I don't think Google has been bad when it comes to hardware. They are not a hardware company but they try to do interesting things. They were way ahead of the c

I don't think Google has been bad when it comes to hardware. They are not a hardware company but they try to do interesting things. They were way ahead of the curve with Glass which was technically solid for the time but marketed horribly. They were the first to nudge VR towards mobile/mass adoption with cardboard...an idea that quite frankly I don't think many companies would even think about trying. I think they have good teams for both AR and VR in place and they are committed to both. With AR they are probably back to wait and see but I doubt they are not thinking about/working on a Glass followup. This VR google is a direct iteration on cardboard. I think their message is pretty clearly "we think people have cell phones and they ought to be good enough for first gen VR experiences". There's plenty of non-hardware issues to work on when it comes to VR so I sympathize with the position (I did preorder the Sony VR which should arrive soon as I think that's a potential hardware sweetspot). Pixel I know nothing about and have no opinion about but they have been tremendously helpful in getting better cell phones into our hands from the software side by working on Android. I actually think the modern Android experience is quite a bit nicer than the modern iPhone experience. I think it's a bit silly to expect a (software) company to have spectacular launch after spectacular launch. Those aren't easy things, failure is the most likely outcome. Google does seem to be invested in the right spaces and certainly seems to have smart people working for them. Edit: And obviously it's a great prototyping tool if it'll be supported by the major engines. I'll gladly take a more comfortable cardboard to quickly prototype some VR ideas. As a bonus I get it on less powerful hardware so I have a good "worst case"