BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
The release of Occulus at a six hundred dollar price point this early might be a mistake. That price is too much for most consumers, as the article mentions. The current utility of the device is also in question as there are relatively few products that make good use of virtual reality. This all reminds me of the three-dimensional television sets that came out a few years ago. They are cool, but the high cost combined with the limited amount of media available meant they never hit a sustainable install base.
Of course three-dimensional televisions did not require a reimaging of one's living room the way that virtual reality may. Consider that the typical living room contains things like coffee tables, nightstands, and floor lamps, things that can be hazardous to navigate in a virtual reality headset. An office space where a computer is stored can be even more cluttered. Then you have consideration of the hassle factor of the wires and cords running into the headset. The whole set up is going to be an annoyance. I am not sure that there will be products for the devices that justify those annoyances this early in the product lifecycle.
The current consumer electronic market is one where something gets adopted en masse or dies on the vine. It is hard to imagine virtual reality obtaining widespread adoption. Facebook and Microsoft may have the wherewithal to pour a fair amount of cash into what will likely be a product that might not reach immediate adoption, but I am less certain about HTC and Sony.
It was certainly a good idea for those two to hold off on release of their products for the time being to see how the market treats the new technology. But it also may have been a very bad idea. If Facebook's Occulus works for PCs then I'm not certain why someone would need an additional HTC or Sony product. Certainly the Sony one is the only one likely to work with the PS4, but I'm really doubtful that people will pay twice as much as the PS4 to get an additional device just for that machine.
Microsoft's Hololens augmented reality system occupies a bit of a different space. The commercial applications for augmented reality are a lot broader than those of the virtual reality. In consumer use, Microsoft's product is both easier to use in a crowded existent living room both because the user is less likely to trip over the coffee table and because the device itself doesn't need wires running to the computer.
Of course three-dimensional televisions did not require a reimaging of one's living room the way that virtual reality may. Consider that the typical living room contains things like coffee tables, nightstands, and floor lamps, things that can be hazardous to navigate in a virtual reality headset. An office space where a computer is stored can be even more cluttered. Then you have consideration of the hassle factor of the wires and cords running into the headset. The whole set up is going to be an annoyance. I am not sure that there will be products for the devices that justify those annoyances this early in the product lifecycle.
The current consumer electronic market is one where something gets adopted en masse or dies on the vine. It is hard to imagine virtual reality obtaining widespread adoption. Facebook and Microsoft may have the wherewithal to pour a fair amount of cash into what will likely be a product that might not reach immediate adoption, but I am less certain about HTC and Sony.
It was certainly a good idea for those two to hold off on release of their products for the time being to see how the market treats the new technology. But it also may have been a very bad idea. If Facebook's Occulus works for PCs then I'm not certain why someone would need an additional HTC or Sony product. Certainly the Sony one is the only one likely to work with the PS4, but I'm really doubtful that people will pay twice as much as the PS4 to get an additional device just for that machine.
Microsoft's Hololens augmented reality system occupies a bit of a different space. The commercial applications for augmented reality are a lot broader than those of the virtual reality. In consumer use, Microsoft's product is both easier to use in a crowded existent living room both because the user is less likely to trip over the coffee table and because the device itself doesn't need wires running to the computer.
