3 Things About VR That Will Surprise You

This week is an important one for the VR (virtual reality) landscape, as the first orders of the Oculus Rift headsets are shipping.

If you’ve never actually tried out a VR headset, it’s easy to write off VR as (a) potentially just a fad (b) something that won’t happen for many years or (c) something only gamers will use. In my recent post about what makes San Francisco great, I explained why certain things happen only in this part of the world. Well if you dig a little deeper you will quickly notice that some of the best engineers in the startup ecosystem are working on problems at the bleeding edge of technology (virtual and augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, machine learning and AI, internet of things, cryptocurrency), while the rest of us (myself included) are working on the trailing edge of the landscape (i.e. mobile apps in a saturated market).

So I decided to dig a little deeper into VR and here’s what I learned:

1. Beyond Gaming

It was very easy for me to sit here and write off VR as something just for gamers. While this may in fact be the case in the early days of VR, it’s important to take a look at what the possible applications are beyond just gaming. Here are 3 examples that can impact your personal and professional lives everyday.

In-home Theater. You have probably seen an AR (augmented reality) demo where you can point your phone’s camera and visualize what furniture would look good in your room or what size TV you should buy for your wall. Now imagine taking this same example into the VR world, where you can see a digital representation of your living room. Next, take your favorite television on the market, yes that 152-inch Panasonic TV that retails for $100K and place it on your wall in your virtual world. Now here’s where things will blow your mind…now take that 152-inch screen in your virtual living room and watch a stream of your favorite Netflix show in 1090p running at 30+ frames per second. Not only is this possible with VR, but I’ve seen a working demo of it! Now sure, you buy a TV for its picture quality, but perhaps you can envision a world where a $200 VR headset will get you your very own in-home theater.

Virtual Monitors. If you visit any Bay area tech company you will see some creative and custom designed work environments, especially when it comes to external displays. These are all designed to boost a developer’s productivity. But when we go home or travel somewhere our productivity becomes throttled because we are now working off a 13” laptop screen. Now imagine a scenario where you put on a VR headset and you see a virtual representation of the exact same monitor configuration you use at work, making you just as productive literally anywhere in the world. I know how much my productivity and speed is impacted when I’m not in front of my large external displays, so I can’t wait for this to become a reality because it would change my life.

Courtside Seats. This one is probably the easiest to imagine and understand. Most of us can’t afford expensive courtside seats to a Lakers game in the Staples Center. But what if you could put on a VR headset and experience a Lakers game sitting next to Kobe Bryant on the Laker’s bench (since he’s there a lot these days:) While 3D camera technology is still evolving, this will become a reality in the not so distant future. Now add in the ability to have your friends sitting right next to you at the Laker’s game and now we’re talking. Get ready because it’s coming!

Update 3/30/16: Look’s like a version of this is already here. The 180-degree live streams will be available via a new VR version of the NCAA March Madness Live app and you can experience every swoosh as if you were sitting courtside.

2. When…Not If

Most people including myself are asking the question “Will VR take off?” But for those who have already spent years in the space, it’s very clear that it’s not a question of if the industry will take off, but when the industry takes off? Keep in mind that the industry is just getting launched this month (with Oculus headsets shipping this week), and some estimate that as many as 1M headsets will ship this year. To provide a comparison, when the iPhone launched in 2007 it sold 1.39M units.

Also keep in mind the intent of those that decide to shell out $200–400+ for a VR headset. In my opinion, the demand for unique VR software experiences will outpace what we saw in the mobile apps world. After all, an early iPhone adopter could still use the phone for the core purpose of messaging and phone calls while waiting for the app market to develop. VR headset buyers will inherently have different expectations.

2. Top VCs will be Late Movers

There is plenty of investment activity in VR happening in the early-stage VC world. But to the best of my knowledge, some of the top VCs have not placed bets in VR just yet. I’m sure every investor has his/her own reasons but I would imagine them being (1) We can just wait and see how the VR landscape develops before we place our bets (2) We can only make a small number of bets in the space to avoid any competitive investments so we will have to choose wisely (3) keep in mind it took nearly 2–3+ years after the launch of the first iPhone, before companies like Instagram and Uber were even started, so it will take some time.

Special thanks to Darshan Shankar, CEO of BigScreen for providing much of this content and insight into the VR world.