AR/VR Headset Shipments Forecast to Hit 100 Million Units By 2021, Buoyed By Apple, Microsoft, and Others

[ArtOfWarfare]

I think people look very foolish wearing these large headsets.

People look dumb using motion controls on the Wii, but that didn't stop the Wii from being a ridiculously successful game console.

People look dumb walking and driving with their phones, but that doesn't stop them from doing that.

You should give VR a try before you dismiss it. Every Microsoft store has a demo unit set up. Very cool.

As soon as there's a good solution for tripping over the cord, I'm sold.

 

[cube]

Yea, and it was crap!

But it was way better than what PCs could do.

 

[Jsameds]

As soon as there's a good solution for tripping over the cord, I'm sold.

I use a ceiling hook. Nice and discreet and does the job. Your cables have to be long though.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

Has anyone tried VR with a phone? I can't imagine how it would be any good. My Vive uses special lenses to immerse me. Just putting a phone in front of your face would just put 2D images really close to your eyes right?

I'm not a fan of slapping a phone inside a headset because the under-powered specs and also because if people have astigmatism, it's a problem. Using the dedicated VR headset will adjust accordingly to how you see or allow you to adjust it to your vision. That's how it should be done.

As for making calls via VR, don't be surprised. If one were to be playing a game in a VR environment and gets a call, they could allow users to stream a call into the headset's headphones and start talking. No need to take it off and make the call when you can see the overlay info on screens showing 'incoming call'. Or imagine picking up an actual phone in a phone booth virtually a la The Matrix. It can be done.

Or having virtual chats with avatars, you sit down, put on the headset and become an avatar chatting with a friend or friend(s) in a 3D environment. That's much more immersive than using AR overlays on an iOS device.
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Thank you! That's all I've thought about VR when I see those clunky boxes you need strapped to your head. Seems like there's a legit application commercially, but for gaming, I'm personally not felling it and would rather have a controller in my hand--but I'm old

I can certainly tell you that they do have 3D controllers for VR units. I tried the HTC Vive last Fall and was amazed by how smooth it was and the controllers were very responsive. You can literally point and shoot, or pick up, or interact with an object, OR interact with a virtual menu like an operating system.

Clunky? Not even that, nor is it heavy at all. You'd be surprised. They LOOK clunky and heavy but they aren't.

And yes, I'm old school like you and like having standard controllers but I know a good platform when I see it. VR is a viable platform for many things, not just gaming alone.

 

[Stella]

But it was way better than what PCs could do.

The VR in the 1990s was on the PC. What platform / console were you using?

 

[bobob]

VR Headsets for gaming are not the way forward because they are too restrictive. Motion tracking and 3d projectors with fisheye lenses that project images around the entire room including the floor and celling with you in the middle are the way forward and several companies including Microsoft are developing products.
Its a much simpler way than strapping a helmet to your head.

...and not just for VR and AR, but also for RR...

 

[cube]

The VR in the 1990s was on the PC. What platform / console were you using?

VR in the 90's was SGI.

 

[Bazooka-joe]

The VR in the 1990s was on the PC. What platform / console were you using?

3D VFX-1 by Forte. It had motion tracking too and you could run Doom on a 386-DX PC with 2 meg of memory.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

Well, I'm old too. 48 and I've been gaming since ti 99-4a days! ;-)

I can't tell you that VR brings gaming to a whole new level. I'll always been a fan of dungeon crawlers and other fantasy type games. One of the first VR games I played was Vanishing Realms which actually puts you IN the dungeon and swing swords and shooting bows and huge monsters right in front of you. It's the kind of thing you have to experience yourself. You'll also never want to play another racing or flight sim on a monitor again. I play a flight sim called Aerofly 2 and you actually feel like you are flying a plane. Same thing with Project Cars.

And does it really matter what you look like while playing? VR is a thing you do by yourself and nobody is going to want to sit and watch someone play in VR anyways.

VR is truly the future imho. Apple would be smart to come out with a VR/AR headset sooner rather than later.

