5 ms·

The technology to make a broadly appealing product is a lot further away than 2 years. With the Vision Pro, they made the VR equivalent of the Apple Newton. The

by gary_0 2y ago

The technology to make a broadly appealing product is a lot further away than 2 years. With the Vision Pro, they made the VR equivalent of the Apple Newton. The "iPhone moment" is a long way away (assuming VR will ever even have mainstream appeal, which is definitely not guaranteed). The current tech available is just too clunky, slow, power-hungry, and expensive. And it just plain needs to look cooler than a weird pair of ski goggles.

rowanG077 2y ago
How doesn't vr have mainstream appeal right now? There are a ton of headsets available. It was 23 billion dollar market in 2023.
- cpldcpu 2y ago
  >It was 23 billion dollar market in 2023. How is that possible? Assuming an ASP of $333 USD (which is too high), this would be >70mio sold headsets?
  - rowanG077 2y ago
    That's possible because it's a mainstream market.
    - cedilla 2y ago
      If the $23 billion number is correct it's about 8-12% of the gaming market. Less market share (and less revenue) than 3D TVs had in its heyday (about 12 years ago). Yet you can't even get a new 3D TV today. So just having a big number doesn't mean anything for the future. Statista has about 11 million sold VR headsets sold last year. That's not mainstream, that's a niche.
      - rowanG077 2y ago
        MacBooks sold 21.9 million last year. I doubt I see anyone calling that niche.
        justinator 2y ago
        But MacBooks have sold in the millions/year now for essentially 33 years,
        dijit 2y ago
        I dont want to argue semantics, but a broad statement like this implies that all units sold are still in service. These things follow a curve, for laptops theres steep drop offs at 3, 5 and 8 years. 98% of 3 year old devices 60% of 5 year old devices 5% of 8y old devices. So you’d need to apply a sliding scale. Macbooks feel pretty ubiquitous, you cant use the entire 33y run of Macbooks to imply that the demographic is an order of magnitude more than what the parent implied.
        justinator 2y ago
        Not semantics, but if you think of examples of at least pop culture that we think of as being in the mainstream, it's about staying power of the genre. For example let's take Rock 'n Roll. When it really became popular -- say Elvis gyrating those hips -- he alone sold 10 million records in a year. And critics then talked of it as a fad that would die out. Elvis would continue to record, continue to sell millions, but eventually - well he died, but rock 'n roll the idea, the genre lived on. In fact rock 'n roll songs were written about how it will always rock 'n roll in defience of the "fad" label. And ~fifty/sixty years later, there are still rock 'n roll bands selling millions/records/year. Not Elvis but the genre remains. We can't quite compare records sales now anymore because physical media just isn't sold really anymore. That "staying power" isn't something VR headsets have (yet). Laptops have that. Critics say that VR is a fad and I think that's more what they mean. They say more critical things as well, but that's sort of the gist. Another example is the automobile: “[Motor cars] have the appearance of a fad, and an extremely dirty, dusty, inconvenient fad… These crude impracticable machines are unlikely for many years to displace in the Englishman’s affection a fine trotting horse and a smart trap.” -- Anonymous Horserider It's too soon to tell with VR headsets, but their limited capability, high price, and well: relative usefulessness seems not in their favor.
  - iwontberude 2y ago
