Image: HTC
2016 is slated to be the year for Virtual Reality or VR headsets.
2016 is slated to be the year for Virtual Reality or VR headsets. These are those very headsets that have been in testing for a more than a year now and聽manufacturers like Sony, HTC and many even Facebook would like to cash in on this year.Virtual Reality headsets like聽HTC Vive, Sony鈥檚 PlayStation VR, Facebook鈥檚 Oculus 鈥淩ift鈥� and Samsung鈥檚 鈥淩ink鈥� will soon be available for sale delivering an immersive entertainment experience that is mainly focussed on gaming.
Clearly, we can expect to get plenty of updates from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2016, which takes place this week in Las Vegas. Bloomberg claims that聽more than 40 exhibitors will be demonstrating聽VR products, which is a 77 percent increase from 2015. But as thepoints out, there is a a bit of a problem.
Virtual Reality headsets like聽HTC Vive, Sony鈥檚 PlayStation VR, Facebook鈥檚 Oculus 鈥淩ift鈥� and Samsung鈥檚 鈥淩ink鈥� will soon be available for sale delivering an immersive entertainment experience that is mainly focussed on gaming.
Nvidia, who is the largest maker of computer graphics chips points out聽that while VR headsets will be out this year, the problem lies in the fact that just 13 million PCs have the power to fuel a Virtual Reality (VR) experience.
And 13 million is a small number. According to research firm Gartner, the high-end PC’s that are required to run a VR聽experience form just 1 percent of the 1.43 billion PCs expected to be in use globally in 2016.
What all of the above implies, is that while we all will be craving for a virtual reality experience, few of us will be able to experience because owners will need to upgrade their systems. This applies more to PC, than anything else as a system incapable of delivering the required frame-rate聽in a VR experience is bound to make the user suffer from motion sickness. Current PC gaming systems aim for 30 fps while some console titles gun for 60 fps VR on the other hand requires 90 fps as the minimum and that is with not one, but two screens (one for each eye).
Sony PlayStation VR Image: Sony
As for, it will be聽used in conjunction with its PlayStation 4 video game console. Then again, afrom Polygon聽also confirms that聽headset will connect into a unit about the size of a Wii before being plugged into the main console unit. So while the PS4 has the chops to run the games, it will need additional hardware to interact with VR headset.
Still then, VR adoption is said to be big in 2016. IHS Research聽estimates that 7 million VR headsets will be in use by the end of 2016 which is a pretty big number. 聽Fuelling all of those VR experiences is said to be VR content which includes gaming and other entertainment content, 聽an area that Sony seems to have its eyes on. And producing content for a smaller VR audience is going to be tricky聽as CEO, Mark Zuckerberg highlighted during a recent earnings call,聽鈥淭here already is some very good content,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut until there are millions of units out in the market, I don鈥檛 expect that to be a big industry for folks to be investing a huge amount in 2016.鈥�. Clearly, investing in VR content聽for the聽current year is another debatable topic altogether, so one expect a slow start.
Tags: Facebook Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Sony PlayStation VR, Virtual reality, vr