I'm around your age, too and grew up in the age of D&D and paper/pencil RPGs, especially when Wizardry, Zork and Bard's Tale ( god I miss that game ) were popular in the day.

As for dungeon crawlers via VR, you'd be pleasantly surprised to know that such a thing exists with The VOID here:

https://www.thevoid.com/

Check it out. It's VR but in a physical space that allows users to interact with objects. You can do a dungeon crawler in this. This is the real life Holodeck. No need to WAIT for Apple's 'slow as molasses' attitude to everything.

As for watching someone play VR, I can certainly tell you that it can be done using an external monitor. When I tested the Vive last Fall, the host had a monitor for people to watch me play and interact in. AND I can SEE the crowd watching me due to a small camera posited outside, streaming a live feed into the goggle. The live feed is in a corner screen inside the goggles when you're in the menu screen or in between the game(s). It works well.
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I'm waiting for Star Trek's holodecks.

Why wait when you can go to this?

https://www.thevoid.com/

The real life holodeck is here.

 

[Stella]

3D VFX-1 by Forte. It had motion tracking too and you could run Doom on a 386-DX PC with 2 meg of memory.

The version I tried was some (really bad ) Wolfteinstein clone. Don't know what the headset was, but that had head tracking too. I was really unimpressed.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

I will agree with this.

However, it can't grow it's consumer base until it gets cheaper. I don't think it'll get cheaper for quite some time.

The cheapest VR unit you can get with the Vive from Alienware is about $700-800 with the PC included and then the price goes up depending on specs and model make.

The Sony VR unit is a great start and can be expensive at $600. However, Give it another year or two and the price will drop by $100 or more. Sony's VR is kind of on the 'low end' while the HTV Vive or Oculus is considered 'high end'.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Bleh. I hope VR is a short-lived fad otherwise society -- not Apple -- is doomed. All we need to take yet a further step in glamorizing and making amusement of the horrors of war and other violence. Oh, right, it's not about that. It's about giving kids the chance to play baseball or even Pokemon GO without having to even go outside. Yep. Progress.

 

[ghost187]

VR has been going from strength to strength over the last few years, despite it being a very expensive hobby. It was recently announced that the PSVR - a device that costs more than the console itself that has been out only 7 months has already sold over a million units, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

The 3DTV you mention is a different beast. It made films slightly more immersive and struggled to succeed in the home due to the relatively small size of the TV's we have (compared to cinema/IMAX), resulting in a mediocre 3D effect. Whereas VR is an absolute game changer, playing a VR game is nothing like playing a game on a screen. It's a totally different and frankly mind blowing experience.

I believe VR will continue to stick around and become more popular as it gets cheaper over time, and wont ever replace, but will sit by the side of conventional TV based media.

It's a cool niche no doubt, but I doubt it becomes mainstream. Companies that invested heavily early on have lost money so far. For example Resident Evil 7 was the perfect game for it but VR didn't have enough of an install base for that game to succeed.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

That's an easy thing to declare but I somehow doubt it will end up quite that way. Certainly AR will have some impact but the hardest thing to tease out is the human factor. Just because a technology may be useful it doesn't follow that it will be adopted at the rate people think it will be. I don't think we'll see many people wandering about the workplace in a partial virtual world within 5 years. Technologists tend to believe every technology is transformative and will be adopted with open arms. I mean, shouldn't we have shuttles to the moon and flying cars by now and robot maids (roomba doesn't count)?

Well, the Jetsons aren't here yet but it's close enough. There are experimental flying cars out there and AI robots interacting with us ( look to DARPA for that as an example ), and so on. Shuttles to the moon won't happen until decades and in fact, NASA killed off the shuttle anyway. Private companies are jumping onto the space race for putting crafts in sub-orbit out there such as the Virgin Spaceship Two as an example.

VR is already here and will evolve into something. I know it. I can smell it. Ever seen Ghost in the Shell where the android jacks herself into the 'Net and dives in to interact? It's kind of like that but I'll bet that there will be some kind of PC that relies on VR as an operating system for specific purposes.

