Sony Won Round 1 of the VR Wars
The data is out. See for yourself. Also — I told you so (mostly)!
Check out today’s [a]listdaily: http://www.alistdaily.com/digital/mobile-games-earned-much-revenue-box-office-last-year/
Sony sold nearly 1M headsets. That’s more than Oculus and Vive combined.
And here: https://medium.com/@avigandhi/psvr-is-not-a-failure-read-between-the-lines-ea787660bad3#.qb4vhr1wn
Samsung has moved 4.5M Gear VR headsets — so I was wrong, Gear has moved more units. BUT it had a year and a half on PSVR, which sold a million units in just three months. Also, come on, anyone that has played both mobile and high-end knows they just aren’t even close to competitive. BUT you can still rub this one in my face if you want.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad for me, since they seem to be getting every other prediction wrong in VR, but SuperData is as bullish as I am on Daydream.
“2017 will be the year of Daydream,” Stephanie Llamas, VP of research and strategy at SuperData told [a]listdaily. “Samsung gained a healthy market share with its first-mover advantage, but as people upgrade their phones this year, many will be VR-compatible whether that’s what they are looking for or not. Google invested heavily in content from trusted studios and IP, and they’ve carefully planned this release so as to coincide with these new phones. Given recent Samsung phone malfunctions and the lack of universal compatibility for the Gear VR, Google is also benefiting from better PR and awareness.”
I believe I made this prediction last month…right? Right: https://medium.com/@avigandhi/why-googles-daydream-will-bring-vr-to-the-mass-market-dd0f44bf6a6c#.50rqb26dc
Also very interesting that VR seems to be consumed in 10 minute bites. I haven’t written about this, but I have discussed in many meetings how I think VR is going to start out short-form, because that’s how people adopt digital media en masse — then they increase watch time as they get used to various mediums (see YouTube’s transition from 30 second cat videos to 3 minute skits to 45 minute Let’s Plays).
Enough gloating for today. Back to work.
