Since the launch of Oculus’ Kickstarter in 2012 and its promise of blurring the frontier between virtual and real word, in 2016 VR headsets finally hit in the market. With Facebook’s Oculus Rift, Sony PlayStation VR, or HTC Vive, every major tech company launched its own VR hardware division.
We are now able to get a first-hand on the first sales results, which turned out to be mainly a deception. The paradox is that the technology was so awaited that no marketing from companies was really needed to promote their product.
Why did VR headsets fail to be adopted?
For years, big tech companies have had difficulties to renew the gaming experience and create a new disruptive gameplay. Difficult but not impossible, as Nintendo showed before with the Wii.
Despite its different controller, requiring space and active movements, the Wii has been a wide sale success, remaining the most sold home console in history.
Even more surprising is the failure of the concurrent competitor’s motion-based controller, Sony PlayStation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect so it is not only a question of technology but strategy.
I think the reasons for VR headsets sales failure can be found in a comparison with the success of adoption of Nintendo’s Wii remote.
Target and Marketing
Designing a console and its games differs whether you want casual players or core gamers to play it. Both motion-based and VR consoles were for the mass-market of casual players.
The Wii designed its product to target casual and non-gamers with a social-centric approach especially: The console was for everybody, regardless of the sex, age, job or social status, as the commercials highlight it. It was a bold move at that time, as the industry was the target of a lot of negative propaganda around the violence and the childishness of gaming.
VR companies also wants to address the mass-market. But they cannot sell the gaming experience as social, neither insist on all the non-gaming possibilities because it is not where the revenues are for now. In the end, it is hard for headsets to convince the general public, from the former player now married to the parents searching for a gift to their children.
Yet they couldn’t choose to target a more advanced population. Core gamers are exigent in the gameplay and the responsivity of a controller so that they can execute delicate and precise moves. This is not something that is possible with the VR headset, at least yet. Plus, the motion-sickness issue restrains the possibility for games with more depth. Moreover, in order to attract core gamers, all the big franchises needed to be adapted which cannot be the case as we will see later. But looking at the experiments they promoted, they have been constantly unsure of their positioning.
In the end, VR can do everything but no one really knows who it is for.
Gameplay and Experience
With Mario Party or Nintendogs, Nintendo is used to create entertainment focused on the fun of being together instead of the skill of the players. Motion games make people aware of the space and environment around them. With WiiSports included with the console, Wii Fit, or Just Dance, the Wii successfully managed to reassure parents and grandparents on this gaming benefit.
Also, the controller was designed like a TV remote control to make sure everybody feels familiar with it. There was no problem of getting used to a controller anymore.
On the other hand, VR headsets couldn’t market themselves as being cooperative or convivial. Worse, the most efficient games VR could highlight were really unorthodox for a casual gamer. Sony included included a diversified game disc with the PlayStation VR that was lacking focus, as opposed to Wii’s WiiSports (from horror to abstract puzzle).
The gameplay is also messy and hard for casual players. The headset is supposed to be combined with the PlayStation and HTC controller, one of them designed as the classic complicate multi-button controller, that you have to know by heart to play because the headset blinds you, and the other with a new strange futuristic shape. They are pretty awesome controllers and I personally love both of them, but they were not correctly designed for casualties.
Content Quality and Exclusivity
The power of Nintendo lies within the production of its games. The company has managed to create strong exclusive franchises. Although the fear of losing control over its games has slowed the pace (it took almost ten years to launch the first games on mobile while it is now seen both as an incredible source of revenues and boost for its consoles sales), the in-house production has been a crucial strategic positioning to release motion-based quality games from popular franchises, since the beginning of the console’s release.
On the other hand, Sony and Microsoft have always kept the filling of their gaming catalog to external games studio. While it could make sense for their ordinary consoles, this dependence has led to a disappointment in motion-based games for Kinect or PlayStation Move. Both companies managed to convince large franchise games, publishers, to integrate motion features into their gameplay but they were largely gimmicky. Developers were simply not interested in exploring these new technologies because their high-definition games were already too expensive to produce while attracting all the players of the console.
The situation is repeating itself with VR. Most of the franchises are developing the games for the casual player and providing a cheap cloned-version for VR that sensibly reduces the quality of the gameplay.
Price and Accessibility
In the context of Sony’s and Microsoft’s expensive black and green computers, with high graphics and performances to attract sophisticated gamers, Nintendo decided to build a low-priced $250 machine with a cute white design with the intent to be in the budget of everybody.
Even more, the low visual quality allowed people to play it on CRTs and standard definition TVs in contrast to the rest of the consoles which needed HDTV to be really playable. It is then difficult for casual players to massively adopt them.
Even in the context of the rise of the price of gaming consoles, VR technology is incredibly hard to access. All of the headsets cost $500–800 -more than the most popular gaming consoles, and a high-end desktop computer on top, making the number a 4 figures.
VR is not failing but only disappointing for a launch. The consumer adoption has just been delayed due to a sloppy and hesitant go-to-market strategy mixing core gamers and casual players positioning. We will probably have to wait for at least another cycle before everyone has one at home.
On the other hands, VR has already found a lot of successful applications on the business side, so many in facts that some VR consumer hardware companies are thinking of pivoting to this market. Point is, the technology is only starting.
This article was written by Super Jump contributor, Ramy Ghorayeb. Please check out his work and follow him on Medium.
