond, which is the big question, or if this will be a frontloaded exception. So far so good.

From the looks of the chart, all the competitors totally collapsed on week 4 when Sony's marketshare peaked, but then rebounded when Sony dropped down a bit at the start of March. which makes me wonder how low sales are at the bottom of the chart, and how high at the top.

Regardless, If Sony can stop that slant from getting worse, and finds a way to keep momentum going in March, it will likely keep dominating in Japan if they play their cards right. They have a golden opportunity to be long term market leader right now in the country.

Update for year 2022,
The below is showing VR and AR shipments for the entire year of 2022 to put the above chart in better perspective (which ends march 2023)
IDCVR.jpg



This gives us a better picture of Japan VR in 2022 specifically. Looks like VR was in freefall and near death by the end of the year. Whats crazy about this is how Q4 did nothing, not even a boost with being a key buying season and domestic sales on VR. While it seems the first chart shows PSVR2 helping with that some for 2023, it does put into question just how much it's adding. Is it enough to stabilize or do better than Q4 2022?

In 2022 we saw ~130,000 VR units sold domestically drop to ~18,000 in one year.


In the flip side in Japan AR is growing, with only 14,000 or so sold, but growing from 8,000 in Q1,

getfile.dyn


So in Japan VR dropped ~86% from the start of 2022 till the end of the year.

For AR, it rose 75% from Q1 to the end of the year 2022.

At this pace outside a chance, AR will pass VR in Japan in Q1 or Q2 this year unless Sony PSVR2 and other headsets are able to attract positive unit growth. The only country (so far) that has them this close and VR and AR dropping and rising at such heavy percentage rates. VR adoption was dropping off a cliff, let's see if 2023 sees a rebound.
 
Last edited:

Crayon

Member
Well it just came out and it's the most interesting/high profile headset to come out for a long time now. Since the quest 2. Also, reviews have been universaly happy and the launch lineup is stong out of the gate. So neat to hear but should be expected. Will be more interesting to see next month after all the early adopters already ran out and got theirs.
 
How the hell is the Pico still being manufactured? That's the Sega Pico, right? It's been like three decades!

I know it's not the Sega Pico.
 
Last edited:

Three

Member
It didn't "have" to happen. It could have been a mega flop.
That's true but I was referring to the idea that they control 90% of the market or that their competitors collapsed. Competitors could have increased sales but still be lower in percentage for a given moment in time near PSVR2 launch.
 
These are weekly percentages, not marketshare.

Site marks it as marketshare.

That's true but I was referring to the idea that they control 90% of the market or that their competitors collapsed. Competitors could have increased sales but still be lower in percentage for a given moment in time near PSVR2 launch.

Issue with this theory is the Quest was already declining while Sonys market share was in the gutter. Then at the end somehow Pico came form the bottom and passed Quest and Elecom. Sure, Sony taking off would have some effect on their chart positions, but it looks like sales dropped for the other competition, and somehow Pico in the end came out of the rebound leading.

This tells me that numbers have to be pretty low to be that far down the chart. Then Pico, being at the bottom where Sony used to be at the start of the chart, somehow comes back past the other two, which also indicates sales collapsed, and Pico has better recovery from Quest and Elecom who were both leading and even at the start of the chart. Also, unlike part of the middle section, in the end Sony had a bitter slant down significantly than the gains the bottom 3 did.

That is why March is going to be important to see where Sony really ends up falling to and we see where the real trend line is.
 

A pointless projection based on two years ago.

A pointless projection up until 2029 from the source that said 2022 was going to have a big gain when it ended up down 20.9%

The third one has nothing to do with gaming, or companies involving gaming in some way in the content or adoption which may involve gaming indirectly.

The 4th one actually doesn't say what you imply, and in fact, after that exact sentence which you took out of context, it announces a bunch of sources that were "projecting" growth that all but one (neutral) were wrong on 2022. Much of these aren't even "news"

What did I miss again?
 
Last edited:

Crayon

Member
A pointless projection based on two years ago.

A pointless projection up until 2029 from the source that said 2022 was going to have a big gain when it ended up down 20.9%

The third one has nothing to do with gaming, or companies involving gaming in some way in the content or adoption which may involve gaming indirectly.

The 4th one actually doesn't say what you imply, and in fact, after that exact sentence which you took out of context, it announces a bunch of sources that were "projecting" growth that all but one (neutral) were wrong on 2022. Much of these aren't even "news"

What did I miss again?

Lighten up dude I just got everything off the top of the search. I wasn't exactly scraping the bottom of the barrel. In fact, I don't think we have anyone here who's going to go scouring the net for positive VR articles. But at least we have you!
 
In fact, I don't think we have anyone here who's going to go scouring the net for positive VR articles. But at least we have you!

I've posted quite a few of those but you and some other people seem to only see the ones that aren't for some reason.

I bet we're talking thousands of units here. Thousands!

I'm assuming Japans VR market is at least a couple hundred thousand, but yeah, we are likely dealing with thousands, maybe low tens of thousands.

