Of all the fantastic innovations Star Trek promised us when it first aired in 1966, there is one that has truly stayed in our minds: The Holodeck. Infinite worlds out of a machine, completely realistic to the human eye, generated within seconds. In 1974, the year of its first appearance, this technology seemed to be light years away. However, with high-end Virtual Reality (VR) devices hitting the mass market later this year, this might not be true anymore. VR is nothing new – the technology was first tested in 1982. But today the overall conditions for success of this technology are far more favorable than ever before – for three main reasons:
Resourceful market players:
Five giants are going to enter the market for VR lenses in very short time frame: HTC and Valve (known as highly successful game developer and operator of one of the largest digital stores for videogames worldwide) cooperate to bring “HTC Vive” to stores in holiday season 2015. Oculus, which is backed by Microsoft and Facebook, is expected to launch its VR device “Oculus Rift” early 2016. Sony launches its “Playstation VR” anytime first half 2016, as additional input device for its successful Playstation 4. Besides, smaller providers, such as Starbreeze, launch individual VR products in the near future. With so much financial investment and market power, VR has a strong starting position.
Top-notch hardware in our
living rooms:
In its early days, VR was something for nerds with access
to high power technology devices at universities. With technological
advancements over the last years and falling IT equipment prices, this is no
longer the case. Today, the necessary hardware to build realistic three dimensional
worlds is available for use at home in your living room. For Playstation VR, a
Playstation 4 is sufficient. Both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive run with currently
available high-powered personal computers. Even though the virtual worlds do
not yet reach the graphic quality of standard video games, PC based systems
will especially profit from the next innovation cycles and thus offer the same
graphic quality in only a few years.
Versatility:
VR is not only conquering normal video games, but also
other domains in entertainment. “The
VOID”, a Salt Lake City based theme park is about to open next summer. The park,
built into an old cinema, offers a physical environment of 60 times 60 feet.
Visitors are equipped with VR headsets and vests and then enter the Virtual
World. What “The VOID” does then, however, is it blends its virtual realities
over its physical realities. As a consequence, visitors walk through a virtual
world, but are still able to interact with physical objects, such as doors and
displays. Furthermore, the VOID uses ambience effects such as sounds and real
rain in order to offer a complete immersive experience.
The German theme park “Freizeitpark Rust” cooperates with
University of Kaiserslautern in building the first “VRcoaster”. The university created
a virtual rollercoaster ride perfectly aligned with the real ride. As a
consequence, visitors see a virtual world, but feel a real rollercoaster ride. This
way the human eye receives virtual information, while the rest of the body
feels the g-forces and the wind in their face for yet another fully immersive VR
experience.
And all this is only the beginning: Why not check all the
exotic beaches you always wanted to see before you even set foot in a plane?
Why not visit Ancient Rome in history lessons and becoming witness to how
Brutus kills Caesar? Why not play a game of golf on Mars instead of the same
old golf course? Why not follow the soccer world championship finals out of the
eyes of Lionel Messi? Why not have a business meeting with everyone in the same
virtual room, yet thousands of real world kilometers apart? The possibilities
for reasonable and feasible uses of VR are endless.
So all in all, this time VR is very likely to become a
huge success. The number of VR users expected to increase to 171m worldwide by
2018. In the same year, VR revenues are estimated to reach 4.67bn $ in hardware
sales, and 4.65bn $ in software sales. With the support from relevant market
players on one side, and endless technological opportunities on the other, VR
has the chance to be the next big thing. Like smartphones, which were a true
technological revolution, VR will become integrated into our everyday lives,
change a lot and make us wonder how we could have ever lived without it.
Holodecks might not be here yet. But with VR, they are
just around the corner.
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