As for workers using it, they already have. As I've mentioned before, the Navy had a group of contractors design one of their ships from scratch using the VR units. Don't believe me? Check this out:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...vr-tech-gives-navy-engineers-new-perspective/

And this was LONG before Apple jumped into the VR industry.

EDIT: by the way, I grew up watching TRON and have dreamed of diving into a virtual world and this is our opportunity to do that. Imagine playing a TRON game using VR as an MMORG playing as a program/avatar. That's as meta as you can get. Why Disney has not jumped into that is astounding. But the point is that VR is going to be handy for many things and as an artist, I want to do virtual art as done with Tilt Brush by Google ( look it up ). That tool is getting a lot of attention in the creative industry.

 

[ghost187]

I have no doubt in my mind that VR will be the future. I just don't think it is this generation of VR that will take us there.

It'll come back strong in 6-8 years after everybody is geeked about AR.

There are substantial technological and financial hurdles that need breakthroughs in my opinion for it to happen.

 

[hipnetic]

I recently purchased a PlayStation 4 Pro and PlayStation VR headset. I'm mid-40's and hadn't sat down to play a videogame in many, many years, but I was intrigued by the entire concept after taking a trip to Disney/Universal and experiencing some of the VR-based rides. I hadn't treated myself to splurging on a gadget in a long time, so I figured why not. I hemmed and hawed a bit because there was no place around where I could test it out ahead of time.

The experience is amazing and put a huge smile on my face the first day I played a couple of the demos. If you haven't tried it, don't knock it till you have.

Someone commented about the PSVR having a bad screendoor effect, and I believe this person is mistaken about what screendoor is. It's my understanding that the display tech the PSVR uses isn't subject to that, and I know that I haven't seen it. Mind you, the headset/display isn't perfect:

- Resolution is a little lower than I'd like it to be and the perimeter of your vision can look blurry/out-of-focus (I have to physically move my head around for any text in the perimeter to look sharp).
- The cable is cumbersome. I'll probably jury-rig something so that it floats behind me somehow so as to keep it out of the way. But you're not usually walking around too much (VIVE games may be different, but most PSVR games are designed for you to be stationary and just move your head around).
- The biggest issue I have is just not being able to see the real world around me without removing the headset, which then requires me to re-adjust it to get things into focus. It would be great if they put a camera on the outside of the headset so that you could push a button to temporarily pause your game/whatever and see the outside world without having to take the headset off.
- The other big problem I have is just navigating around the PlayStation UI. Specifically, I start a game and can't figure out how to get back to the main menu of the game (I can press the home button to get all the way back to the PS home screen, but often there seems to be no way to just go "back" to the in-app main menu.
- There's still a shortage of games, and prices are higher than I'm comfortable paying.
- I'd love to see the next iteration of the hardware improve resolution further, but I don't see how they'll be able to do higher resolution *and* wireless in the near future. It might be one or the other. I should note that contrary to some of the negative things I've read, or even my comments about blurriness above, even with the PSVR being a little lower-res and blurrier than I'd like, you can quickly get past that and get fully immersed in the experience, so it's not a deal-breaker.

The AR demo that Apple did got me to thinking that maybe an iPhone + cheap headset might be the future. They were moving the phone around and we saw the AR adjust (things getting bigger and perspective changing as they moved closer to the table). So it seems like the iPhone's hardware might be capable of delivering a good-enough experience. Everyone already owns their phone, so then they just need an inexpensive headset and external controller(s) so that you can bring your hands into the experience. And because the phone has a rear-mounted camera, they could implement something like I mentioned above to allow you to easily see the outside world.

Anyways, that's my hope...that we see a headset and external controller and not just AR apps/games designed to have you holding the phone (like the ones demoed by Apple). Those can be great, too, but the immersive experience of being inside of the VR world is another thing altogether.

 

[Stella]

VR is progress. It has a lot more applications than just games.

Bleh. I hope VR is a short-lived fad otherwise society -- not Apple -- is doomed. All we need to take yet a further step in glamorizing and making amusement of the horrors of war and other violence. Oh, right, it's not about that. It's about giving kids the chance to play baseball or even Pokemon GO without having to even go outside. Yep. Progress.