Still, if PSVR2 can possibly help with VR growth in Japan that could only be good for VR in Japan, since it seems Elecom and Quest didn't really do much there overall for VR growth. The again, with mobile and Switch being kings there and non-gaming not having many apps over there, buying VR at the current costs to play games may be a tougher sell there than other places.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
I've posted quite a few of those but you and some other people seem to only see the ones that aren't for some reason.



I'm assuming Japans VR market is at least a couple hundred thousand, but yeah, we are likely dealing with thousands, maybe low tens of thousands.

Still, if PSVR2 can possibly help with VR growth in Japan that could only be good for VR in Japan, since it seems Elecom and Quest didn't really do much there overall for VR growth. The again, with mobile and Switch being kings there and non-gaming not having many apps over there, buying VR at the current costs to play games may be a tougher sell there than other places.
I hope it helps with VR growth in general. It's just funny how articles always use statistics to make things seem larger than they probably really are.
 
Last edited:

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Projections mean nothing.

When weed stocks were the rage 5 years ago, analysts were saying by 2025 it'll be a $250 billion industry. Ya, $250 billion at retail prices. I dont think all the weed companies combined even have $2.5 billion sales at wholesale prices (which is probably $5 billion at retail).

Who knows, maybe the industry will 50x itself in the next two years. lol
 
Last edited:
Projections mean nothing.

When weed stocks were the rage 5 years ago, analysts were saying by 2025 it'll be a $250 billion industry. Ya, $250 billion at retail prices. I dont think all the weed companies combined even have $2.5 billion sales at wholesale prices (which is probably $5 billion at retail).

Who knows, maybe the industry will 50x itself in the next two years. lol

Reading between the lines, it may be why some companies and analyst firms are reacting to Apple's headset, even though while confirmed in many different ways, has still yet to have been officially shown or announced. Yet there's like what, 7 headsets reacting via trying to beat them at their game, one of which is releasing in April to rush ahead of them, HTC is claiming they "aren't scared" after moving to XR because of the Apple stuff, and Meta and a few others are also moving toward the motion control direction because of them as well.

Maybe Apple might actually cause VR numerical headset growth. Except if that does happen, is it really growth if we just see consolidation again just with a new headset instead of the Quest 2? Sure if Apple in 5-6 years sells 50 million VR headsets (lol) hypothetically, that's technically growth, but if everyone else combined is less than 1 million or LESS in that same period, can one say the industry would be healthy?

Of course, there is Samsung, which what I fear may happen if both succeeded, is we just have the Android Duoploy in VR. Something I would rather not see.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Site marks it as marketshare.



Issue with this theory is the Quest was already declining while Sonys market share was in the gutter. Then at the end somehow Pico came form the bottom and passed Quest and Elecom. Sure, Sony taking off would have some effect on their chart positions, but it looks like sales dropped for the other competition, and somehow Pico in the end came out of the rebound leading.

This tells me that numbers have to be pretty low to be that far down the chart. Then Pico, being at the bottom where Sony used to be at the start of the chart, somehow comes back past the other two, which also indicates sales collapsed, and Pico has better recovery from Quest and Elecom who were both leading and even at the start of the chart. Also, unlike part of the middle section, in the end Sony had a bitter slant down significantly than the gains the bottom 3 did.

That is why March is going to be important to see where Sony really ends up falling to and we see where the real trend line is.
Eddie take some math classes, seriously. Even a blind man can see that isn't 'marketshare' as in share of install base.
As for the rest I really don't think you understand how percentages work.
 
Eddie take some math classes, seriously. Even a blind man can see that isn't 'marketshare'

Arguing against something the article says that I'm quoting doesn't make much sense.

As for the rest I really don't think you understand how percentages work.

It's almost like in what you quoted I didn't even mention percentages and you imagined it.

You seem to be having issue understanding lines at the bottom of the chart are lower than lines at the top of the chart.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Arguing against something the article says that I'm quoting doesn't make much sense.



It's almost like in what you quoted I didn't even mention percentages and you imagined it.

You seem to be having issue understanding lines at the bottom of the chart are lower than lines at the top of the chart.
It makes total sense to question the terminology if percentage of weekly sales makes complete sense and percentage of total market would require a set of completely insane circumstances so as to be almost completely impossible.
Also the graph is literally a graph of percentages.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
No you were trying to attack me, not elaborating on your disagreement/questioning the terminology.

You can find all additional info by clicking on the link. If you believe it or not is fine.
Because you have a tendency to read way too much in to data without using a critical eye. In this case just looking at the chart - if it was lifetime market share then for the PSVR2 to drop from 75% to 40% then the other headsets would have needed to sell - in one week - 2 or 3 times what they had sold for their entire lifetime up to that week, and that's if the PSVR2 also sold nothing that week.
The data doesn't make any sense as total lifetime marketshare but does as a share of weekly sales.
 
Because you have a tendency to read way too much in to data without using a critical eye. In this case just looking at the chart - if it was lifetime market share

I never said anything about lifetime marketshare. You're adding additional things to the conversation. Did you look carefully at the post you originally quoted?
 
