Virtual Reality Aims for the Mobile Phone
[Philip Lelyveld comment: The point that 'this' technology must articulate why it is valuable, useful, and important soon, or it will die from the over-hype before it is established, was also said about 3D TV. Its deja vu all over again.]
A smartphone-based virtual reality headset from Samsung and Oculus VR could make the technology more accessible, but it also demonstrates a new set of challenges.
Max Cohen, head of mobile at Oculus VR, the virtual reality startup bought by Facebook this year for $2 billion, is unequivocal: the dominant way most consumers will experience virtual reality will be on mobile devices.
“PCs and dedicated machines will always have more power, but at some point, graphics become ‘good enough’ on a mobile device and none of that matters anymore,” Cohen says. “Will it be in two years’ time? Five years? Ten? I don’t know. But it will happen. You can’t surpass the beauty of being untethered.”
The resurgence of the technology—more than two decades after the initial virtual reality rush of the late 1980s—is being driven in part by the giddy excitement of enthusiasts. The shift to mobile VR may be happening before the true value of the technology has been established. There are many interesting games and applications in development, but nothing that demonstrates VR’s necessity, or why it should propagate to new platforms with such urgency. Gear VR’s challenge is to not only clear the technological hurdles but also demonstrate the broader usefulness of immersive virtual worlds.