 

[MrX8503]

I don't think people get it. The writing is on the wall.

With ARKit and millions of iPhones being AR ready, Apple just leapfrogged the competition. Apple's solution is accessible and you don't have to wear a headset, so it'll be more socially acceptable. The other important part of the puzzle is creating the tools for developers to create AR apps.

This is what Tim Cook was referring to when he thinks AR will be big.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

There are substantial technological and financial hurdles that need breakthroughs in my opinion for it to happen.

Ummm...you mean like this?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...vr-tech-gives-navy-engineers-new-perspective/

or this?

https://www.thevoid.com/

 

[MH01]

Where is the CEO of Occulus now? I don't think he commented on the latest releases from Apple yet last year, he was scathing about Apple. Perhaps this is just another case of Apple taking their time and doing it better than anyone thought they would?
I wonder if the 'naysayers' realise just how easy Apple have made this stuff? Probably not...

He points out the Apple GPU's sucked. He was in fact right.

Apple has taken the easy option, opting to allow eGPUs, which is in fact implemented by Intel via TB. So apple has done nothing other than allow egpu integration into their software. Nothing about the apple way here. Just another laptop/desktop that accepts a eGPU, apple is playing catchup.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

I don't think people get it. The writing is on the wall.

With ARKit and millions of iPhones being AR ready, Apple just leapfrogged the competition. Apple's solution is accessible and you don't have to wear a headset, so it'll be more socially acceptable. The other important part of the puzzle is creating the tools for developers to create AR apps.

This is what Tim Cook was referring to when he thinks AR will be big.

AR has been around for a long time. Playing with AR is like reading a pop-up book. "ooh, that page popped! ooh! (clap! clap!) ". Big deal. I'm completely UN-fazed by AR. And yes, they did use AR over books with a QR code. I remember there was this really expensive graphic novel about several years ago and they had a QR code in each page, I think, and you had to use your iphone to interact with it. I'm old enough to have been around computers since the 80s and that stuff doesn't surprise me one bit.

VR, on the other hand, is improving. That's going to be a viable tool, not a lifestyle like Apple tries to do. I don't think Apple has leapfrogged, yet.

Think about it. If their solution is accessible, then why are they building a headset? I know someone mentioned to me that it's a trojan horse waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't quite buy it, however.

 

[nwcs]

Well, the Jetsons aren't here yet but it's close enough. There are experimental flying cars out there and AI robots interacting with us ( look to DARPA for that as an example ), and so on. Shuttles to the moon won't happen until decades and in fact, NASA killed off the shuttle anyway. Private companies are jumping onto the space race for putting crafts in sub-orbit out there such as the Virgin Spaceship Two as an example.

The reason why there won't be flying cars is simple: people can barely handle 2 dimensions on the road; add in a third dimension and there will be utter chaos. A thing may be technologically possible but that doesn't make it practical or reasonable or viable as a product. Even so, my primary point is that technologists always think it's right over the horizon and everyone will do it. That hasn't panned out in reality. I remember in 1999 watching all these prediction shows about what will happen in 2010, 2020, etc. Pretty much all were dead wrong but the adherents were very sincere in their belief.

VR is already here and will evolve into something. I know it. I can smell it. Ever seen Ghost in the Shell where the android jacks herself into the 'Net and dives in to interact? It's kind of like that but I'll bet that there will be some kind of PC that relies on VR as an operating system for specific purposes.

It's great that you can see and smell it but that doesn't mean much of anything to the market as a whole. Many similar things were said about other technologies that failed. VR seems a lot like the old joke of smell-o-vision.

As for workers using it, they already have. As I've mentioned before, the Navy had a group of contractors design one of their ships from scratch using the VR units. Don't believe me? Check this out:

Sure, there are uses of VR in use today (and for some time now). But to say it will transform entire industries (as the IDC 'prediction' implied)... no. Definitely not anytime soon and certainly not in the next 5 years as predicted.