IDCVR.jpg



This gives us a better picture of Japan VR in 2022 specifically. Looks like VR was in freefall and near death by the end of the year. Whats crazy about this is how Q4 did nothing, not even a boost with being a key buying season and domestic sales on VR. While it seems the first chart shows PSVR2 helping with that some for 2023, it does put into question just how much it's adding. Is it enough to stabilize or do better than Q4 2022?

In 2022 we saw ~130,000 VR units sold domestically drop to ~18,000 in one year.


In the flip side in Japan AR is growing, with only 14,000 or so sold, but growing from 8,000 in Q1,

getfile.dyn


So in Japan VR dropped ~86% from the start of 2022 till the end of the year.

For AR, it rose 75% from Q1 to the end of the year 2022.

At this pace outside a chance, AR will pass VR in Japan in Q1 or Q2 this year unless Sony PSVR2 and other headsets are able to attract positive unit growth. The only country (so far) that has them this close and VR and AR dropping and rising at such heavy percentage rates. VR adoption was dropping off a cliff, let's see if 2023 sees a rebound.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
IDCVR.jpg



This gives us a better picture of Japan VR in 2022 specifically. Looks like VR was in freefall and near death by the end of the year. Whats crazy about this is how Q4 did nothing, not even a boost with being a key buying season and domestic sales on VR. While it seems the first chart shows PSVR2 helping with that some for 2023, it does put into question just how much it's adding. Is it enough to stabilize or do better than Q4 2022?

In 2022 we saw ~130,000 VR units sold domestically drop to ~18,000 in one year.


In the flip side in Japan AR is growing, with only 14,000 or so sold, but growing from 8,000 in Q1,

getfile.dyn


So in Japan VR dropped ~86% from the start of 2022 till the end of the year.

For AR, it rose 75% from Q1 to the end of the year 2022.

At this pace outside a chance, AR will pass VR in Japan in Q1 or Q2 this year unless Sony PSVR2 and other headsets are able to attract positive unit growth. The only country (so far) that has them this close and VR and AR dropping and rising at such heavy percentage rates. VR adoption was dropping off a cliff, let's see if 2023 sees a rebound.

When did the price of the MetaQuest 2 increase in Japan?
 
When did the price of the MetaQuest 2 increase in Japan?

Quest was behind Elecom. I see nothing to indicate Elecom headsets increased in price from what I can find. Also in Q4 Quest would have been on sale anyway, which as you can see did nothing, along with the other headsets. Q4 had continued deep decline.

Of course, the price rise is probably why those bumps back up didn't last long outside holiday season which is what happened at the start of the first chart in the OP. But Elecom was ahead anyway, they released two new well reviewed and anticipated headsets later in 2022 one a standalone, and one that works with smartphone probably the only high-profile mobileVR maker worldwide left, and both of them helped Elecom gain ground.

gyo_vrgoggles01.jpg

gyo_vrgoggles02.jpg


PSVR2 so far is doing better than that, and Elecom dropped but the question is based on this data how much help did the PSVR2 give. I guess we'll see in April when march results come out since that will be end of Q1 to see if we see growth or stabilization instead of another decline.
 
Last edited:

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Quest was behind Elecom. I see nothing to indicate Elecom headsets increased in price from what I can find. Also in Q4 Quest would have been on sale anyway, which as you can see did nothing, along with the other headsets. Q4 had continued deep decline.

Of course, the price rise is probably why those bumps back up didn't last long outside holiday season which is what happened at the start of the first chart in the OP. But Elecom was ahead anyway, they released two new well reviewed and anticipated headsets later in 2022 one a standalone, and one that works with smartphone probably the only high-profile mobileVR maker worldwide left, and both of them helped Elecom gain ground.

gyo_vrgoggles01.jpg

gyo_vrgoggles02.jpg


PSVR2 so far is doing better than that, and Elecom dropped but the question is based on this data how much help did the PSVR2 give. I guess we'll see in April when march results come out since that will be end of Q1 to see if we see growth or stabilization instead of another decline.


Weird. I wonder why Quest is behind Elecom? And not just let it be the MetaQuest.
 
They shouldn't though, which is my point. Apple would NEVER do this with their iPod or iPhone.

What do you mean Apple would "never" do this? Meta didn't choose to be passed by Elecom. They had two products that japan consumers found more appealing. They may have also been well priced, I'm assuming the 2nd model that wasn't standalone and used a phone was pretty cheap.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
What do you mean Apple would "never" do this? Meta didn't choose to be passed by Elecom. They had two products that japan consumers found more appealing. They may have also been well priced, I'm assuming the 2nd model that wasn't standalone and used a phone was pretty cheap.

Oh my bad. I thought you were saying Meta bought out Elecom and were putting their tech into their headset, but let them keep the name. Confusion was on my side.
 
Oh my bad. I thought you were saying Meta bought out Elecom and were putting their tech into their headset, but let them keep the name. Confusion was on my side.

Oh, you though when I said Quest was behind Elecom you forgot it was a sales discussion so you thought I meant "behind" as in the mastermind in the back.

Yeah, Elecom was a different company entirely, and in Japan Quest couldn't quite shake them off like they did most elsewhere worldwide. Quest 2 actually had competition.
 
Top Bottom