A Virtually Changing World
Steven Alexander
Digital Solutions Director for the UK & Ireland and Director of Transformation & Digital Insights at WSP in the UK
Virtual reality’s impact on the modern world
Gaming aside, a growing number of industries, including film, retail, health, travel and real estate, are beginning to realise the potential of virtual reality.
Take the sports and live events market for instance. How many times have you tried to buy tickets for an event that has sold out in a matter of minutes?
Virtual reality and 360-degree video are heading in such a way that viewers will soon be able to experience a gig, festival, sporting event via live VR.
Goldman Sachs’ 2016 report into virtual reality estimates that the live events VR/AR market will be worth $4.1bn by 2025.
The investment banking giants have also likened the projected rise of VR to the past PC and smartphone revolutions, stating:
“As the technology advances, price points decline, and an entire new marketplace of applications (both business and consumer) hit the market, we believe VR/AR has the potential to spawn a multibillion-dollar industry, and possibly be as game changing as the advent of the PC.”
So far, VR’s Achilles heel has been that it is too expensive for the mainstream market.
Headsets by HTC and Oculus, whom Facebook acquired back in 2014 in a deal worth two billion dollars, all come with a hefty price tag.
Two cost-effective alternatives are the Samsung Gear and Google Cardboard which can be used with your smartphone.
PlayStation has also made in ways with a more affordable model for existing gamers and demand for these less advanced models has been rife.
According to the same report, it took 48 hours for Amazon and BestBuy stocks of the Samsung Gear to sell out when priced at $99.
And with more apps and an inevitable release from Apple expected, it’s only a matter of time before the VR dam breaks.
That is why we are investing so much of our energy into this market and why we are at the FORE of this gamechanger……