New data suggests that 1.3m VR headsets were connected on Steam during December.

That's according to Road to VR, which has used its own model using headset counts from Steam's hardware surveys. The media outlet reckons there were 1,342,000 VR headsets connected during December, beating the previous record of 1,218,000 that was reached just months earlier in September.

Connected headsets rose 75 per cent on December 2018, too.

As noted by Road to VR, this doesn't measure the number of active VR headsets, just the number of headsets that are connected to a PC when the user takes part in the Steam hardware survey. The firm reckons that there will be 2.75m VR headsets connected by the end of 2020.

No doubt this will be driven by Valve's Half-Life: Alyx, a VR exclusive title that has led to the company's own Index headset selling out around the world following that game's reveal in November.

At the end of January, the hardware was only available to buy in Japan. Research firm SuperData reckons that 149,000 Index headsets were sold during 2019.

It's not just Index VR that will have caused the surge in connected headsets; Oculus' hardware was featured in Black Friday and Christmas sales, which no doubt contributed to the rise.