“Sony is strongly positioned to lead following early competitive exchanges in the high-end virtual reality headset market.”
New research from IHS forecasts that Sony Computer Entertainment will exit 2016 with a lead in the $1.1bn high-end virtual reality headset market, outselling both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as the company leverages it active installed base of PS4 consoles to good effect.
Sony's positioning strength comes from a number of areas:
- Sony's expertise in new product launches and product marketing position it strongly for the PlayStation VR launch
- Pricing advantage: PlayStation VR is expected to be priced more cheaply than both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive
- World PS4 addressable market for PlayStation VR in the first half of 2016 will reach 37m consoles, over twice the number of high-specced PCs capable of driving Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets
- Sony's internal studio capability allows it to drive adoption through first-party content
IHS expects PlayStation VR to sell through to consumers almost 1.5 million headsets as the industry comes to terms with producing large volumes of the latest VR headset technology. These sales are expected to generate over $500 million in consumer spending and could contribute around $300m in revenues to Sony during the year.
“Overall we expect a slow ramp up of adoption and consumption of VR content,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, analyst at IHS. “While the market is more advanced than ever, there are still a number of hurdles that need to be overcome before we see broader consumer adoption.”
Overall, IHS predicts VR technology and content to make its mark, but that adoption will be centred on a niche audience of gamers and early adopting VR evangelists until the technology and content more fully evolves over the next five years. IHS forecasts that across all platforms - console, PC and smartphone - the installed base of VR headsets will grow to 38 million by the end of 2020.
