The most recent Steam Hardware Survey (August)shows that Oculus Rift is closing the sales lead currently enjoyed by HTC Vive. The data shows Vive on 52.31% with Rift on 43.81%. The margin is smaller than the popular perception that Rift trails Vive by up to a factor of two, with just 8.5% between them.

Other Factors

If you factor in the additional 3.8% for Oculus DK2, that places Rift on a combined total of 47.61% - bringing the gap down to just 4.7%. Additionally, there may be an unknown number of Rift users who exclusively purchase through the Oculus store that won't show up in the Steam data.

Prices Down, Sales Up

Clearly enjoying increased user adoption following the price drop to £399 as part of the Summer of Rift promotional campaign, the promotion was in place for the whole of this period. By comparison, HTC’s price drop for the Vive to £599 only came into effect with one week remaining in the calendar month. 

While Vive is still in the lead in what is essentially a two-horse VR race for now, it will be interesting to see the effect of Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality headsets on market share when they’re released later this year.