When the shining light of the sector doesn’t believe the hype you have to start asking questions
Oculus has made a move that signals to the world that all is not well in the VR space
They have taken the unprecedented step to offer a generous return policy as a means to ecbourgae people to purchase the hardware
If you hate the product you can return it no questions asked for 14 days
This indicates that the user experience offered by VR is far from being ready for mainstream public consumption
This returns policy is almost unheard of in the tech industry and is the biggest indicator yet that consumer reaction to the product has been overwhelmingly negative
To stop disgruntled users throwing their headsets in a drawer and forgetting about them, it has had to offer this policy in order to incentive consumers to take a risk and try it
It is obvious that the long standing problems with VR haven’t been fixed
The problems are:
Cost — The cost of a standalone headset on it’s own is prohibitively expensive but when you require either a console or a PC as well just to run it you have a problem with affordability
Design — Units are large, uncomfortable and heavy and people feel stupid wearing them. That’s a design problem that’s never been addressed — probably why apple aren’t releasing anything in this space
Safety — They make you feel sick and you lose several of your sensory functions while you use it
Tether — You are attached to something with a cable whick either stops you moving where you want to or trips you up
Content — because the product isn’t used by a mass market the titles available for consumption are limited at best. Until VR has the full product line, or starts developing standalone content it will remain at the periphery. For now, the money isn’t there for developers to focus on creating content for the early adopters who are left with poor quality
Because of the build up the product got it is suffering from over publication. Instead of under-promising and over-delivering, they over-promised and are now trying to catch up.- VR has a PR problem, and as AR develops apace it is going to get left further behind. Because VR isn’t ready for wider public consumption it won’t ever be the beneficiary of Viral growth due to evangelicals waxing lyrical about their enjoyment of the product. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sales of VR units remains stagnant or recedes until they iron out a lot of the kinks
This is unlikely to happen this year — which means the outlook for VR looks grim for the foreseeable future
To change this there has to be a product or service which changes the paradigm — exclusive content can achieve this, whether that is immersive games or experiential programming — something revolutionary must arise to change the future of VR
This is why tech’s giants pivoted to AR and voice recognition. They know their VR product is not sufficiently developed for mass consumption so they are exploiting the tech that is mainstream — the camera on your smartphone and voice processing
AR may have more problems long term than VR — limitations of product due to the size of screens, lack of immersion into the activities happening behind the screen etc. — but the short term case for enterprise is very powerful
PokemonGo is the obvious example
AR escapes many of the criticisms that VR does because it has few of the problems listed above — you don’t need to buy expensive components to participate is the main reason
Long term VR will conquer its demons, short term it is going to lose the battle to AR
VR may lose this battle but it will win the war — eventually
