Why Virtual Reality Will Change the Way We Consume Media

Similar to 3D cinema, the roots of Virtual Reality are many decades in the past, specially in the early nineties with some of the first versions of VR headsets coming to market. Naturally they failed the high expectations set by movies like Thron, which resulted in the industry moving to the less complex rendering of projected 3d on 2d screens.

Meanwhile stereoscopic 3D television made a comeback the last years, but didn’t fulfill its expectations in terms of sales and consumer reach, to a point where it is in decline again, and replaced by 4k marketing to sell new television sets.

Now with the 2014 version of Virtual Reality we are facing a remarkable breaking point – not only did the technology catch up to create a truly immerse virtual illusion, other areas of technology innovations are all contributing to the experience. 4k becomes a lot more attractive when used in VR headset technology due to the close distance to the screen, and in parallel smartphone displays are constantly increasing in resolution.

It is the perfect storm – the pioneer of next generation VR experience, Oculus, got acquired by Facebook for 2 billion even before launch of the commercial product, Sony is working on their own PS4 VR headset, Project Morpheus, Samsung showing its first VR prototypes that use their smartphones, and Google Cardboard is showcasing a simplistic approach to VR. It is a vision that gained a lot of momentum. With its success, it will trigger the revival of a whole industry – more demand for new forms of content, more demand for hardware, and finally an experience that gives consumers a good reason to upgrade.

A technology not only made for gaming, as one of the most popular Oculus Rift VR applications shows.

The use cases on a sudden become very broad – e-commerce, social, a virtual movie night in a cinema with remotely located friends. A revolution in consumer experience is about to begin – are you ready player one?