I do agree with them on that, that's for sure. The VR market is minuscule and even the "market leaders" get chump change compared to smartphones and laptops, the market penetration is very low and worse than that, is looking like a flat curve now.
I don't know what will work to commodities VR but the current platforms just ain't going to cut it.
In my mind the big problems are a killer app and nausea.
Games are fun, but no one has come up with much compelling past that.
And enough people have nausea issues that it can’t be ignored. Higher frame rates will help. But a lot of software either ignores the issue or does half measures. The instant something screws up and gives you a huge lurch in your stomach the fun stops.
“Just wait until you get your VR legs” is not good enough.
> Games are fun, but no one has come up with much compelling past that.
Sure they have, it’s the only medium capable of offering anything close to the presence of real life social interactions.
The worst social experiences in VR are worlds ahead of anything you can experience in any other medium short of meeting someone in the physical world, which would be my preference but for many people, is not always possible.
“meet your friends in reality instead problem solved, it’s better anyway”.
My friends live all over the world now, but thanks to VR, we’ve still been able to catch up and hang out in the same space and converse, watch movies, play games and even dance and exercise together plus many more activities in a manner that is simply incapable of ever being delivered through a monitor and keyboard.
I’m a gamer (though I hate to use that word) but it’s not where I see the value to this long term and it’s never really been where I see it, though it’s a value add to me of course.
> “Just wait until you get your VR legs” is not good enough.
I hate hearing this.
I've tried with VR. I built my own HMD back when a bunch of people were building them, including the creator of the Oculus Rift. I've tried every commercial product I could get my hands on since, and without fail, something will flip a switch in my brain and that it, I'm sick.
Not just nauseated, but destroyed. Like, instant hangover with a side of migraine. It's unbearable.
My hope is that with high enough resolution/coherence/realism for passthrough video/environment, the VR sickness won't happen. I think I'm being more realistic though when I predict that that same "high fidelity" is just as likely to make the sickness occur, as any mismatch with my senses and what my eyes and ears are seeing will seem more obvious to whatever demon is waiting for its moment to strike.
Apple does have the benefit of the rest of their ecosystem and walled garden though, they can easily integrate with their own pre-existing apps/service/technology whereas competitors have to pick and choose 3rd parties and spend time building it themselves - meaning that they usually don't.
Plus they don’t appear to know what its real use case is yet.
But they don’t want to be a $3500 thing to play ports of Quest VR games from 4 years ago.