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I'm extremely skeptical as well, but the fact that Facebook, Apple, and Google are all dumping tons of money to develop some form of it makes me convinced that

I'm extremely skeptical as well, but the fact that Facebook, Apple, and Google are all dumping tons of money to develop some form of it makes me convinced that its an upcoming market that has the potential to hit big time. Half the stuff I see people do online goes against any logic I ever thought people would do. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes off for something completely out of left field. Like what is the weirdest, dumbest thing you could think of doing with vr technology, for example - watching 2d movies with your friends, or playing minesweeper, and I bet that's going to be the thing that makes it hit big.

Vinceo 6y ago
Haha, love this comment. Exactly my thinking as well:)
rsynnott 6y ago
> but the fact that Facebook, Apple, and Google are all dumping tons of money to develop some form of it makes me convinced that its an upcoming market that has the potential to hit big time. Eh, I'd be cautious. Remember the late 90s, when the day when you'd primarily control your computer by talking to it was imminent? Or (also in the late 90s) when PDAs were going to take over the world? Or that thing where you'd have documents embedded in other documents and no applications as such? Or... tech has a lot of fads, is all I'm saying, and often significant resources are spent on them. Some of them go somewhere. Some eventually emerge in a massively different form (PDA -> smartphone). Some just die, though.
solatic 6y ago
> but the fact that Facebook, Apple, and Google are all dumping tons of money to develop some form of it makes me convinced that its an upcoming market that has the potential to hit big time. Except that this belies the politics of BigCos. The BigCos are throwing money at it because a) everybody else is doing it, and nobody wants to get left behind, so it's a good bet for executives to fund b) it's a shiny new thing, so it's an interesting project that will get adoption internally from people at the lower levels who will be eager to transfer to and work on the project. Neither of those have anything to do with whether or not there's actually a sizable market for it, but we won't know whether a market will appear for it as the market potential is nearly entirely dependent upon execution (i.e. early VR didn't sell well due to low resolution, motion sickness from low refresh rates, lack of a killer app, etc.). It's pretty easy to throw money at projects. Coming up with something that's good enough to sell at mass-market volumes is an entirely different question.
mycall 6y ago
Bigscreen VR is exactly what you are talking about.

Vinceo 6y ago

Haha, love this comment. Exactly my thinking as well:)

rsynnott 6y ago

> but the fact that Facebook, Apple, and Google are all dumping tons of money to develop some form of it makes me convinced that its an upcoming market that has the potential to hit big time. Eh, I'd be cautious. Remember the late 90s, when the day when you'd primarily control your computer by talking to it was imminent? Or (also in the late 90s) when PDAs were going to take over the world? Or that thing where you'd have documents embedded in other documents and no applications as such? Or... tech has a lot of fads, is all I'm saying, and often significant resources are spent on them. Some of them go somewhere. Some eventually emerge in a massively different form (PDA -> smartphone). Some just die, though.

solatic 6y ago

> but the fact that Facebook, Apple, and Google are all dumping tons of money to develop some form of it makes me convinced that its an upcoming market that has the potential to hit big time. Except that this belies the politics of BigCos. The BigCos are throwing money at it because a) everybody else is doing it, and nobody wants to get left behind, so it's a good bet for executives to fund b) it's a shiny new thing, so it's an interesting project that will get adoption internally from people at the lower levels who will be eager to transfer to and work on the project. Neither of those have anything to do with whether or not there's actually a sizable market for it, but we won't know whether a market will appear for it as the market potential is nearly entirely dependent upon execution (i.e. early VR didn't sell well due to low resolution, motion sickness from low refresh rates, lack of a killer app, etc.). It's pretty easy to throw money at projects. Coming up with something that's good enough to sell at mass-market volumes is an entirely different question.

mycall 6y ago

Bigscreen VR is exactly what you are talking about.