VR & AR & MR & XR & WhateverR: Key Events Happened in 2018
On the first day of 2019, I’d like to wrap up every key thing happened in 2018 for VR, AR, MR, and XR (from here, I’ll shorten it as “Immersive Technology”) industry since I only saw these four articles talking about it: “2018 In Review: The Year Standalones Took VR And AR Everywhere” from UploadVR, “VR & AR 2018: A Year In Review” from VRScout, “Immersive Entertainment Became A Little More Real In 2018’s Year Of Recovery” from Forbes, and “The Verge 2018 tech report card: AR and VR” from The Verge. As an Immersive Technology evangelist, I think I have the responsibility to do so, and this could be a good retrospect for the future. (Please share with me if you see any other good articles. I can read both English and Mandarin, and I also have you-know-who who can help me with any translation if necessary.)
We definitely learned a lot from 2018. It’s definitely a good year for all of us. A lot of disappointment for sure, but we learned a lot from it as well. We know what works and what doesn’t. We know VR market is not growing as fast as a lot of people want. We know that it’s not a good idea to mention “VR” in your pitch deck anymore. We know that VR headsets are still too expensive for 99.99999% of people around the world. We know that there are still a lot of iPhone/iPad users don’t even know they can do AR on their device. But we learned that big enterprises like Walmart are putting millions of dollars into VR for virtual training simulation purpose. We learned that Facebook and Oculus partnered with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) to create and deploy medical VR simulations that replicate pediatric emergencies difficult to train and prepare for in real life, and now they are expanding it to train more doctors. We learned that automobile manufacturers like Toyota are using AR (Microsoft Hololens) to build cars 4X faster. We learned that the US Army was willing to put $480 million into AR (Microsoft Hololens) for use on combat missions and in training. And we learned that mobile phone giant Samsung had to put $40 million into the Pokémon Go creator Niantic for the exclusive “Harry Potter AR” game deal, so it could potentially get more consumers to buy Galaxy devices.
So for the conclusion, the lesson we learned this year about Immersive Technology is that, VR can be really beneficial for B2B, especially for virtual training simulations like medical, military, and industrial training. We will definitely get more and more consumers when the price of VR headsets drop to the point that they are more affordable, especially for gaming and adult film industry. On the other hand, everyone agrees that AR is closer to B2C model, since there are billions of smartphones out there. But we still don’t know what the world with AR would look like since we human beings haven’t done enough researches/experiments/development with AR.
And the following is every key event happened in 2018 for XR industry:
(These are not in time order. Just the most important key things happened in 2018.)
- Directed by Steven Spielberg, “ Ready Player One” movie shows the ultimate future of VR.
(史蒂芬史匹柏的電影大作「一級玩家」告訴我們VR最終的未來可能會長這樣)
- Magic Leap released their first AR glasses “Magic Leap One”.
(Magic Leap發售第一款 AR眼鏡「Magic Leap One」) - Magic Leap offered grants of up to $500,000 to AR devs. There were over 6,000 applications in this first wave.
(Magic Leap開放讓開發者申請$1萬～$50萬美金的開發金，總共有超過6000份申請) - Oculus released untethered all-in-one 3DoF (Degree-of-Freedom) “Oculus GO” for $199 USD. You can also see Oculus Go promoters in Best Buy and other consumer electronics retail stores who are teaching general public what VR is and what are the good use cases of it.
(Oculus發售$199美金的無線一體機Oculus Go，並在全美各3C商店設點有專人為顧客介紹VR) - Oculus announced at Oculus Connect 5 that they will release the first ever all-in-one untethered 6DoF VR headset “Oculus Quest” plus 6DoF controllers in Spring 2019 for $399 USD.
(Oculus在OC5宣布2019春天即將發售全世界第一款無線VR頭盔「Oculus Quest」加兩隻6DoF無線控制器，定價: $399美金)
- Facebook confirmed it’s building AR glasses.
(Facebook目前也在開發AR眼鏡。) - Former Oculus CEO/Co-Founder Brendan Iribe left Facebook Oculus.
(前Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe離職，目前由Facebook的VR部門總監 Hugo Barra管理。） - HTC released “HTC Vive Pro” for $799 USD. Vive Pro is 78% higher resolution than the original Vive (now $499USD).