 

[MrX8503]

AR has been around for a long time. Playing with AR is like reading a pop-up book. "ooh, that page popped! ooh! (clap! clap!) ". Big deal. I'm completely UN-fazed by AR. And yes, they did use AR over books with a QR code. I remember there was this really expensive graphic novel about several years ago and they had a QR code in each page, I think, and you had to use your iphone to interact with it. I'm old enough to have been around computers since the 80s and that stuff doesn't surprise me one bit.

VR, on the other hand, is improving. That's going to be a viable tool, not a lifestyle like Apple tries to do. I don't think Apple has leapfrogged, yet.

Think about it. If their solution is accessible, then why are they building a headset? I know someone mentioned to me that it's a trojan horse waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't quite buy it, however.

I don't think you get it either. ARKit will improve AR and make it more widely available. Being accessible means ease of entry. Meaning you don't have to buy additional hardware, which is what Apple is doing with their iPhone.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

The AR demo that Apple did got me to thinking that maybe an iPhone + cheap headset might be the future. They were moving the phone around and we saw the AR adjust (things getting bigger and perspective changing as they moved closer to the table). So it seems like the iPhone's hardware might be capable of delivering a good-enough experience. Everyone already owns their phone, so then they just need an inexpensive headset and external controller(s) so that you can bring your hands into the experience. And because the phone has a rear-mounted camera, they could implement something like I mentioned above to allow you to easily see the outside world.

Anyways, that's my hope...that we see a headset and external controller and not just AR apps/games designed to have you holding the phone (like the ones demoed by Apple). Those can be great, too, but the immersive experience of being inside of the VR world is another thing altogether.

The HTC Vive has an external camera rig that allows you to see what's going on around you on the outside such as spectators watching you or keeping an eye on your specific area so you don't go out of bounds from the zone. It's extremely handy.

Apple is supposedly working on a headset but I worry about their laziness in slapping a phone into it which could be problematic for people with astigmatism or wear glasses. That headset should've been mentioned or revealed at their recent keynote to assure people that they got this under control.

But my concern is their encouragement in holding an iPad via AR for long periods of time that could make one look like a jacka$$ outside of the house or in the streets. That last thing you want is to have spectators coming to you and asking what's going on with your screen if you're doing something that's private. See the problem?

Secondly, they were anti-touch screen for the iMac thinking it would create 'gorilla arms'. Well, look at their demo of the guy holding the iPad playing the game. To me, it's hypocritical and tells me they didn't keep the ergonomics of interaction in mind. T

This is why I'm an advocate for using headsets for ergonomic and privacy reasons.

I'm quite sure that it is possible to have the iOS device point at the area while streaming to your goggle live. The goggles or glasses would have to be transparent, so that you can see what's going on externally to avoid bumps or people trying to talk to you. Problem is, the goggle would need some kind of mirror to hold in the graphical overlays.

Also, the goggle/glasses would need a camera built in so that it can stream to the iOS device, then it exports the graphics back to you, and so on. You would need TWO cameras. One to view the surface(s) or surroundings to interact with the AR program and a second camera to provide a live feed of your surroundings (ie. people, fences, walls, etc ).

HTC Vive already got that part solved.
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I don't think you get it either. ARKit will improve AR and make it more widely available. Being accessible means ease of entry. Meaning you don't have to buy additional hardware, which is what Apple is doing with their iPhone.

Oh, I do get it. But using the iOS device is not going to be the only way. Watch. You may want AR glasses or goggles to use without holding an iPad or iOS device for long period of time.

If you said you don't have to buy additional hardware, then why is Apple making a headset so late in the game?

 

[Biu_miu]

I don't think VR games will catch on as much as the usual video games, where you use either a controller or a keyboard. Sure, it will have it's following, but I see it more like a gimmick, something majority will try just for fun, like "wow, that's cool" and than move on to some other distractions, that will "revolutionise industry" . Just like Wii U or Google Glass or something like that. Nice idea, but somehow it just didn't became anything people really use.
It's not a product for gamers, it's a product for VR fanatics, I don't see any serious numbers of gamers using VR