No one could buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X this Christmas, so they bought Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets.

It has been a very, very strange Christmas season for many consumers, given the global shortages that have affected a ton of products, but especially video game consoles. It’s been over a year since the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, but consoles remain just as hard to find now as they were right after launch, if not even more so as shortages have worsened. in many ways.

An interesting side effect seems to have occurred as a result of this this year. Since so few people could actually find PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles to bring their friends or family, we’ve seen a rise in a different kind of hardware. VR headsets. Specifically, the Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets, which have seen the popularity of the Oculus app skyrocket to # 1 in the App Store, and have generated huge player base spikes for VR developers.

The developers are practically beyond themselves to say how ridiculous these Christmas pushes were for their games. They have never seen anything like it:

Are people just… really suddenly drawn to virtual reality? I guess that’s an explanation, but I think it’s a confluence of factors, and not just one thing.

• I think console shortages play a big part in this. Even if your kid wanted a PS5, it’s still super fun to ask them to open a VR headset and play with it on Christmas morning. It does not produce sad recipients.
• All of the Metaverse hype may have done some marketing work here. If you hear that this technology is far enough into the future, you might be thinking it’s time to pull the trigger and invest in it, even if the reality is still far from those lofty dreams.
• Finally, at this point, the price and ease of use of VR, especially the Quest 2, which is relatively inexpensive (the price of a Nintendo Switch) and doesn’t require you to be connected to a PC. powerful gaming device to run (or use any wires), is the most user-friendly iteration of the tech we’ve seen so far.

A constant question has been whether there will ever be a ‘moment’ for VR, a singular turning point where it has moved from niche adoption to mainstream adoption. I’m not convinced that such a clear moment is coming, or that a game can deliver it (if Half-Life Alyx didn’t, I don’t know what would). But this is one of the most important moments I’ve seen for VR probably since its inception, and part of a slow and steady increase in mass adoption. It seems likely that we are still decades away from crushing The use of virtual reality, and it will continue to evolve in terms of technical capabilities, price and portability, but it’s a big step. Even if it was helped by its simply inaccessible material competition.

I’m curious what the longer term usage rates for the Oculus Quest will be after Christmas here. One of my main issues with VR is that it’s a lot of fun and exciting to use when you first get it, but it can quickly end up on a shelf when potential gamers return to more traditional games. on consoles, PC or mobile. It’s too early to tell for these Christmas adoptees, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a downturn over the next week, even if the holiday wave is good news for the scene overall.

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