The Research Blog

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUAL REALITY & AUGMENTED REALITY There are three main factors needed for Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to gain traction as an industry: Price Point: Headsets are expensive and are not affordable for everyone. Currently there are about 10 million headsets sold, however there is a need of having at least 500 million headsets for the industry to start making sense from a business perspective. Mobility: The ability to be able to move around with the headset on is key, right now it doesn’t always factor the physical space in which one is having the experience which creates obstacles for it. Also, some systems require cabling and being confined to a certain area. Content: There is a need for the breakthrough content that will make it popular and take VR mainstream. Pokemon Go has in a way taken AR mainstream but there is still the need for similar content to be created for VR.

USES FOR VIRTUAL REALITY (VR) AND AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) The first distinction that must be done within the content is first off the in-home, smartphone based content for the consumer. Pokemon Go is an example of a “home” consumer content. The second is the most premium “out of home” content. For the “out of home” VR content, you have the B2C entertainment content which looks to build big expensive virtual worlds that the consumer would have to go to an arcade type place to consume for a fee. On the other hand there is also the B2B type content which has multiple applications such as medical, educational, hospitality, real estate, etc. Basically where it is needed and there is demand (vertical). In this sense the industry is going to try and capitalize on any possible application for the AR and VR content, not only entertainment. Although there will also be a lot of monetizing on innovation in the film business.

OVERVIEW OF VIRTUAL REALITY (VR) AND AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) When looking at the industries that are coming we find there are three main technologies that are related but different: Augmented Reality (AR) is the technology of imposing computer generated items over the real world to create the augmented reality. Extended Reality (XR) is the technology that combines virtual and real environments as well as human and machine interactions to create an extended reality Virtual Reality (VR) is the technology through a headset where the person is immersed in a virtual world, therefore having an experience in a virtual environment. VR is the most powerful storytelling medium to take the historically passive viewer and make them a participant that engages with the story and use more of their senses. VR is a disruptive technology which, although it has been labeled as an extension of storytelling in film or an advance to the film viewing experience, such as 3D, the reality is ...