Valve Index sales doubled in anticipation of Half-Life: Alyx

[HEXUS]

Saw 103,000 sales from Q3 to Q4 2019, bringing total sales to 149,000, according to SuperData.

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[excalibur1814]

...and eBay will soon find itself with a whole load of new listings.

[Output]

...and eBay will soon find itself with a whole load of new listings.

And the sellers will find themselves making a loss rather than the profit they hoped for because not as many people are interested in VR as they thought?

It wouldn't surprise me if this demand wasn't natural, but rather speculators buying them up in expectation of profit from high demand.

I just can't see VR as being anything but niche, and can't see Half Life: Alyx as being enough in reality to convince so many people into the ecosystem. Maybe that is just my own lack of interest in going the VR route colouring my perception, but I just see it as similar to the 3D TV attempts, in that it's just a matter of time before manufacturers and content creators stop bothering again.

[DanceswithUnix]

It wouldn't surprise me if this demand wasn't natural, but rather speculators buying them up in expectation of profit from high demand.

It could be natural though. Those of us that played Half Life back in the day are getting on a bit now. Kids have grown up, starting to get a bit of cash again, why not splash out on a VR headset?

Christmas break is an obvious time to take the plunge too. I already had a headset, but did spend some VR money putting a PC in the living room so I can play stand-up games. Still need a new GPU in that rig, but more important family expenses first else an RX 570 would be winging its way already.

That is a big change I noticed since getting my headset. At the time you really needed an expensive i5 and a £300 1060 graphics card to use a VR rig. These days a cheap Ryzen 2600 is overkill, and an 8GB RX 570 can be had for £130. That makes the £400 headset the expensive bit.

I suspect the blocking problem for VR soon will be lack of space for people to jump around in without punching TVs, vases etc. There is a wall I need to pad where I use mine

[Output]

It could be natural though. Those of us that played Half Life back in the day are getting on a bit now. Kids have grown up, starting to get a bit of cash again, why not splash out on a VR headset?

...

You make some fair points.

As I said, it could be my own lack of interest in going that route myself that's colouring my perception.