The Verge: As recently as last year, you could position virtual reality headsets sort of like runway fashion designs: as abstractly stylish and futuristic things that the vast majority of people will never have to even consider purchasing, and could therefore admire from afar.
In 2016, that’s changed. VR might not be mainstream, but companies are starting to pitch it that way.
4 comments:
The title of this article is a little misleading, it doesn't talk at all about how Sony is trying to sell VR or even about the new headset itself. All the article does is critique Sony's informational videos on how to use their new headset, which isn't very helpful. Yeah VR has some problems with it still, but the new Sony headset is pretty incredible. I had the opportunity to try it out at the recent Weird Realities conference, and I was blown away at how much better it was then the Oculus's and cardboard clones I had tried on before it. Sony is on its way to selling VR to the masses, and the marketing campaign will be the reviews and word of mouth of people who have used it, not a trilogy of instructional videos on how to set up the product.
I think the author of this article is trying to use humor to point out the short-comings of the VR headset and how "weird" the viewing experience is. However, it is hard for me to take this article seriously, because it kind of feels like something I can find on Buzzfeed, and it fails to point out the progress that Sony's has made and the genius of its product design. The VR viewing experience is indeed weird. It is new type of entertainment that not a lot of people are used to. It requires high concentration of all senses, since one is literally detached from the real reality with a headset on (which is kind of the whole point). It may be hard to set up, but honestly, DVD's and VHS's are pretty complicated too. This video from Sony in fact successfully visualized how to set up a VR home system and enjoy it, and this visualization is the first step towards popularization. I think the public will happily embrace the experience once the pricing of hardwares decrease to an acceptable level.
I wish this article had mentioned more practical facts about the VR system, like the cost and perhaps how many people were buying them. I used the Oculus Rift last year, and it was crazy. So crazy. In five years they won't be crazy anymore, but right now, I am blown away by that technology. The growing VR in the entertainment industry is almost startling, it feels like the final frontier because it's always been a dream! In all those "future" movies of the 80s they have Virtual Reality, and now we're here! It's too much for me! Also probably literally too much, as I bet they're ridiculously expensive.
I wonder at what rate VR technology will be adapted by the market. I just downloaded this Japanese app called Abyssrium, and you take care of cute little fish in a coral reef. Pretty normal, right? Well, it has a VR option for some reason. I guess it would be cool to see all my little clown fish in virtual reality, but I could also go to an aquarium for like, twelve dollars. Not impressed, Japan.
Okay well this article is more about the effectiveness of different marketing techniques in advertisements than virtual reality but I guess that is fine. The whole article was just kind of making jokes about Playstation's ad, which is fine, but kind of annoying and not really what I expected, even though it is sort of what the title states. I think virtual reality is amazing and obviously there are some kinks to work out but it is an extremely rapidly expanding industry. I went to Cedar Point in Ohio this summer, and they were testing a virtual reality roller coaster. By that I do not mean one of those things at Universal Studios in Orlando where you sit in a car and they bounce you up and down while you wear a headset and you're supposed to think you're falling off a building or whatever. In this ride, there was already a roller coaster made, and they created a small story to make the ride better (since it was a pretty lame roller coaster in and of itself). They then had the ride testers put on VR headset and you could look around while ON the ride and see the whole world rushing by you! It was so cool! Virtual reality is expanding so fast and I can not wait to see where it goes next.
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