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Think back to the middle and latter half of the 1990s. Bill Clinton was lurching from one White House scandal to another, Nelson Mandela was bringing global attention to South Africa with his presidency, and the England Cricket Team couldn’t win to save their lives. Virtual reality (VR) headsets were also touted as being the next big thing.
We’re not just talking about VR computer games, either; analysts – serious people who knew what they were talking about, not just anyone – widely predicted that we’d soon be living our lives through VR. Today, the only place we’re likely to find anything to do with VR is if we head to the amusement arcades at the nearest beach, or go to YouTube and find old episodes of VR Troopers. Yes, that cartoon actually happened; it wasn’t a dream.
Where did the VR dream go wrong?
We Have Eyes
If it sounds a simple answer, that’s because it is. After years of development, and who knows how many millions of dollars being committed to VR, people suddenly realized that we don’t actually need it.
The growth and popularity of the internet around this time probably had something to do with VR’s failure to ignite, too. Why sit with a ridiculous headset on for hours at a time when you can sit in front of a screen and do everything electronically?
Today, we have to watch shows such as American Inventor to laugh at things that solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Look back 15 years, and you find one that people actually thought would be big.
The Cost
VR equipment was ridiculously expensive. Perhaps the biggest proof of this is that the VR equipment that is available today is still retailing at extortionate prices; surely, there cannot be anyone buying this stuff?
Some people who likes VR back in the 90s were hanging on for the price to drop, like it inevitably does six months after a games console launch. Due to the cost associated with development and the need for companies selling VR to make a decent margin, the price never fell.
No Big Name Involvement
You can argue VR failed because no big companies got involved with it, but not getting involved was probably the smartest thing these companies ever did. We’ll never know for sure, but you have to think that some developers at least picked up the phone to Bill Gates, when at the time Microsoft were the company that everyone wanted to replicate or be involved with.
Even the companies that did try something different ended up with terrible products. Who remembers the Sony Glasstron?
No Applications
VR was the next big thing, but no one actually bothered to seriously develop anything outside of games; and even they looked like half-baked efforts to merely pay lip service to the ‘emergence’ of VR.
We were going to work with VR headsets, operations would be performed using VR, and we’d all have to have one to live in the modern world. In fairness, VR does play a small role in car manufacturing today, but then the industry would do perfectly well without it, and our cars wouldn’t fall apart as soon as we turn the ignition.
Is there Hope?
As much as we’re calling VR a spectacular failure, we should remember that 3D technology was a huge non-starter around the same time, and is hugely popular today. That said, it would appear that for VR, the time for it to be even half-relevant has already gone.
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