this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Given that most non-enthusiasts I know would consider 500 € to be way too expensive for a TV, prices will have to come down a lot for that use case. Especially for families where everyone would need one.
Apple is definitely no contender in that market; their prices would have to go down by 90-95 % to interest the mass market and they're not interested in that kind of thin margin market segment.
The Quest is already pretty cheap. iPhones are not. The standard Vision will be half the price and people will buy it in droves with the right software.
I dunno. People said the same about 3DTV and that never took off even when more affordable models became available.
I don't think VR/AR has a killer app so far. There are some neat things it can do but nothing that makes people chomp at the bit to get their hands hands on it.
VR gaming is nice but most gamers don't consider it sufficiently better to a regular monitor to buy a VR rig. For screen replacement it gets worse because the constraints are even harder - smaller budgets, weaker host hardware, lower expectations that are already exceeded by traditional screens.
Apple might pull it off but they have one hell of a battle ahead of them.
I can't argue with much of that, although I will dispute the 3DTV aspect, no one I knew gave a monkey's about that and didn't expect it to take off, mainly as we had experienced it in the cinema and saw little benefit. VR is a totally different kettle of fish in comparison, it reimagines interaction completely, and isn't sitting in front of a static screen as per '3D'. HDTVs took off, then encouraged upgrades with 1080 and now 4K/HDR. Phones went from £30 to £1,000+.
VR makes Beat Saber a console seller (if I regard the Quest as one). Lack of controllers and games makes the Vision concept a difficult sell as it stands.
I find it to be fairly similar. Most people I know either don't care about VR or bought/borrowed a rig and ended up not using it much. It's typically seen as kinda nice but not nice enough to really bother with.
In terms of interactivity, most see VR as little better than the Kinect – and that didn't exactly take the world by storm, robotics labs excluded.
I think most people are actually happy with their regular screens so it's hard to sell them on something that does more.
Wasn't Kinect the quickest selling item one Christmas?
It's definitely a huge step up and sales are strong in gaming circles, wider adoption is going to need something else though, perhaps glasses-size headsets and long usability. I think those who do use it are impressed, at least those I know.
Once there is enough demand, some Chinese or Thai OEM - maybe the same one that manufactures these for Apple or Samsung - will sell them for a couple hundred Euro.
The problem is that demand will have to be generated first – something HTC, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have failed at so far.
So far it seems that VR/AR is behaving somewhat similarly to 3DTV: Some enthusiasts are really into it and a market exists but most people aren't excited enough to spend any extra money on it. They'll have to find a way around that if they really want mass-market adoption.