In an interview with Glixel, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has claimed that HTC’s VR headset is outselling its Facebook-backed rival two-to-one.
Sweeney, whose company provides the software engine used by countless major games development studios, says that “HTC Vive is outselling Oculus 2-to-1 worldwide” and that that trend is set to continue.
He praised the Vive’s open approach to the market, saying “they’re going to have a much better selection of software” and that “any software that requires human communication is completely dysfunctional if it’s locked to a platform. And everything in VR and AR will be socially centric. Communicating with other people is an integral part of the experience.”
In comparison, Sweeney was heavily critical of Oculus’ strategy, calling it alienating and saying it “sends the wrong message to developers.”
In fact, he says “Oculus would do best if they tried to bring users into their store by supporting HTC Vive and Oculus Rift and any other PC hardware that comes out. I think if they don’t do that, they’re going to pretty quickly fail.”
Ultimately, Sweeney says he expects “the market will grow by a factor of two or three or four, every year, until it goes from this current 500,000 to 200 million.”
While both HTC and Oculus haven’t gone public with their sales numbers, previous estimates have pegged the Vive at between 140,000 and 500,000 units shipped as of the end of 2016.