    If you look at Meta's sales numbers it looks like they've sold 20 million headsets alone as of a couple months ago, so maybe its close but not quite? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374031
    - cpldcpu 2y ago
      https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-world... This seems to be inconsistent with these numbers
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rickdeckard 2y ago
  If that's true the markets outside of US would have to account for more than 30x of US sales, which I wouldn't expect to happen until every 2nd Chinese household has one... "Sales of VR headsets and augmented reality glasses in the U.S. plummeted nearly 40% to $664 million in 2023, as of Nov. 25, according to data shared with CNBC by research firm Circana." [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/vr-market-shrinking-as-meta-pours-billions-of-dollars-into-metaverse.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/vr-market-shrinking-as-meta-...
jillesvangurp 2y ago
I think it's not a hardware problem but a content problem. People are shooting for perfect with the hardware and meanwhile nobody is really bothering with the content much. It's all limited to games, 3D movies, and some gimmicky things that are a combination of awkward and not that exciting. Apple has some interesting conceptual stuff but in the end you end up using a lot of 2D stuff that gets projected in front of you. It's nice but not really that valuable. The problem with the vision pro isn't that it's not good enough but that good enough content to justify the expense is lacking. It would be more popular if it were cheaper. But even the Meta Quest, which is a lot cheaper, has the same problem so far.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  The content will come once the hardware is cheap and sold in volume. Generative AI will help by making it much cheaper to generate 3D content. Current models are still very rough, in the future we will have text-to-HD 3D asset.
  - jillesvangurp 2y ago
    Why would you buy the hardware though? The Meta Quest is cheap already (cheaper than a high end smartphone). And some people buy it of course but it's not really creating a new market of content generation so far. It's too much of a niche market for that.
- quartesixte 2y ago
  And with growing rumblings of people wanting to be “offline” more and more, promotions of “digital well-being/health”, and GenZ and GenAlphas’ increasing appetite with tactile, physical objects (with 90s/early 00s flair), I don’t see how “stick a screen to your face even closer and live completely digitally” is going to do well. Not until there is an absolute killer app/use case for VR Software. Games that allow for player movement based on thought-input? Social hangouts that are seamless but also private (the groupchat cannot be spoken aloud!)? We need better hardware too. Seamless AR/VR transition with featherweight hardware that does not induce motion sickness if put on or calibrated incorrectly all for $999. Yeah we got a LONG way to go. A bit of a tangent but as much as “the children” are terminally online, I get the feeling the GenX/Millennial product people have a slight misread on what that looks like.
detourdog 2y ago
It’s a chicken and egg problem. The Mac 128 was considered useless by experts and useful for people who only knew typewriters. I think the vision pro exists simple to introduce the user interface. I don’t expect to cret anything with mass appeal with the vision pro. I want to experience the environment to experience it and see how the experience can be leveraged. The physical form factor is a big hurdle. They may as well improve it by 10x before version 2.

