“Despite many pronouncements that 2016 was the year of VR, a more apt word for virtual reality might be absence,” The Economist observed caustically last summer, noting that during that year forecasts of combined sales of VR hardware and software dropped from $5.1bn to $3.6bn to the harsh reality of $1.8bn. But hey, one rough holiday season does not an industry make, right? Surely in 2017 things began to —
— oh. "Shock Stat: In 2017, VR Headset Shipments For Most Top Brands Went DOWN Compared To 2016." So much for the many predictions that VR headset shipments would grow exponentially for years. Crow appears to be the appetizer for nearly every industry dinner these days. But that was before the Oculus Go, right? Except … the Go seems to have sold at most a quarter of a million units in its first few weeks, far behind the comparably priced Nintendo Switch released months earlier, and as I write this languishes well outside the top 20 of Amazon’s “Video Games > Accessories” bestsellers.
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I dropped by the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara this week, and my main takeaway was that the industry has essentially abandoned the consumer AR/VR space, at least for now. Everyone’s aiming at AR/VR for work now. But how many jobs are there, really, where complex information needs to be accessed in a hands-free way? How many problems can be solved by VR conferencing but not videoconferencing? Sure, they exist, and the tech can be spectacularly great for them; but, again, for now at least, we’re talking Next Little Niche.
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It’s the very early days of a new technology. It’s expensive. It’s still hardware-intensive. We’re still figuring out its best uses, and how it interacts with human physical location, and a whole new grammar of storytelling. But the Oculus Kickstarter launched almost six years ago, and I’ve seen a whole lot of VR/AR/mixed-reality demos since then, and every time, I walk away thinking: “This technology has so much potential.”
But in order to be the Next Big Thing at some point you have to actually start realizing your potential [...] the disheartening truth is that, despite the low-price new standalone hardware, despite all the effort that’s gone into software and design and storytelling, I still don’t feel like we’re meaningfully closer to that than we were two years ago.Have I mentioned lately that articles like this are becoming increasingly common? Sure, people who are materially or emotionally invested in VR are still trying to sound bullish on its prospects, but those forecasts are looking increasingly ridiculous in the face of clear evidence that VR simply isn't happening, their foundations made of nothing but hype and hot air.
Meanwhile, AR developers of both hard- and software are trying to distance themselves from VR's failure to thrive, and it's "in everyone’s hands, of course, courtesy of Apple’s ARKit, Google’s ARCore, Facebook’s AR Studio, etc. But, quick, name a popular/successful AR smartphone app a) that isn’t Pokémon GO b) doesn’t involve furniture!" I couldn't, either.
Forbes is starting to talk about "Location-Based" VR being the next great hope of the fledgling industry, so I guess the day is coming when I'll have to ditch the VRcade term in favour of LBVR, while the VR industry's desperation for VRcades to help popularize their otherwise-essentially-useless tech practically sweats out of the walls.
Even TechCrunch's piece doesn't escape this tone of despair. "Please, somebody show me I’m wrong," pleads Evans, but I don't think anyone can, because all the actual data is pointing in the opposite direction, and time feels like it's running out.
Which raises the question: Just how much time does VR have left?
Facebook has very deep pockets, and Mark Zuckerberg still owns a controlling percentage of FB shares, so theoretically he could keep Oculus open for business indefinitely. But with FB's shareholders becoming increasingly unhappy, and FB's future market dominance looking far less certain than it did just two years ago, so there's no guarantee that Zuckerberg will be able to keep losing money on VR forever. Vive maker HTC is on even shakier ground, and Sony is talking about shifting their focus away from hardware, towards software and services, which could put a relatively poor performer like PSVR on the chopping, too, regardless of its hypothetical potential.
So, whither AR and VR? Apparently, they're both further into the future than a lot of people thought.