( HTC 開始發售$799美金的「HTC Vive Pro」，Vive Pro的解析度比原先的Vive高出了78%，目前舊型Vive降價為$399美金) - Not only Steam supports all kinds of different VR system, HTC’s content distribution platform Viveport now also added Oculus Rift support to double the potential user base for Viveport devs.
(不只Steam能支援多VR平台，HTC的Viveport也開放給Oculus用戶使用) - Valve promotes their latest “Knuckles Controller” from prototype (EV1-EV3) to dev kit (DV1) and has sent out a lot of them to developers around the world. And a leak has indicated that Valve might be working on their own VR headset.
(已送出許多新的控制器「Knuckles」給開發者，也被確認正在開發自家VR頭盔)
- Huawei plans to introduce AR glasses within next two years. Rumor indicates that Xiaomi is also building their own AR glasses.
(華為確定正在開發自家AR眼鏡，預計1–2年內問世，小米也傳正在設計自家AR眼鏡) - “Beat Saber” told us that the VR game market is not dead — Beat Saber sold 100K units in 1st month for $2 Million in revenue.
(「Beat Saber」為VR市場打開希望，在發售第一個月就售出10萬套賺進2百萬美金) - Game Engine “Unity” is now serving mobile AR ads.
(Unity開始支援「AR廣告」功能開發) - AR startup “Meta” suspended operations after it lost crucial Chinese investor, and the rumor indicated that it was all because of the US-China trade war.
(AR眼鏡公司Meta因中美貿易戰收不到已簽署的中國資金而倒閉) - AR wearables company “ODG” (Osterhout Design Group) plans to sell their patent in January 2019, which could mean this is the end for ODG.
(AR眼鏡公司ODG預計在2019一月拍賣所有專利，似乎即將倒閉。) - Former VR film company Jaunt is giving up on VR to focus on AR, and it has liquidated tons of its VR stuff in an online auction.
(VR巨擎Jaunt決定放棄VR而改變方向至AR，已變賣大部分的VR頭盔)
- The StarVR creator “Starbreeze” filed for reconstruction as CEO Bo Andersson announced departure.
(StarVR創始/VR/遊戲公司Starbreeze在宣告倒閉之前爆CEO內線交易) - “StarVR developer program” has been put on hold until further notice.
(目前StarVR頭盔將無限期延期發售) - IMAX is shutting down its virtual reality arcade business “IMAX VR” for good.
(IMAX決定關閉旗下的所有VR線下體驗店) - VR Startup Upload Inc. shut down its two co-working spaces in SF and LA, but its Immersive Technology media department is still going.
(UploadVR關閉旗下的兩家co-working space，新聞部門仍繼續) - After $130M+ in funding, AR startup “Blippar” collapsed due to financial reality.
(就算已拿到超過1億3000萬美金的投資，AR公司「Blippar」仍舊因為資金問題而走向倒閉之路) - North has acquired the patents and tech behind Intel’s Vaunt AR glasses.
(Intel將旗下的AR專利Vaunt賣給AR眼鏡公司North)
As you can see, there were a lot of announcements on the hardware side, both good and sad ones. But one of important thing to look at is the sales number and the user base. According IDC, the VR market saw 8.2% year-over-year growth in Q3 2018, with AR headsets achieving a smaller 1.1% gain. According to SuperData, mobile AR market now reaches over 1 billion users worldwide.
That’s it. Hope this helps. If there is any other key events that you think I should put it here, please let me know in the comment. Thanks!
Chuck is an entrepreneur and an Immersive Technology evangelist. He worked at Microsoft XBOX RSM and the pioneer VR content company Wevr. He was also the project lead for Narrative VR Film Imago and Mixed Reality game Garden. Chuck is now the VP and Co-Founder at Construct Studio. Like how Squarespace and Wordpress use their template system to accelerate the process of building websites, Construct Studio is building a template based, 3D asset authoring software called VERA. VERA allows both amateur and professional developers, artists and designers to create games and virtual training simulations at least 10X faster. This is done without having to write a line of code by automating some the most tedious parts of interactive 3D content development. Here are some videos that showcase how VERA works.