by gary_0 2y ago

rowanG077 2y ago

How doesn't vr have mainstream appeal right now? There are a ton of headsets available. It was 23 billion dollar market in 2023.

cpldcpu 2y ago
>It was 23 billion dollar market in 2023. How is that possible? Assuming an ASP of $333 USD (which is too high), this would be >70mio sold headsets?
- rowanG077 2y ago
  That's possible because it's a mainstream market.
  - cedilla 2y ago
    If the $23 billion number is correct it's about 8-12% of the gaming market. Less market share (and less revenue) than 3D TVs had in its heyday (about 12 years ago). Yet you can't even get a new 3D TV today. So just having a big number doesn't mean anything for the future. Statista has about 11 million sold VR headsets sold last year. That's not mainstream, that's a niche.
    - rowanG077 2y ago
      MacBooks sold 21.9 million last year. I doubt I see anyone calling that niche.
      - justinator 2y ago
        But MacBooks have sold in the millions/year now for essentially 33 years,
        dijit 2y ago
        I dont want to argue semantics, but a broad statement like this implies that all units sold are still in service. These things follow a curve, for laptops theres steep drop offs at 3, 5 and 8 years. 98% of 3 year old devices 60% of 5 year old devices 5% of 8y old devices. So you’d need to apply a sliding scale. Macbooks feel pretty ubiquitous, you cant use the entire 33y run of Macbooks to imply that the demographic is an order of magnitude more than what the parent implied.
        justinator 2y ago
        Not semantics, but if you think of examples of at least pop culture that we think of as being in the mainstream, it's about staying power of the genre. For example let's take Rock 'n Roll. When it really became popular -- say Elvis gyrating those hips -- he alone sold 10 million records in a year. And critics then talked of it as a fad that would die out. Elvis would continue to record, continue to sell millions, but eventually - well he died, but rock 'n roll the idea, the genre lived on. In fact rock 'n roll songs were written about how it will always rock 'n roll in defience of the "fad" label. And ~fifty/sixty years later, there are still rock 'n roll bands selling millions/records/year. Not Elvis but the genre remains. We can't quite compare records sales now anymore because physical media just isn't sold really anymore. That "staying power" isn't something VR headsets have (yet). Laptops have that. Critics say that VR is a fad and I think that's more what they mean. They say more critical things as well, but that's sort of the gist. Another example is the automobile: “[Motor cars] have the appearance of a fad, and an extremely dirty, dusty, inconvenient fad… These crude impracticable machines are unlikely for many years to displace in the Englishman’s affection a fine trotting horse and a smart trap.” -- Anonymous Horserider It's too soon to tell with VR headsets, but their limited capability, high price, and well: relative usefulessness seems not in their favor.
- iwontberude 2y ago
  If you look at Meta's sales numbers it looks like they've sold 20 million headsets alone as of a couple months ago, so maybe its close but not quite? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374031
  - cpldcpu 2y ago
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-world... This seems to be inconsistent with these numbers
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rickdeckard 2y ago
If that's true the markets outside of US would have to account for more than 30x of US sales, which I wouldn't expect to happen until every 2nd Chinese household has one... "Sales of VR headsets and augmented reality glasses in the U.S. plummeted nearly 40% to $664 million in 2023, as of Nov. 25, according to data shared with CNBC by research firm Circana." [1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/vr-market-shrinking-as-meta-pours-billions-of-dollars-into-metaverse.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/vr-market-shrinking-as-meta-...

jillesvangurp 2y ago

I think it's not a hardware problem but a content problem. People are shooting for perfect with the hardware and meanwhile nobody is really bothering with the content much. It's all limited to games, 3D movies, and some gimmicky things that are a combination of awkward and not that exciting. Apple has some interesting conceptual stuff but in the end you end up using a lot of 2D stuff that gets projected in front of you. It's nice but not really that valuable. The problem with the vision pro isn't that it's not good enough but that good enough content to justify the expense is lacking. It would be more popular if it were cheaper. But even the Meta Quest, which is a lot cheaper, has the same problem so far.

zarzavat 2y ago
The content will come once the hardware is cheap and sold in volume. Generative AI will help by making it much cheaper to generate 3D content. Current models are still very rough, in the future we will have text-to-HD 3D asset.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  Why would you buy the hardware though? The Meta Quest is cheap already (cheaper than a high end smartphone). And some people buy it of course but it's not really creating a new market of content generation so far. It's too much of a niche market for that.
quartesixte 2y ago
And with growing rumblings of people wanting to be “offline” more and more, promotions of “digital well-being/health”, and GenZ and GenAlphas’ increasing appetite with tactile, physical objects (with 90s/early 00s flair), I don’t see how “stick a screen to your face even closer and live completely digitally” is going to do well. Not until there is an absolute killer app/use case for VR Software. Games that allow for player movement based on thought-input? Social hangouts that are seamless but also private (the groupchat cannot be spoken aloud!)? We need better hardware too. Seamless AR/VR transition with featherweight hardware that does not induce motion sickness if put on or calibrated incorrectly all for $999. Yeah we got a LONG way to go. A bit of a tangent but as much as “the children” are terminally online, I get the feeling the GenX/Millennial product people have a slight misread on what that looks like.

detourdog 2y ago

It’s a chicken and egg problem. The Mac 128 was considered useless by experts and useful for people who only knew typewriters. I think the vision pro exists simple to introduce the user interface. I don’t expect to cret anything with mass appeal with the vision pro. I want to experience the environment to experience it and see how the experience can be leveraged. The physical form factor is a big hurdle. They may as well improve it by 10x before version 2.