Superdata research suggests significant early adoption of VR headsets in the coming year

Virtual Reality will reach 11m users by 2016

A new report estimates that 10.8m people will own a virtual reality headset by next year.

The statistic comes from Superdata, which estimates that 46 per cent of these VR device purchases will be for PC, while console and mobile will be relatively evenly split at 28 and 26 per cent respectively.

1.3m headsets were sold in 2014 alone.

"There are currently over 200 developers working on virtual reality projects and 15 different virtual reality HMDs [head-mounted devices] at different stages of completion," the company writes. "A wave of PC devices will launch in mid 2015, while the first console device will launch in mid-to-late 2016."

The console device is, of course, PlayStation’s Project Morpheus. Sony is expected to detail plans for this product at GDC next month.

Superdata also reports that $2.6bn was invested in VR and augmented reality firms and projects in 2014. In addition to Facebook’s acquisition of pioneers Oculus VR, 18 virtual reality companies received a combined $590 in investments.

Games make up 76 per cent of all virtual reality content, although children’s entertainment and full-length video content is drawing interest.

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