VR - What's holding us up?

I've been thinking a lot recently about Virtual Reality. It's pretty bloody cool. The ability to put something on and be transported into a new dimension - be that a workplace setting, an immersive cinematic experience, a game, a lecture, the theatre - totally transforms the way in which we think about interaction. The radio helped us hear something that wasn't there, the TV helped us see it, and the phone (with an internet connection) helped to make the breadth portability of this new vision almost endless. And now we stand on the cusp of a new innovation, but so few people are adopting. Why?

There are always naysayers - the TV (even when the pricepoint came to be more affordable following World War II) was called an idiot-box and people didn't want one in their house, then when people thought about the possibility of missing out on global events, they changed their tunes. People couldn't understand why one might want to have a phone with that much processing power, or that big a screen, and yet the uptake of the smartphone has been astronomical. So what's with VR? I was watching an interview between Gary Vaynerchuk and Mark Zuckerberg and something struck me - the later stage early adopters - those critical to reach the tipping point and cross the chasm into the early majority - are constantly waiting for the next iteration. The tech is evolving so quickly that the thought of holding off just that little bit longer feels so rewarding - after all, they're not cheap!

I consider myself an early adopter. I've just picked up a Pixel 6 (it's fab) I've gone back and forth for a while about getting an Oura Ring, or a Whoop band. I've read the articles, I've compared the specs, and I've even bought a ring for a while before returning it within the money-back period. I thought that it wasn't quite good enough to justify the cost and the discomfort. 4 months later - Whoop have a new band and Oura have a ring, and I'm back considering whether I should buy one again.

There is a difference though, if I buy a Whoop, and they bring out a new band, they send it to me for free. I'm subscribing to the service, the band is just the hardware that gets me there. Oura (and Fitbit, a Garmin, and a slew of others) I'm buying the hardware whilst being forced to subscribe to the software to get the full feature set. With innovations in hardware coming so thick and fast, that is a seriously attractive upside. Why then has VR not jumped on this bandwagon?

I believe that not unlike Apple/Android, a huge amount of the revenue generated by VR will be with an Appstore - the ability to augment whatever reality (or Metaverse) you are in with new tools, dimensions, bells and whistles - the hardware will just be the doorway. If a manufacturer copied the hardware as a service model and owned the Appstore/portal to the virtual reality world - suddenly the barrier to entry seems far lower.

An Oculus Quest 2 is ￡299 right now with games up to ￡30 - if however buyers could 'subscribe' to the device for a low price, but paid to access the apps and games through their store knowing full-well that as the device gets upgraded you'll keep your games and apps, it would become much more palatable and more people would look to access the new frontier of VR.

I'm not saying that it's a way of making short-term revenue - far from it. It is a way of getting peoples feet in the door and tipping the scales to acceptance. By being the company that people look to as the most popular/easiest to access, it would pay dividends in the future.

VR has so much potential but brands are still hesitant to embrace it. It's perceived as expensive, very new, and with low uptake - therein lies a chicken and egg, but get the early majority to see less risk in the purchase and suddenly brands will clamour to be a part of the platform - further incentivising a single company to enter and try to saturate the market at lower than cost price.

Going back to my Whoop vs Oura dilemma, I don't want to buy a new ring, nor do I want a bracelet - I want a way to track my movement, health, sleep, heart rate and generally gain access to data I just think is kinda cool. Likewise it would be an error to think people want to buy VR hardware at this stage, it's too early for most to truly grasp the differences, and most won't have even handled a device before purchasing. Instead people are buying the ability to jump into a different dimension and experience things in a whole different way.

The risk that buyers perceive is that they may be investing in something that will soon become obsolete, and the world that their portal gives them access to could become quiet and empty. Knowing that their device will be replaced by a newer shinier model if only they keep up with a small monthly payment reduces that perceived risk.

I strongly believe that Meta is going to change the world as we know it (even more than they have done already). Yes, it may be scary to some, but so was the automobile, the microwave, the car, and WiFi. Regardless - change is coming, and the battle for the battleground is just getting started.