[Chemy JMHT]

Two years back when social media giant Facebook did a huge deal in the virtual reality world by acquiring Oculus for a whopping $2 billion, the Chinese firms started noticing the change and where the trend was heading and soon there were tons of startups all over for the purpose.

A lot of companies invested into the technology though soon the idea felt like crippling and things seemed to change for the bad very soon.



Between 2014 and 2015 there were about 200 plus virtual reality startups that got launched in a hope to make it big very soon, though over 90% of them failed or filed for bankruptcy. Most of them got buried under the competitive copycats that role out similar and cheaper products, while other found it hard to make a name when there were popular and well-established brands like Samsung, HTC or Oculus already there.

No doubt that the massive deal of Palmer Luckey, who was the founder of the Oculus firm motivated many teams to jump right into the market, though very soon due to the lack of innovation in the Industry for over an year, over 70 percent of the smartphone users in China responded with zero willingness to buy a virtual reality headset.

2015 alone brought more than 2.4 billion yuan that were raised, all by the virtual reality startups though this year there were only 1.54 billion that came forward, which clearly shows the negative trend.

This doesn’t mean that there won’t be any scope for VR in the coming years, in fact, it would surely continue to rise up the ladders in next 5 years.

Source: https://www.mobilescout.com/android/...-bankrupt.html

[pjs37]

There is only so much you can do with an empty VR shell before the market is saturated.

[Talkivr]

Yeah the market got saturated and name branded, really wont leave much on the bone for the rest. It's growing but the random unstable supply far outweighed the demand i think.

[Chemy JMHT]

I think the main problem is they didn't offer something exclusive or new, just more of the same without a new brand, so the people will prefer to go with a better brand instead of trying a new one.

[pjs37]

I think the main problem is they didn't offer something exclusive or new, just more of the same without a new brand, so the people will prefer to go with a better brand instead of trying a new one.

Well that's the problem people don't want to spend a lot of money on what is basically shells. Because they are reliant on the technology from Google and its Cardboard software they are more or less beholden to what Google does on that front I think. Maybe when this standards board puts out some standards in the mobile space they will be able to innovate more.

[Chemy JMHT]

Don't even want to spend half of the price if the brand isn't pretty known, I won't pay $300 for an unknown brand while it's more likely I will pay $600 for the Rift.

[GustavMahler]

So many companies that all offer basically the same thing-they are doomed to fail. That is clear. It is like that in business.

[Chemy JMHT]

Exactly, I bet the 10% which still alive are the ones which provided something new or exclusive or better.

[GustavMahler]

And even if they offered something better, I am not sure if they are able to market it well enough in order to succeed.
It am just speculating, but it may be possible that there are better headset than the Rift/Vive that we aren't really aware of because they are not owned by companies that have a lot of money for marketing.
Of course that big companies have more money for development though, so it is still very likely that the Rift and the Vive are the best headsets out there with all their research teams.

[pjs37]

And even if they offered something better, I am not sure if they are able to market it well enough in order to succeed.
It am just speculating, but it may be possible that there are better headset than the Rift/Vive that we aren't really aware of because they are not owned by companies that have a lot of money for marketing.
Of course that big companies have more money for development though, so it is still very likely that the Rift and the Vive are the best headsets out there with all their research teams.

It takes a lot of resources to develop and produce hardware. Especially one that is so limited in its market appeal. And you need to develop the software. One thing I constantly see is that these chinese manufacturers tend to skimp heavily on the software side even though the hardware is solid. I am sure we will get cheaper headsets someday but what they will work with is yet to be determined.

[GustavMahler]

I guess that the chinese companies are heavily copying things on the hardware side, so maybe they don't even require research-they just take a finished product from another high end company, examine it and copy many features.
So maybe it is worth it after all, since we may be getting almost the same product as the Rift, just at a lower price (and with problematic software as you said).
That said, I doubt that quality will be even close...

[pjs37]

I guess that the chinese companies are heavily copying things on the hardware side, so maybe they don't even require research-they just take a finished product from another high end company, examine it and copy many features.
So maybe it is worth it after all, since we may be getting almost the same product as the Rift, just at a lower price (and with problematic software as you said).
That said, I doubt that quality will be even close...

That is usually the case. The reason the Rift, PSVR, and the Vive do as well as they do is because they have strong community and developer support. Developers are not going to support 100 different headsets. Also quality hardware helps.

[Chemy JMHT]

The marketing is very important, but if any company does something impressive for sure a big company will want that technology, the best example is Oculus, was a crowfounded company which was acquired by Facebook because what it was doing was great at the time, Fove (which is not Chinese but just as example) is developing the eye tracking technology, so other companies (including some from China) starting doing the same and some of the Chinese companies were bought by bigger companies, so somehow we can say those companies survived.

[pjs37]

The marketing is very important, but if any company does something impressive for sure a big company will want that technology, the best example is Oculus, was a crowfounded company which was acquired by Facebook because what it was doing was great at the time, Fove (which is not Chinese but just as example) is developing the eye tracking technology, so other companies (including some from China) starting doing the same and some of the Chinese companies were bought by bigger companies, so somehow we can say those companies survived.

Eh I suspect its more of how do you market a plastic shell with cheap lenses being sold at a race to the bottom on price and remain relevant? We didn't see much if anything in the way of a viable alternative to the primary choices now and it sounds like they more or less were trying to go after the Chinese market which sounds like they aren't sold yet on the technology. Maybe they need some more VR cafes!

[Chemy JMHT]

Yes I'm sure more of those 90℅ are just those cheap cardboard copies and from that 10℅ I'm sure most are to cheap cardboard copies, but I think in both groups should be some developments.

[krisguy]

Here's the big issue: All of these companies were making devices that did not play well with established channels for content, or were using Google APIs and then locking down content. Most of these companies had bad business models and no real plan. I'm glad they burned because the quality is going to be key for VR and AR adoption. Fly-by-night companies will kill it before it starts.

[Chemy JMHT]

I'm not happy but I agree with this natural evolution process which discards mostly weak companies.