The holiday season seems to have given virtual reality a reality check

Virtual reality makes for an amazing demo. But good demos don't equal good purchases. With largely high prices and no real killer app, it's still hard to consider VR more than a fun, somewhat excessive tool for a smattering of games and experiences.

And as this chart from Statista shows, it doesn't look like Thanksgiving weekend boosted VR's momentum. According to video game market research firm SuperData, shipments for VR headsets in 2016 are now estimated to be lower than the already meager forecasts they had before the biggest shopping weekend of the year. It's clearly still early days.

Sony's PlayStation VR has gotten the biggest downgrade, thanks to what SuperData characterizes as modest marketing and supply inconsistencies. That said, those original forecasts seem optimistic - a Sony exec predicted sales in the "hundreds of thousands" around the headset's launch - and Sony is still said to be well ahead of other higher-end headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.