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Oculus Quest is the new leader in premium / standalone VR and looks like the ultimate expression of the VR 1.0 market. Combining Oculus Go quality graphics with integrated tracking and tracking controllers, it offers Facebook the most compelling version of the current state of knowledge.
But that's the challenge of Oculus Quest – it's the current the state of the art. While it may well sell to a passionate market, it may not be the expected mass market catalyst for VR when it launches next year. It could take another two years, with future generations of autonomous VR headsets from Facebook, HTC, Microsoft and others around 2020/2021.
The future of virtual reality
Digi-Capital's market forecast predicted Facebook's recent announcements, along with the impact and timing of the high-end stand-alone RV, including Oculus Quest (then called Santa Cruz). Based on concrete data for device sales, attachment rates and attrition rates (number of units are no longer used), the total installed base of VR (units active and non-sales) on all platforms (console, PC, mobile, standalone)) could take until the end of 2022 to reach 50 million units worldwide.
Above: RV sales (units)
Premium VR, in its current form, still had a deep but narrow base of base players, due to the high cost and relatively low usability of the users. High-quality standalone VR technology addresses some installation and usability issues (especially freedom of movement), but is not a quick fix for market challenges.
Above: VR installed base (units)
Oculus Quest, with its $ 399, is the third and arguably the best entry into the market for high-end standalone VR headsets after the $ 399 Lenovo Mirage Solo and the $ 600 HTC Vive Focus. Like these headsets, it has both advantages and disadvantages compared to cousins attached to virtual reality: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive / Pro, Windows VR and Sony Playstation VR.
Advantages and disadvantages of Oculus Quest
Oculus Quest does not require the use of an expensive PC / GPU or external sensors. As a stand-alone unit, it has no wires to restrict the user's movements. In-house tracking gives Oculus Quest a large gaming floor and unparalleled image quality (with the exception of some high-end competitors) and state-of-the-art controllers .
But it also means that Oculus Quest does not have an expensive PC / GPU, with limited processing power compared to captive VR. The duration of use is limited by the battery life, although relatively short VR session times may be a problem. The base model has 64 GB of memory, which limits the amount of content that the device can hold at a time.
Aside from these differences, Oculus Quest shares the same challenges as the rest of the virtual reality industry.
The main challenges of VR
VR user dynamics have been limited, partly because of lack of plurality, but mainly because of user attrition. One of the main challenges of virtual reality is entertainment (games, video), which, despite its superior immersion, can be performed more easily and cheaply on existing devices. In addition, the social aspect of virtual reality has not changed: AltspaceVR was the largest virtual reality social application with only 35,000 active users per month when Microsoft acquired Altspace. Thus, although there are active core VR users, many casual users do not stay long on the platform.
Many VR headsets are used less than once a day, with a significant proportion every few days, weekly or even monthly. The product / market assessments of our User Strategy team for startups have always shown that momentum, even when users like their VR apps. The words "evenings", "weekends" and "holidays" appear frequently, especially for demographic users under 34 years of age. Not great for the frequency.
VR is cool, technically difficult to do and can take you to other worlds. But the attention paid by VR entertainment makes it a subset of the video game market (as well as other use cases), and the critical use cases did not appear three years ago on the market. For comparison, Uber launched three years after the iPhone. It's hard to describe a virtual reality application without which you could not live, even if you like Beat Saber.
And finally, the venture capital market for VR startups has slowed down considerably. While Facebook and other platform companies will continue to invest in content, a relatively underutilized VR system has allowed early VR developers to diversify into mobile RA or quit VR. While there are new cases of use in business, consumer VR is facing the chicken or chicken problem of all new platforms. VR platforms need an ecosystem of healthy commercial developers to succeed, and VR developers need a large installed base to risk investing in development.
High-end standalone VR headsets could become a catalyst for high-end mid-range vehicle sales, but the first generation of first-generation stand-alone solutions like Oculus Quest may not stimulate consumer demand. Future generations of high quality standalone VR headsets with future generations of hardware, lower prices and critical applications could accelerate sales growth by 2020/2021. But even with this catalyst, the installed base of high-end standalone VR (again, active units, not sales) could reach the range of 10 to 15 million by 2022. A good deep market, but maybe not a mass market.
Oculus Quest could be the ultimate expression of VR 1.0, but it could take VR 2.0 for the market to reach its point of inflection.
Tim Merel is General Manager of AR / VR and Game Advisor Digi-Capital. Detailed data / analysis can be found in the Digi-Capital AR / VR / XR Analytical Platform and its reports here.
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