Even the Top Virtual Reality Blogs Are Still Relatively Niche

HyperGrid Business has a really useful list of top virtual reality-focused blogs, with the Road to VR looking to be the largest by far, as it has about 640K monthly visits, according to SimilarWeb. That's quite decent, but based on typical web traffic patterns, that probably translates to around 70-100,000 monthly unique visitors -- i.e., in all likelihood, the early adopters who already own a VR rig of some kind. (Oculus Rift has sold just over 175,000 kits.) Those numbers may very well grow very quickly in the next few years, but in opposition to predictions we keep hearing that VR will soon be used by hundreds of millions, it's important to keep the hard (and still fairly niche) numbers in mind.

After all, as anyone in VR will tell you, the first main market for virtual reality will be hardcore gamers. But a top hardcore gaming like Kotaku doesn't get hundreds of thousands of monthly visits -- it gets nearly 19 million.

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[Todd]

Also a good thing to keep in mind is this is for a platform that commercially speaking does not exist yet (the only ones out there are dev kits and cardboard and there is no retail "game" available either). This is year zero for VR. The fact that these obscure and relatively new blogs are pulling in this kind of traffic, even though there is no product and no titles to play on it, I find impressive.

But I will agree, the most popular cross platform, all inclusive Gaming site is totally kicking their butt for visitors :D

[Observations]

VR Headset = toy for geeks
VR Headset = niche
VR Headset = Viewmaster of this generation

In many many years from now Hamlet when you are all grey and wrinkled there might exist cool sunglasses named Ispecs (Apple spectacles) that are used by the masses.

That time will be 15 years from now. At the moment people with VR headsets look like complete dorks and there is no way this will become a product for the masses, even when porn looks fantastic.

The resolution is still not good, they are clunky, they look stupid, who on earth wants to sit there for hours wearing that. If and there is a big IF here, if it gets traction in the future it will certainly take a long time. This is also the reason for the venture capital firms to hold back from investing more.

Look at 3D printing, everybody would have 3D printer in their house they said a couple of years back. Ow where is it ?

VR headsets are the garage project of a kid, it is not the invention of the light bulb.

By the time Linden Lab figures this out, well you know ............

[Estelle Pienaar]

@Observations: Well you might be right ans I wouldn't bet my money on VR headsets being a success. However your argumentation would have perfectly fit for TV sets 70 years ago, wouldn't it? They are clumbsy, they take up so much space in the living room. Who the hell would put such an ugly thing in their house? Well, that's a good argument until you switch these thimgs on and try them out...

[Cyberserenity]

Got one and it is the coolest thing ever.