Wishes are not fishes, though, and interest in HTC Vive apparently is surging, as VR developers reveal they prefer it to Oculus Rift. At least, so says Richard Scott-Jones at PCGamesN:
Game developers making VR titles are showing a preference for Valve and HTC’s Vive headset over the Oculus Rift, according to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 survey. On every category - games in development, future platform of choice, general interest and platform exclusives - the Vive was in the lead. This is especially significant since the Vive was behind the Oculus in some categories as recently as last year.
Among the survey respondents who are making VR games, “24 percent are currently making games on HTC and Valve’s Vive headset, 23 percent are supporting Oculus Rift, and 13 percent are supporting Sony’s PlayStation VR,” according to the findings. Though that’s a scant lead for the Vive, it's a huge surge compared to last year, when it was on just six percent (the same as the PlayStation VR) to Oculus Rift's 19 percent.
Looking to the future, when devs were asked which platform they would use for the game after their next, 40 percent said the Vive, 37 the Oculus Rift, and 26 the PlayStation VR, in another clear sign that more devs are interested in developing for PC than console when it comes to VR.An explanation for this apparent trend is not given, but it's not unreasonable to think that Oculus' "walled garden" approach to a VR market that basically doesn't even exist yet may be turning developers off the Rift as a platform; HTC and Valve have pursued a much more open approach to development on the Vive, and with the most popular PC games marketplace, Steam, available for the distribution of Vive games, Oculus' attempt at exclusivity may just end up squeezing them out of the VR market before that market has even formed.
At least, that's how Epic Games' Tim Sweeney sees it; from digitaltrends.com:
Epic games co-founder and Unreal Engine creator Tim Sweeney recently said in an interview that the HTC Vive virtual reality headset is outselling the Oculus Rift by 2-to-1 worldwide. Why? Because Oculus VR is following Apple’s software distribution model that many describe as a walled garden, which means the company’s device supports software sold through a proprietary store by default. By contrast, HTC doesn’t use that method for the Vive, providing a completely open platform where owners can purchase games and experiences from many different online markets.
“When you install the Oculus drivers, by default you can only use the Oculus store,” he said. “You have to rummage through the menu and turn that off if you want to run Steam. Which everybody does. It’s just alienating and sends the wrong message to developers.”The fact that PCGamesN's survey showed developers to be more interested in HTC Vive than they are in PSVR, in spite of PSVR initial sales success, would seem to support this theory; PSVR is also a walled garden, and a console to boot, and the Vive's open approach and PC platform position (Steam's 125+ million users is still far more than PS4's 50+ million) seem to be outweighing even PSVR's larger installed user base when it comes to generating developers' interest in the platform. With Oculus having both slower sales and a walled garden, Vive may have too many advantages for Oculus to overcome, even before any impact is felt from the huge spectacle of their court battle with Zenimax.
Added to that, VR generally is still struggling to convince consumers to invest, and cheaper PCVR headsets are coming to compete with both the Rift and the Vive. Facebook's deep pockets notwithstanding, Oculus may be in trouble, here.