It seems Valve is far from concerned about rumors of an underwhelming Virtual Reality headset market. In a recent interview with the head of the game studio, Gabe Newell said his company was still “optimistic” in regards to VR’s present state of affairs, and that it’s “going in a way that’s consistent with our expectations.” He also added that Valve was “pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure.”
VR Tech sales have come under scrutiny due, in part, to lack of information. Neither Valve nor Oculus’ respective marketplaces have produced sales data, leaving speculation to run rampant. To further fuel the fire, leaked figures from late last year suggest only 140,000 HTC Vive headsets had been sold, below market expectations for what is supposed to be the next “big thing.”
Valve is probably maneuvering itself into a comfortable, mostly neutral position in regards to the drama, considering that the company has invested little in the VR technologies hardware itself (the closest they have to a headset is a partnership with the HTC Vive line in the Steam Store) and Steam serves mostly as a software marketplace for whatever is selling, thus they can do well regardless of VR’s success by simply selling software products from whichever field ends up being the most successful.Source: BBC, Polygon
