Meta Quest 3 makes debut in latest Steam Hardware Survey

The Meta Quest 3 made its first appearance in the Steam Hardware Survey, but user figures could be misleading.

The Steam Hardware and Software survey is offered at monthly intervals to a randomized set of Steam users. Those who accept will have their PC specifications and a list of peripherals uploaded to Valve, which collates the data. This information includes anyone who uses SteamVR and can specify which headset they are using.

Figures released for the survey show that the Meta Quest 3 was only used by 0.15% of Steam VR users, with the majority of users sticking with the Quest 2 as 39.69% of SteamVR respondents were reported as Quest 2 users, with the Meta Quest Pro only snagging 0.35% of users.

App Reports Quest 3 users incorrectly

There are some problems with the accuracy of the figures, however. Firstly, the Meta Quest 3 was only released on October 10, so it did not have a full month to contribute to the survey. A bigger problem, however, lies in a piece of software that allows the Quest 3 to act as a PC VR headset.

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Quest uses a built-in software feature called Link, which allows the Quest 2 – and now the Quest 3 – to act as wireless PC VR headsets and hook up to SteamVR. Unfortunately, this software has stability problems and is lacking in features compared to a third-party alternative called Virtual Desktop.

According to UploadVR the developer of Virtual Desktop, Guy Godin says that the current version of the app will report a Quest 3 as if it were a Quest 2. There is an updated version of the app that correctly reports a Quest 3, but since that version is currently only in Beta, not many users are running it.

Therefore, the figures for Quest 3 users on the Steam Hardware Survey will only cover those using the built-in Link app, counting those who use Virtual Desktop only as Quest 2 users.