YouGov: VR adoption grows to 11% of US adults 

US adoption of virtual reality has increased after a period of stagnation, with 11% of adults claiming to own VR hardware or software as of November 2018.

This is according to YouGov research, which found that VR ownership hadn’t surpassed 7% of the US general public until now. It previously pegged adoption rates of roughly 7% in August 2017.

In November 2018, 34% of US adults said they knew a bit about VR and some of the companies developing relevant games and applications – up from 31% in August 2017.

However, 55% of US adults said they think VR products are too expensive, the same percentage of consumers that expressed the same barrier to buying in August 2017.

Other concerns cited as obstacles to VR adoption were: that it can lead to isolation, which 22% of consumers agreed with in November 2018; that there aren’t enough interesting games (19%); and fear of health issues, such as motion sickness, fatigue, and nausea (19%).

YouGov attributed the uptick in VR adoption to sales of the Oculus Rift and Sony’s PlayStation VR, which had sold three million units and nearly 22 million games worldwide as of August 2018.

The news comes in the same week that Facebook-owned Oculus announced the new Oculus Rift S, which is due to launch in spring. Its new standalone device, the Oculus Quest, is also due in spring.