The reality of Virtual Reality .
The Virtual reality space has exploded in the past 24 months and has slowed down in the last 6 months.
In an ideal case the amount of investment must follow the increase in usage or adoption by consumers. Unfortunately that has not been the case as you can see with the below graphs.
So what is happening ? and why does VR matter.
Predicting the future is a generally something I leave to all the pundits so I can focus on building it while enjoying the challenges of the present. This time though; its very close to what we do and its important for us TeliportMe to realize and put into perspective what we think about VR and how we think we can contribute best in this ecosystem.
Is all the Hype around VR necessary ?
The short answer is — Yes; generally when a single technology experience has a wow factor even if its not “consumer ready” its the right thing to invest in more product and technology development. Look at the first versions of todays most famous technology devices.
Now for smartphones this is how 8 years looked like for Apple which was the biggest winner in this space.
A similar graph could be created with the PC and Microsoft. This means that owning a certain obvious technology space has unprecedented ROI for the companies that can do so. I don’t think we have to look further for a reason why spending a couple billion dollars would benefit companies 1000X in returns. This investment pushes innovation in all kinds of sensor, screens, hardware technology which creates new markets and products.
So what does this mean for consumers ? or smaller companies ?
- This means that if and when cost of new experience << experience + ease of use there will be mass adoption.; cost of new experience = cost of device + cost of content
2) Till then there will be a lot of experimentation around type of content; models of delivery; publishing tools and technologies around cross platform VR content.
3) This phase as the high end Nokia phase of the smartphone; the killer models are not yet there; nor is snake or free messaging. The startups that survive, learn and improve are the ones that will succeed in the space; they might still not be the Apple or MS because I think that will be dominated by the older players (Unity is the only company that could do this !) but they can be the FB, Whatsapp, AngryBirds etc.
4) There is a possibility of a VR studio that will kick it out of the park; if they can capitalize on distribution and original content production.
5) Quality is gonna be key; just like games or theatre — there is an immersive experience here that people want so its gonna weed out “growth hacks” or programmatic ads. FB and Google are gonna have a tough time monetizing this new medium in the traditional sense and hence are going for the Appstore + device biz model ala Apple.
6) Cardboard is gonna die a slow painful death; sensor based Mobile devices are going to dominate.
Its important to keep calm and focused on the battle to be fought today so you can participate in the war tomorrow.