Beat Saber's 2019 sales numbers showcase huge growth for VR

Every year, Steam releases the best sellers on its ubiquitous digital PC-only store, but one entry might surprise you. Beat Saber has become synonymous with VR and marks the first VR-only game to ever grace the Steam best-sellers list for an entire year. Beat Saber sits squarely in the "bronze" category alongside heavy-hitters like Far Cry New Dawn, Mortal Kombat 11, Gears 5, and even Cyberpunk 2077. Another notable VR-supported title in this category is No Man's Sky, which added VR support in its big August 2019 update.

While we don't have the exact number of copies of Beat Saber that were sold in 2019, there's a few extremely important things to note here. First off, Beat Saber can only be played on a VR headset. That cuts out a huge percentage of the Steam user base, to say the least. Second, this isn't the year Beat Saber was released. That honor goes to 2018 when the Early Release of the game launched in April, with version 1.0 debuting in November on several platforms. A $10 price hike even took place after the game released at version 1.0, meaning everyone who bought the game in 2019 paid 50% more than those who purchased it a year earlier.

Developer Beat Games has been unmatched in adding updates to the game over the past year though, including plenty of extra DLC that's both paid and free. New game modes have kept people coming back, too, like the new 360-degree and 90-degree levels. Beat Saber has also inspired plenty of developers to create their own amazing music rhythm games that are well worth checking out, too.

Oculus buys Beat Saber developer Beat Games

Thirdly, this isn't the only platform Beat Saber is sold on. Steam makes up a sizable portion of VR users on the PC, but the Oculus Store is likely just as large as Steam when considering VR sales exclusively. Oculus headsets make up half of the VR headsets used on the SteamVR platform alone, according to Valve's own numbers, and that number has grown every month since the Oculus Rift S released. To complicate things, Beat Saber can be found on both the PlayStation VR and Oculus Quest platforms, meaning Beat Saber's sales are likely even more impressive than these Steam numbers alone tell us.

With VR headsets selling out like never before, it's clear that VR is finally making its way out of the niche phase and becoming a more mainstream gaming platform. With Half-Life: Alyx around the corner and plenty of big-name VR content expected in 2020, it's entirely possible that more than one VR-only title will make that top 100 list at the end of next year.