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Will fail like 3DTVs and 3D Cinemas, but at least it will serve as a slingshot.
The fixed perspective stereoscopy in 3D movies is fundamentally different than the head-tracked stereoscopy of VR.
VR can enable new kinds of experiences, not just a superficial layer of shininess that stereoscopic movies have.

That said, I never had the chance to try 3D movies at home, and I don’t think any of the streaming services had 3D content.
 
They need to get that price under control, its obscene when you can pick up a decent headset for a couple of hundred these days. Sure, it might be all singing and dancing but its a very niche area so to make things financially viable you need more than 5 customers. Devs simply wont even bother investing time in a product they know theres very little return for them on, hence why even with the low-cost ones we've seen no major developers committing resources.

In the context of VR a premuim headset pricing would be $1500. At $3000 its a laughing stock.
 
I’m looking forward to this and would buy in a year or two (once I’ve saved up lol), but even I don’t foresee it being a widespread hit - it will take big use cases to make people put things on their head. I say that as a big fan of 3D blurays - which I watch via my home cinema projector and 130” screen.

It is a long game though, and has already been a long game, I even made a short film about VR in the 1990s at film school called “the drug of the future”.

As for the cost issue, $3k is a big ask, most people can’t buy a $1k iPhone outright and have to buy on a contract…
 
Unless Apple figures out the motion sickness issue some people (self included) have with VR, this is going to be a non-starter for some consumers.

I still expect it to end up being the best selling VR system though eventually.
A lot of that can be solved by better refresh rates and overall better headsets. I felt awful using the Quest 2 until I picked up a 3rd party strap that moved the weight distribution to the rear, after that I stopped getting motion sickness unless I tried playing something that was far too fast and agressive to be usable on VR - some games really do not work at all in a VR setting.
 
Concerning these AR leaks, If you archive 2006 you’ll see the same exact comments about the rumored iPhone. “Not for me”, “no one is going to spend thst much for a phone”, “tell me again, why do we need this?”, “the iphone is a gimmick”, “it’s a fad”, “use it once the lost in the junk drawer”, “is that a walkie talkie?”……….pretty funny to look back now.
 

When you get bored, read that iPod thread from the day it was announced. Lots of people were saying similar things.
Right!…just posted a comment on that.
 
If that rumored $3000 price is real; no it won’t be a hit.

End of the day, you price high like that, you’ve got a niche product regardless of how cool it is.

The iPad, iPhone and iPod were wildly successful because they were cool, addressed a fairly ubiquitous use case, AND met a psychological, accessible price point.

Once you’re pricing north of $2000, the amount of possible buyers for anything “inessential” drops off a cliff.
Maybe for you but it’s a big world outside your front door
 
If that rumored $3000 price is real; no it won’t be a hit.

End of the day, you price high like that, you’ve got a niche product regardless of how cool it is.

The iPad, iPhone and iPod were wildly successful because they were cool, addressed a fairly ubiquitous use case, AND met a psychological, accessible price point.

Once you’re pricing north of $2000, the amount of possible buyers for anything “inessential” drops off a cliff.
If a VR headset was comfortable enough and had optics and screens good enough that I’d rather use it than my OLED TV for watching movies/shows, and I could replicate my multi-monitor desktop computer anywhere with just the headset and a keyboard, I think a $3000 cost would be justifiable. I don’t think that quality will happen during the first generation, but I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

Apple may start at the high end, but they will diversify into lower cost products. Apple does make lower volume hardware, but I don’t think they can justify a new OS and software for a niche product.
 
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