Valve Index is over five years old, yet is still sold at $1000 for the full kit. That it’s still the third most used headset on Steam despite its low resolution compared to modern headsets is remarkable. This level of retention is a testament to both the quality of the hardware and to Valve’s brand loyalty.
Oculus Rift S launched within a month of Index back in mid-2019 at less than half the price and had significantly higher usage on SteamVR for the first few years. But by late 2021 Index had surpassed it and today has around double the usage. Many Rift S owners likely upgraded to Quest 2 or Quest 3, while some others may have stopped using VR altogether.
Index owners on the other hand mostly held out, with many likely waiting for a new headset from Valve or a spiritual successor from another company that supports their SteamVR base stations. Absent either though, some appear to now be finally upgrading – to Meta’s Quest 3.
Index usage peaked at around 21% of SteamVR users just before Quest 3 launched, yet is now used by around 15%. In that same time the overall percentage of Steam users with a VR headset only slightly increased, yet Quest 3 has jumped to 17%. It’s clear that many of these Quest 3 users are upgrading, not new PC VR users, and Index is one of the headsets they’re upgrading from.
For half the price, Quest 3 offers sharper pancake lenses, twice the number of pixels, and built-in Wi-Fi 6E and upper-body tracking. Index has much higher quality built-in audio thanks to its off-ear BMRs, but for some owners this won’t make up for its outdated lenses and displays.
Some will have also upgraded to Bigscreen Beyond, though far fewer, given Beyond was only used by 0.36% of SteamVR users in August.
Valve has directly confirmed on multiple occasions throughout the years that it’s working on a new headset, but hasn’t yet formally announced or teased a specific product. With Index’s five-year anniversary arriving in less than two months many owners will be hoping to see a tease, at the very least, of what’s next. But will they get one, or with Steam Link is Valve now happy to cede the hardware side of VR to Meta and its Horizon OS partners?
