It is a sad truth for technology enthusiasts that it’s almost the end of 2016, and we still don’t have flying cars, a moon colony or fully functional robot butlers. But there is at least one sci-fi technology that is aiming to make a breakthrough into your living room: virtual reality.
Companies big and small are betting that holiday shoppers will get the appeal of being able to pop on a headset and immerse their eyes and ears — and sometimes their hands and feet — in another world. Google, Sony, Samsung, Facebook and HTC are among the major manufacturers that have put virtual reality products, mostly for playing games, on the market in the past several months.
And retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy are building the excitement by setting up demonstration areas in their stores so consumers can get a good feel for these unfamiliar devices. This is very interesting, and it opens up for app developers, like VRshopping, and make it possible to enter the booming industry in a different way. We could potentially see app developers, or software companies pitch their idea to big retailers of firms.
For most people, this will probably be their first real opportunity to play with or experience virtual reality. What is really important here is the reaction we’ll see from consumers who walk in these stores and get educated about it for the first time.
That could make this holiday season a critical period for VR, which is trying to prove it’s not just a gimmick like some gaming trends before it. (Remember the Wii and the Kinect?) Research firm IDC estimates that consumers — particularly gamers — will snap up 9.6 million virtual reality headsets by the end of the year, spending about $2.6 billion.
Gamers are an obvious key market to watch, but so are those looking to use the virtual reality headsets for a family purchase, to replace screen time spent together on the computer to share funny videos or websites, or watching television.
Greg Hall, Walmart’s senior vice president for entertainment, said in an interview with The Washington Post that he expects that gaming will remain tech’s big draw in the near term — but people are “warming up” to virtual reality. “We like the growth,” he said. “We like VR and think it’s got some nice legs for us.”
The full potential of the virtual reality market is still quite a few years away, analysts say. And, in a reversal of the timeline that characterized technologies such as desktops, laptops and cellphones, the appetite for virtual reality is expected to start with average people buying them for their own personal use before the devices break into the business world. VRshopping believes the trend will be driven by consumer adoption through 2019, but that applications for business — including education, training and telecommuting — will start to make up the larger market share after that. VR is projected to become a $36 billion industry within the next decade.